Who buys from liars?

[Pix]

Last night & tonight telemarketers have really been bugging us. We had to unplug the phone last night and I just unplugged it again.

Thing is the last one had a phone number that was so similar to a friend of mine that I answered. It wasn't her but she asked for my partner by her first name (so assumed it was a legite call) and I asked who I should tell her was calling and she gave a name I didn't know and was returning her call. So I got her but she said it was some damn telemarketer trying to sell a subscription, and no she hadn't called them at all. To top it off the liar started off saying her subscription was ready, and when she said she wasn't interested the liar then said they had a good sale on it and at that point she pretty much hung up on the liar.

Then about 10 minutes later the phone rings again and I see it's from the same number so I picked it up because I wanted to ask her why she thinks people are going to buy from liars because if she's lying to us she's not only disrespecting us she's discrediting herself and her employer so we're not going to believe anything she says. But this time it was a man who asked for someone who didn't live here. I asked him anyway but he just apologized uneasy and hung up on me. Then I unplugged the phone because we're about to watch a movie and don't want to be disturbed by these assholes anymore tonight.

So I'm asking people here in case any knows anyone who had the shameful occupation of telemarketer or otherwise got ahead by blatantly lying (used car salesmen don't count, everyone expects them to be about as honest as politicians anyway). Just how often do people buy from someone who starts off lying to them and I mean an OBVIOUS lie. How can that possibly work? I presume it does or they wouldn't do it. But I don't get it. If you know a person is lying to you how can you trust them with your credit card information or that they're telling the truth about whatever they're offering you? :confused:

We also got spam in the mail a couple of weeks ago to "our neighbor" (actually AT&T about switching to them and mailed from thousands of miles away) and tried to appear as if our address had been hand written (it wasn't) and then they repeated the faux handwriting that looked as if someone in our home wrote it on the ad (like circling a cash back offer and "writing" "That will come in handy!"). At the bottom the faux writing was "Why wait? I'm calling today!" I guess it must work on SOMEONE...but now that I think about it this was similar to what that telemarketer tried to pull. Is this a new tactic or has it been around for awhile? :confused:

[dfiant]

We have a 'Do Not Call Register' here in Australia, if you register you don't get those pesky calls and if you do you take their details and report them which can result in the company recieving hefty fines...but this excludes companys that you have a contract with (Telco, Power etc) and excludes charity organisations.

If I get a phonecall and they don't reply immediately, I hang up because you know that is a cold call from a telemarketer.

[Pix]

I checked my friend's cell phone number and it was the same. That is one or both (now I don't know if they worked for the same company or not) telemarketers spoofed the very last number I'd answered! Gods, what a horrible trick...and one more lie. :frown:

[Pix]

I just registered our phone with the NDNCR so we'll see if it makes a difference or not (at least by October). I really hope this makes a difference, or at least the end of summer does (I'm not certain but I think it got worse since summer). If it's just once in awhile then it's no big deal.

It's been so ridiculous lately. We get home, we're tired, we're doing things that need to be done or trying to relax and it's call after call after call. And when I'm working in the kitchen the phone is right by my ear (actually it's so close that I automatically look at the Caller ID and ignore it if I don't recognize the number, letting the machine catch it if it's a real call). Some nights are peaceful or at least have very little of this (and it's usually Sunday night when it gets really bad) but when it gets bad then the constant ringing just seems to sear into my brain, kinda like that water drip torture, one drop is easily ignored, but drop after drop after drop becomes extremely frustrating. And when it gets so bad (where we'd need to hire a secretary to answer the calls if we wanted to live our lives without being "rude"!). We've unplugged it at times (usually it's me when I get sick of the constant ringing while I'm working in the kitchen) and we've missed real calls because of it, so yeah, I take it personally. I see them as invading our home with their drivel, and in cases like this to lie to us and rip us off, too.

One person said that there are different departments among telemarketers and like one person, who gets paid per number submitted of someone interested in their product, will pad the list with fake numbers so the one who actually called us MAY have been conned herself. OTOH, it's a classic con to prey upon people's integrity and bad memory (or even just being distracted from being so busy) to sell their product because many believe that once they've given their word and agreed to something, they don't back off on it, so if they think they already gave their word then they'll go through with it (and thus another sale is made), and so plenty of unscrupulous people take advantage of that.