Phone calls to older people re saving on energy costs

[Mrs Trellis]

We've had several calls recently (despite being on Liste Rouge) saying they are calling older people in the area about helping them save energy.  Sounds like a sales call, but when I asked what he was selling, one said nothing, just advice.  I think he mentioned renewable energy but seemed less interested when I said there isn't much scope in a small village house.

As they insist on speaking very fast, I don't always understand everything.  I asked what company the last one was representing but couldn't catch the name.

Are they legit, or just trying to con old folk?

[NormanH]

Con. I had one this morning.

[Val_2]

Not just old people, I have had six cold calls since yesterday morning and all come up on the screen on ID Masquee so you know immediately its not family or friends. Unfortunately I like to bait them by letting them do their spiel and then I say quoi, like Manuel in Fawlty Towers kept doing and they get real fed up and say au revoir. Some of the callers are not french either by their accents,morelikely asians in a call centre somewhere so understanding them is twice as hard when they speak fast.

[idun]

Call centre in Pondicherry? perhaps?

[Quillan]

I don't think it is just old folk.

The most popular type of call which has been going around for a few years is energy saving via photovoltaic panels. That's panels on your roof to make electricity. They will mention the words 'partner' and EDF somewhere in their spiel which is a lie, EDF have no partners supplying these panels.

You can normally tell these calls are from call centres because of the background noise (people talking) and perhaps the echo of being in a big room and/or office. Two ways of getting rid of them is only to speak English and tell them you rent your house. They will simply put the phone down on you.

Not a phone call but a letter is the one I hate. There is an insurance company that sends out letters usually to the lady of the house which look like a bill. What they really are is selling you insurance against your water pipes being clogged by hard water. I suspect that many people slip in a cheques and send it back thinking it is some form of official bill. Unfortunately the consumer laws in France are light years behind the UK with regards to these sleazy bar-stewards.

[Pommier]

I just say 'je suis locataire' and they put the phone down on me - how rude!

[idun]

[quote user="Pommier"]I just say 'je suis locataire' and they put the phone down on me - how rude![/quote]

Very good Pommier.

Maybe people should say 'je squatte', wonder what they'd do then.[6]

[Ivor Nidea]

I used to answer with...Merci de votre appel, je n'ai pas parlé à personne pendant une semaine. Voulez-vous connaître Jésus.

But as they kept putting the phone down I gave up trying, now I just say **** off!

[Chancer]

I quite enjoy winding up the few that do get through, however my phone refuses all calls with with-held numbers, I am registered with Pacitel but that has actually increased the volume of calls, nine out of ten that come through are just silent calls though, sometimes you can hear others in the background doing their speil.

Of those that get through I say "allo!" and if they reply in a surprised "Allo!" themselves as if I have called them then I hang straight up, ditto if they pi55pronounce my name (a simple word that all kids in maternelle will learn), ditto if they trot out the partenaire EDF, working with the mairie, charged with contacting anyone in the commune etc, ditto if I can hear loads of people in the background reading from a script.

So of the ones that get through to me I talk to (or wind up) about one in ten, there will be another 100 silent calls and who knows another 1000 that are blocked because of their with-held number, even if its a tenth of that I get around 20 a week so there are a lot of people being paid to be unproductive.

Its one of the things that I dislike most about France although expect the UK is no better, it was terrible when my business was in the yellow pages.

Must have been 5 years ago now I allowed a "technician" (sales person) to visit for Alterno storage heaters, it was just an excuse to brush up on my negotiating French and I wanted to put the guy on the spot regarding all the absolute lies in their literature that they had sent me (in the UK the trading standards and ASA would have had a field day with them) the guy left knowing full well that they would never make a sale to me, I showed him that I paid £150 for an identical but superior heater  to the one that he was proposing for €3000 either he filled out a contact report showing me as a strong prospect or their marketing people just keep on blitzing the same people as 5 years later they still write and phone me at least once a month.

I speak to them as they pass my criteria even pronouncing my name right but every time its that they are calling me following my demand for documentation, did I recieve it, when can our technician call patati patata............

5 bloomin years [:-))] I am a patient man but last time finally succumbed and gave out a Foxtrot Oscar, very unlike me, it wont stop the calls or letters but it made me feel better for a micro-second before the guilt kicked in.

[idun]

I used to get lots and lots and lots of calls from a french kitchen company. As it happened they had a store not too far from us. One fine day I went in, and told them very loudly to stop calling. They were not happy, not them, blah di blah......... but I said that unless the calls stopped I would be back. I gave them my number and never had another call from that company.

Unfortunately all the other calls we had were not from companies with local offices or shops.

[Val_2]

Quite an alarming story in today's papers about the increasing traffic from debt collectors here in France. Some old boy in our region has received a demand for payment 33 years after he bought a car and then resold it and now this lot are demanding over €9k in repayments. The association Que Choisir are warning people to be on their guard as much of this is not legal and these companies are trying to frighten people, especially the elderly and vulnerable into payments monthly for things they do not owe as well. If you can imagine, the old boy in the paper paid for a Citroen visa car which probably only cost about €3k back then and now......€9k???

