The last straw: my rant about Indian telemarketers

Today I got what felt like the 1000th telemarketing call since signing up for a SIM card here in India. Quite frankly, these calls are frustrating, annoying, and a huge waste of time. If I got charged for taking these calls, I would be even more frustrated and angry, but thankfully taking incoming calls is FREE! Because of all these annoying calls, some of my housemates don't even take any calls from numbers they have not stored on their phone. But on to the main story and the call that proverbially was "the last straw." Please note that I have been getting multiple telemarketing calls a day for the past 5 months, but more on that later in this post.

*Ring* *Ring*
Me: Hello?
Telemarketer: Please Hold....(followed by silence)
Me: *waits for 5 seconds, then hangs up the phone*

At this point, I'm starting to feel outraged! What kind of telemarketer calls you and then puts YOU on hold?!! Do they know what the term customer service means? They are presumably calling you to try to talk to you, not to put you on hold. And if they want to sell you something, why make the person wait to listen to it. They didn't even have the courtesy to say "hello" or to say who's calling, just a curt "please hold" followed by silence. Arrgh, and why did I even give them a chance and wait for 5 seconds - I should have hung up right away! Anyways, I thought that would be the end of that call, until 5 minutes later, my phone rings again with the same number showing up on the call display.

Me: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hello, is this Mr. Christopher Wong?
Me: Who's calling?
Telemarketer: This is ABN Amro calling about a new promotion...
Me: No...Thank You
Telemarketer: (sounding a bit offended) Sir, but I'm calling about this special promotion...
Me: NO! (hangs up)

I can't believe they had the audacity to call again. And while I decided to take the second call partly out of curiosity to see who it was that was originally calling and partly to see if I could have some fun with them, after I picked up the phone, the person on the other side of the line just made me really angry and I had to restrain myself from shouting or being rude to them on the phone. I was in my office within earshot of my colleagues, so restraint was the best option. The thing that really bothered me about this call, is that the Indian person put on this attitude of being offended after I cut him off, trying to make it sound like I was offending him by cutting him off.

For some reason, this seems to be a common tactic for sales people (not just telemarketers) where they take your anger or frustration at something they originally caused and spin it to make it sound like your fault. But that's another story for another time.

Back to the main point about telemarketers, and how they have been harassing me for the past 5 months. These are their 3 main tactics, outlined below:

The recorded sales pitch:
These calls usually come from my cell phone carrier (Vodafone) and consist of around a 1 minute music/singing clip followed by a woman's voice (why is it always women's voices that on these types of ads?) in Hindi trying to sell me the latest and greatest "premium" subscription service for my phone. NO THANKS!

These types of calls used to come very frequently AND from many different numbers. In fact, I have probably 10 different phone numbers that I have saved on my phone and labeled "Don't Pick Up" because they call so frequently. Thankfully though, after I called Vodafone to tell them to stop calling me with these advertisements, they have slowed down substantially, but they still call a couple times a week!

The live sales pitch:
This type of call involves an unsolicited call from one of the few service providers I have signed up with here in India, of which there are only 4 institutions that I have given my mobile number to - Vodafone, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, and Makemytrip.com. By the way, thank you Deutsche Bank and Makemytrip.com for not sending me stupid text messages (more on this further in this post) or unsolicited phone calls.

The frustrating thing about these calls is that most of the time, the sales people do not speak English, do not speak very well, or have a thick accent that makes it hard to understand. Again they try to use the same trick pressuring you into talking and listening to their pitch. Super frustrating, and a waste of time

The text message:
Again these come exclusively from Vodafone and despite my calls to the customer service reps telling them to stop sending me these ads, they still continue to come at a rate of around 5 per day. Usually they are in Hindi, selling everything from music to cricket to horoscopes, and some are just plain ridiculous. The funniest ad (which I miraculously decided to read) came yesterday. I couldn't stop laughing at what they were trying to sell that I decided to save this message on my phone. Here is the message, from a sender identified as "Friend"

We share the dark,
we share the bright,
we stand by you
throughout to share
every movement of
life. We are your
friends. Speak to us
Just Dial 55313
@Rs.9/min

I couldn't believe it - a text message trying to sell you friendship! And as I stood there reading this message, I had this weird feeling as these marketers are trying to connect with you and sell you some special friendship from a faceless, person who you will never meet or see. No thank you, and no you are not my friend, no you have not shared the dark, bright, light, or whatever else you think friends may do with me, no I will not speak to you and no I will not "just dial" you nameless, faceless, soulless, emotionless, dial-a-friend service where you pull a take all my money trick so I can pretend to be popular and have some cell phone friend to be cool.

Anyways, I really hope these calls stop. That's the end of my rant.