I do not want some company or corporation that I do not know or even care about ringing me at home to do a survey. How do I even know this ‘rep’ is for real when the first thing they want to know if there are any males in the house between the ages of 24 and 48? What woman in her right mind is going to answer that question? ‘Well sir, I am a woman who lives alone.’ Yeah, right!
I don’t actually live alone but the members of my household are my business, not some mystery company phoning uninvited and out of the blue. So I told them that info wan’t about to be disclosed, with a reminder that our phone is for OUR use, not theirs, before wishing them a good evening. I decline the invitation to waste a precious moment of my life on surveys. —Lady Of The Brine
This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2010.
I use Walken’s “Census Taker” sketch from SNL as my template for dealing with pollsters.
I never get these calls. Anytime you sign up for something (credit card, mortgage, insurance, etc), write on the form “DO NOT CALL, EMAIL, SOLICIT EVER.” It works. They cannot contact you if you specify they not.
I used to work at a call centre that does these surveys. And they only way they can get your number, OP, is if you have service with them or if you signed up for any sort of contest nonsense. You can decline to answer any question, or ask to be taken off the list and they won’t call you anymore. If you just give them some drivel about the use of phones then they will keep calling you until you do the survey or say “take me off the list”. Unless it’s a bank or cable company or something that you currently have service with. They are allowed to call you. It’s not like they’re selling you anything, they asking you questions about your satisfaction with a service.
This was a company I’d never heard of cold-calling to survey men in a certain age group. They were told to take our number from their list. I disagree with these companies conducting their business on my dime and my time. My money can be replaced. My time on this planet is finite. I get to choose how it is spent, not some corporation I could not care less about. We also get daily calls for donations which is getting annoying. If I wanted to donate they would already have my money and wouldn’t need to call!
Once in a while i catch the tail end of a show called “JR Digs” He videos calls from telemarketers. Too funny.
“How do I even know this ‘rep’ is for real when the first thing they want to know if there are any males in the house between the ages of 24 and 48? What woman in her right mind is going to answer that question? ‘Well sir, I am a woman who lives alone.’ Yeah, right!”
It could apply if it were Timothy who is now Tanya?
There’s a couple of Tanyas living in my neighbourhood. Sure wish they’d bump into Trinny and Susannah at the library, ’cause they’re wearing what they ought naught.