About Telemarketing
The unsolicited selling and promoting of product and services over the phone. Also known as phone sales, phone soliciting, cold sell, cold calling, telesales, teleselling, telecommerce, and prospecting.
Making the news
References to news articles that expose telemarketing ploys and scams.
Pranks, pranks, pranks
The how-to of a variety of practical jokes and techniques used to take control, direct and terminate an unwanted marketing call–while having a laugh.
Technology
How cold callers use ‘predictive diallers’ and ‘voice activation detection’ (VAD) technologies to increase consumer volumes through their call centres.
Telemarketers, cold callers, blah blah blah…
The call-centre androids who are WiFi connected to the technologies; also known as cold callers, phone solicitors, cold sellers, telesellers, and telepests.
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Latest posts
- Bon voyage and fare thee well!
- Why Don’t Phones Lets Us Record Calls (two way)? -ca
- Investors duped by City Index Australasia’s cold-calling scam -au
- e-petition: Make telephone sales cold-calling illegal -UK
- Audio link: Peyton Charles gets cold called
- Video: How to stop cold calling and make $500 from them to boot -us
- Video: Ever felt that the telemarketer didn’t really care?
- Prank #25: Hang ups
- Prank #16: Enterprise bargaining agreement
- Name changed to ‘Pppppppppprice’ in a genuine but eccentric bid to stop cold-callers
- Video: Malware threat by antivirus scammer exposed on virtual machine
- Video: hilarious satire of cold-calling Indian pitching a two-bit, tinhorn, half-pie, end-of-the-pier, strictly-for-the-birds script.
- ‘Boiler room’ hoax for New Zealand share holders -nz
- Firms keep testing the limits of Do-Not-Call list -us
- Mississippi Public Service Commission (MPSC) fines firms $945,000 for no-call violations
- Interview with the man behind Comantra, the “cold call virus scammers”
- Cold calling percentages
- Beware of native language call scams – au
- Prank #36: Is anybody out there?
- Prank #15: Edentate (toothless) tiger
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pranking telemarketers 87 ways 
The point and holy grail of any responses to telepests, if you have the time and inclination, is to waste as much of their time as you can, either attending to your email and other stuff as you mutter into a phone on speaker and drink tea, or taking the time to meet the challenge of serious timewasting (I’ve managed about 1 1/2 man-hours, 53 minutes with both a telephone man and computer operator connected to my safe “virtual machine” computer trying to sell me “Microsoft support”).
If, instead of automatic machines that detect the other end has hung up, there’s a long and confusing conversation, they’ll only be able to make a few calls per hour, instead of hundreds. If enough people waste enough time, telepestering will become a loss-maker and stop. That’s the ultimate objective always to keep in mind.
Why that’s mighty kind of you Tilly.
We need all the help we can get when it comes to jousting with the telepest conquistadors. If I can make it fun than that’s half the battle won.
Cheers Jimmy
What a great idea for a blog!
Thanks anonymous.
You’re right. Gagging on an involuntary chuckle is one of the occupational hazards that comes with pranking. That’s what makes it such a good job to have. Pity about the pay rate, but you can’t have everything. For, as they say, “where would you put it?”
Good luck and cheers, Jimmy
Great ideas there Jimmy, thanks – it’s the best laugh I’ve had all afternoon – come to think of it, it’s actually the best laugh I’ve had all week! I hope I can keep a straight enough face to use one of your tps the next time a telemarketer bother me :)