[Val_2]

Going back to cold callers, here is a new slant. I received a call yesterday teatime from a man in an office, I could hear people in the background and he said he was returning my call to him! I made no such call to him and when checking the number that came up on the inverse of pages blanche it was a hidden number probably a business. So beware of that one too.

[Mrs Trellis]

We don't get many sales calls, thank goodness.  The day after the phone was put in (France Telecom) we started getting sales calls so I found my way on the internet to Liste Rouge. 

A few months ago there was one inviting us to a local hotel and offering cadeaux and giving a precise time.  There was something suspicious and the website on the flyer was confusing.  A French friend checked and the hotel knew nothing about it.  We didn't go and I wonder what was the point of it all! 

We have a hyphenated surname (only use it for official stuff) and the callers always just use the first part so I can honestly say I am not Madame H.

When I ask how they got my number these people never answer.  I have now twigged that the recent calls come up as 'calling' which is strange, others as 'with-held'.  We did have a phase of silent calls with an 04 number.

Anyway, the recent spate all mention older people (at 65 I refuse to be old!).  Now I realise the phone shows callers' numbers, I wil be careful about answering.  It could also be handy if it's my neighbour demanding we got out and get her wine or tobacco as sometimes we don't feel like it!  Worse at the moment as the local tabac has no tabac - something to do with bureaucracy - so we have to go 14 kilometres to another one.

[Mrs Trellis]

I realise there is a typo in the above but I can't edit it!  I click 'edit' and it won't let me.  Irrititating, do others have this problem?

[Val_2]

The calls inviting you to receive a special cadeaux are all rubbish. One we were invited to on the pretence that our name had been picked as lucky, was to a furniture store in another town. The proviso to getting a gift was that we spend more than €500 onfurniture and speaking to someone who actually went, the gift was a set of plastic boules for the beach!

[YCCMB]

My phone in France is only even connected for 3 months of the year, and almost every call I get is from cold callers. last summer I was bombarded with calls about solar panels and mutuelles. One young woman got quite shirty with me when she'd told me just how badly I needed their mutuelle, when I replied that it didn't affect me at all. "Oh, and why is that?" she replied in a very c o cky voice, implying that she was clearly dealing with a dimwit. "Because I'm not French and I don't live in France" I said, and she hung up.

[suein56]

[quote user="Mrs Trellis"]A few months ago there was one inviting us to a local hotel and offering cadeaux and giving a precise time.  A French friend checked and the hotel knew nothing about it.  We didn't go and I wonder what was the point of it all! [/quote]

Making sure the house would be empty at a certain time so they could break in ?

Sue

[powerdesal]

Unfortunately we can't ignore 'number withheld' calls because our youngest daughters number comes up as that (military), So I now answer clearly in either English or Arabic - it does tend to confuse the callers.

[Chancer]

Yes it does have its inconveniences, I had to lift it for a while but the sheer volume got to much for me, thats how I can guesstimate how many it does block.

When I am at a French persons house their politeness prevents them from putting the phone down, I hear them desperately trying to say no, cela m'interesse pas monsieur/madame etc but the caller is very persistant, in fact they seem unable to terminate the call, I walk over and take the phone off them and cut the call, they are very shocked, often outraged "how could I do such a thing", when we talk it through they have to agree with my logic, with just who was actually being rude, the caller. They tell me that they get so many that often they will not answer the phone at all.

I am not even sure that its politeness, most of them are very polite, thats why they are my friends but some can be breathtakingly rude, perhaps its just conditioning, you will always say bon journée even to someone who has just had you over, always answer the phone, never reply to an e-mail or return someones call [6]

[Judith]

This has been an interesting read ... like most of you we get the usual sales ... I start by saying "Hello" in a proper English accent ... those who know me have no problem ... but it usually does not stop the sales calls - sometimes immediately.  First they do the usual jabber fast, so eventually I interrupt and say " Mme (it usually is) vous parlez trop vite " which either makes them hang up or ask if I  speak French, when I say, yes if you speak slowly enough, they then put the phone down.  If that doesn't work, and words, like energy saving, or mutelles come out I say, we don't need it - désolée. etc and just put the phone down on them.  Since they just about always phone as I've taken the first mouthful of food I really have little patience with them.

I had a spate of invites to meetings and offers of lots of goodies, but they always start by checking that you are retired and then say it is in conjuction with the council ... I was dubious the first time, now I will not worry that I might be missing something useful!

We've been troubled by calls (probably sales) for people who had our number before - (at least 10 years ago) - one we can find but one is non existent and so heavens only knows how long ago that one had it!  It took two trips to FT to get it all changed (as the old owner and number still showed on their records at our address - we did not buy the house from him - so he certainly hadn't lived at this address for at least 9 years).  Still not sorted the long ago one,  but just say doesn't live here .....and put the phone down.