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Fri 16 May, 2003 08:07 am
Just got this from my daughter. Looks good:
Andy Rooney's tips for telemarketers and Junk mail.
Three Little Words That Work !!
(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off
(instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each
telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room
sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone,
you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has
efficiently completed its task.
These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one
on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls
and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.
This technique is used to determine the best time of day for
a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there,
is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times,
as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the
call and it kicks your number out of their system.
Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically.
(3) Another Good Idea:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return
these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw
their own junk mail away.
When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything
from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw
away the return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right?
It costs them more than the regular 37cents postage "IF" and
when they receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was
around 50 cents before! the last increase and it is according to
the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other
junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return
envelopes. One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express.
Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything
else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name
isn't on anything you send them.
You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to
just to keep them guessing!
Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin
getting their own junk back in the mail.
Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and
best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that
e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they
need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !
If enough people follow these tips, it will work----
I have been doing this for years, and I get very little
junk mail anymore.
I like those ideas--most of them.
But I do question the efficacy of sending junk mail back to banks and so forth. If they incur higher postage expenses, are they more likely to take the hit--or somehow make the customers pay for it!?
tips for junk mail and telemarketers
It won't make them happy. And if done emogh could make the flow diminish or stop.
tips for junk mail and telemarketers
Oh. That funny looking word up above should be "enough" but you probably know that. Enough said.
The great ideas, especially regarding phone machine misinforming. Many thanks.
I ask telemarketers if they would like the long answer or the short one. That usually throws them off balance - so far they have always asked for the short one which is when I say "Goodbye" and hang up. If they were to ask for the long one I intend to tell them that I have an inucrable deadly disease, have 10 children, no legs, a mother in law who expects me to support her, my house burnt down, ad infinitum (none of which is true but that is irrelevant)
I did once get rid of a telemarketer by interrupting them long enough to say "Before you start could I just tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ"
Thing is, when it comes to paper junk mail (not spam), the best thing to do is -
contact the company and ask for your name to be removed from their mailing list.
Yeah, I know. Sounds dull. Sounds too logical.
But keep this in mind (and I used to help do the database work on investments mailings - these were to people who had asked for the mailings so it wasn't junk mail, but the principles are similar) -
* if you send a bunch of stuff to the payment center (which is where the prepaid envelopes are nearly always addressed), those folks won't have a clue as to what you're trying to say. They will take the stuff out of the envelope and put it in the circular file. They did not send you the enclosures. It was the mailing center, which is nearly always composed of different people. The payment center only does - surprise! - payments processing.
* doing "return to sender" also will not help you, as while the mailing center technically sent you the enclosures, the fact is, these are nearly always minimum wage workers who stuff envelopes and make sure that the envelopes are closing properly. They don't decide what goes into the envelopes. That is a decision made by the marketing department.
* in general, asking for enclosures to be kept out of your mailings isn't going to do you any good. It's far more bureaucracy for a company to keep track of who wants enclosures and who doesn't. So, even if you complain, everyone still gets enclosures if you are getting mail from a company. It's an all-or-nothing proposition. You either get no mail from the company, or you get the full treatment. It's usually impossible to insist on half-measures.
So, again, I repeat, all you need to do is contact a company and ask to be removed from their mailing list.
For companies which must write to you (the oil company, for example), you are at their mercy when it comes to enclosures. Complain if you wish (it's your right), but don't expect a lot of change in this area.
For companies which do not need to write to you (Publisher's Clearing House, etc.), ask to be removed from their list. They are supposed to do this, although it may take a few cycles for the change to take place. If a reasonable amount of time elapses and you are still getting mailings (and ask, when you ask to be removed, how long it should take. If they say 6 - 8 weeks, assume 9 weeks), contact the company again. This time, tell them if your name is not removed in 2 weeks, that you will be contacting your state's Office of Consumer Affairs. Then do so if you still don't get satisfaction after 3 weeks.
This will work - which ultimately is far more satisfying than sending a bunch of paper through the mail, isn't it?
Oh, and PS - please recycle every piece of unwanted paper.
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