Does anyone buy anything from a telephone sales call?

[just john]

One thing guaranteed to tee me off are sales calls, especially when they are silent, presumably to make you call back (which I don't!); so I was pleased to see this. I would never ever deal with a company that uses this method, does anyone?
  .telegraph. /Homeserve-hit-with-record-750000-fine-by-Ofcom-over-nuisance-calls.

[nectarine]

My elderly parents used to get these silent calls and they particularly scared my mother, who was convinced they were burglars ringing to see if the house was occupied. I think the fine is extraordinarily high (and who actually gets the benefit of the money?) but perhaps it may show how unacceptable this practice is.

And re. telephone sales ... someone I worked with, who became old and confused, was an absolute sucker for this. I spent a day with her trying to sort out her finances as she was in a pickle ... turned out she was paying for a timeshare she'd never been to, and didn't even know where it was plus I found quotes from double-glazing and solar energy firms who'd done cold-calls. She lived in a rented flat anyway.

I take the view that if I want something, then I'll research it. But if someone rings me up on a cold call then, no thanks, it sets my alarm bells ringing.

[Chancer]

Including when I was running my business I must have recieved thousands if not tens of thousands of telesales calls, being in the Yellow pages especially in a trade which was percieved as booming was a real handicap.

I have actually bought one thing as a result of these calls, a paging service in the early 90's, so one sale in close to a quarter of a century and I was actually looking for a pager at the time, says it all really!!

I have registered with Pacitel which made no difference at all and have now had to once again block all incoming calls from withheld numbers yet still the dickheads keep ringing, loads and loads of silent calls [:(]

If anyone knows a way of having my number listed as liste rouge in the annuaire while I am with Free.fr I would love to know, the only option they give me is ex-directory which I dont want.

[Gardian]

Does anyone buy anything from a telephone sales call?

No.

Others will doubtless disagree, but I just wish that occasionally someone who's trying to sell me (for example) solar panels, would send me a well-formatted mailshot. Something that gives me the advantages etc,etc. The point is that I'm not necessarily entirely negative to a sales push. I just might be interested, but a phone call always gets me at the wrong moment and is often aggresively pushy. So I always tell them to shove off ............... or Mrs G deals with them & that's worse for them because her French can verge on the flakey side. Easier actually - they rapidly give up. [blink]

I feel sorry for the folk on the other end of the line - they're just trying to earn a crust.

      

[Pads]

Nope ...never

[allanb]

[quote user="Chancer"]If anyone knows a way of having my number listed as liste rouge in the annuaire while I am with Free.fr I would love to know, the only option they give me is ex-directory which I dont want.[/quote]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's the difference between being on the liste rouge and being ex-directory?  I thought they meant the same thing.

[Quillan]

In France I buy stuff which I am notified about via junk mail like the deals in supermarkets. You have to be quick mind and with the quantities I buy means you have to be outside at opening time. My French sales calls have dropped off quite a bit over the years as I tell them I rent the house especially when it's anything to do with solar panels etc.

The only problem with barring calls that don't display their numbers is that many people stop their numbers from being displayed because some places harvest your number, note what you are phoning for and use it for targeted marketing. I have noticed this quite a bit over the years in my line of work, guests making bookings etc and mentioned it to a neighbour once who told me why they do it.

[Pickles]

[quote user="Chancer"]If anyone knows a way of having my number listed as liste rouge in the annuaire while I am with Free.fr I would love to know, the only option they give me is ex-directory which I dont want.[/quote]

Since ex-directory IS liste rouge, do you mean liste orange? (ie in the directory, but not for telesales use)

From what I have read, you can get to this through "mon compte" and then look for "gerer mes references" - apparently the last step of this process enables you to either be ex-directory or no marketing.

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="Chancer"]If anyone knows a way of having my number listed as liste rouge in the annuaire while I am with Free.fr I would love to know, the only option they give me is ex-directory which I dont want.[/quote]
Since ex-directory IS liste rouge, do you mean liste orange? (ie in the directory, but not for telesales use)
From what I have read, you can get to this through "mon compte" and then look for "gerer mes references" - apparently the last step of this process enables you to either be ex-directory or no marketing.

[/quote]

I presume that this is similar to the Telephone Preference service in Britain, which ensures that your number is not used for selling purposes. It works quite well - except that many call centres are not located in the UK and bypass the TPS.

On one occasion I did buy from a telephone call. I was wanting to develop a website and was trying to use an elderly Frontpage. A caller from Serif told me about their product - WebPlus - and kept dropping the price. Eventually I bought. The software is excellent, but not their selling methods. At monthly - or so - intervals I am plagued with patronising, insisting phone calls. I have told them not to call me but to send information about their products to my e-mail address, but to no avail.

[JohnM]

Serif do stop calling you if you take the **** out of their formulaic script enough. But I still get too many emails from them :-(

[Chancer]

[quote user="Pickles"][quote user="Chancer"]If anyone knows a way of having my number listed as liste rouge in the annuaire while I am with Free.fr I would love to know, the only option they give me is ex-directory which I dont want.[/quote]
Since ex-directory IS liste rouge, do you mean liste orange? (ie in the directory, but not for telesales use)
From what I have read, you can get to this through "mon compte" and then look for "gerer mes references" - apparently the last step of this process enables you to either be ex-directory or no marketing.

[/quote]

Yes my mistake, liste Orange is what I want, I will look again but I am sure that via "gerer mon preferences" there was only the option of liste rouge not liste Orange.

yes blocking withheld numbers does cause me problems especially with friends and family in the UK who cannot understand the message telling them to unblock their number, at least I think that is what is panicking them, it might just be my messagerie, my voice but in French [:-))]

I also still get sales calls where the number is not displayed, not sure if it is with-held or not, a failing of the Free system is that you cannot retrieve the number of the last (recieved) call, only the last unanswered call.

[Quillan]

Some cordless phones like the Siemens ones do store up to about 10 last call numbers both in and out. Its just difficult to remember how to get to them. Even Orange don't appear to have an incoming calls log.