We'll Call You
Yesterday evening I received a call from a phone company rival to the one we use. The salesman introduced himself and his company, and asked to speak with the titular of the phone number. Tired of the pitch they all spin, I came out and said, "I'm the titular, and we can't get coverage from your company here." The salesman, not one to lose a dime on a lost cause, immediately hung up. The guy was succinct; if he couldn't make a sale, then cut lose and call someone else.
While not a stellar salesman, he was still better than a woman who called me months ago. I forget if she was calling from the same company or another one, but she was insistent. I explained over and over, that there's only one company whose antennas reach this corner, but she still tried to sell me their service. Finally, frustrated, she asked me that if I didn't have coverage from her company, how come she could talk with me calling on their system? I think I either must have barked out a laugh, or said, "forget it" before hanging up myself. But I did wonder at how desperate for salespeople her company must have been to have hired her.
These annoying callers have increased in these past years, though I think not as much as in the States. We only get calls from the other rival phone companies (there are three major ones in Spain), from a bookclub we belong to, and from my credit card company my bank farmed me out to. The truth is, every time we give out our phone numbers, we are sending them into a data bank that companies swap with each other. The new privacy law obligates a company to ask if you want to receive third party information, and to be able to opt out. But there are always loopholes.
Whoever it is, when the phone rings with a number I don't recognize and the caller doesn't respond to my first hello, I know it's one of them. I've tried hanging up, but they just call back a few minutes later. So, I listen to the introduction and then fob them off. "No, I don't want to contract a television package."(Offered by our phone company. I have no intention of paying to watch more junk.) "No, I have no coverage from your company."(And they make no effort to spend the money and erect the antenna.) "No, I'm not interested in life insurance" (Our bank also offers insurance.) "No, I don't want a loan." (If I did, I wouldn't ask for it from my credit card company.) And, etc.
Extremely rarely, I get a visit from a representative of our bookclub. First, they call to set up a date (there's no way to put them off - only by a month or so), then they come by and set up a spiel asking how much I would consider paying a month for an excellent set of automatically up-dateable encyclopedias with an internet link and videos and audios and everything sweet and dandy and all wrapped up with a red bow. I say, about five euros. Not quite, all that can be mine for twenty euros a month. I say, No. Aw, come on! All that information at my fingertips is worth a measely twenty euros I won't even miss during the coming fifteen years! I still say, more emphatically, No. I can have information for free on the world wide internet. They give up, but leave me with a brochure that I can exchange within three months (and two hundred euros) for a two-day trip to paradise. They go out the door and the brochure goes into the trash. One of these days, I'm leaving that bookclub.
I buy only on necessity, sometimes on a whim, but never, ever because you offer it to me as essential, useful, cheap, popular, or top-of-the-line. I don't care. I don't want to be told what to do, I don't want to be led by the hand. I'll make my own decisions. I bought a washing machine last month out of necessity. I went to the amount I could spend (broken down over several months) and within that, to the washer that fulfilled most of my needs. I sought out information on my own. I tried to avoid the stars they wanted to fill my eyes with, and read the fine print.
My whims are small, and they might include something that catches my eye at a small price. If that price is too far up, I'll think about it and move away. And with every step I take, I resolve more firmly not to buy it. But if someone is touting that whim, then it stops being one and becomes an imposition.
No, I don't want any. Don't bother me.
While not a stellar salesman, he was still better than a woman who called me months ago. I forget if she was calling from the same company or another one, but she was insistent. I explained over and over, that there's only one company whose antennas reach this corner, but she still tried to sell me their service. Finally, frustrated, she asked me that if I didn't have coverage from her company, how come she could talk with me calling on their system? I think I either must have barked out a laugh, or said, "forget it" before hanging up myself. But I did wonder at how desperate for salespeople her company must have been to have hired her.
These annoying callers have increased in these past years, though I think not as much as in the States. We only get calls from the other rival phone companies (there are three major ones in Spain), from a bookclub we belong to, and from my credit card company my bank farmed me out to. The truth is, every time we give out our phone numbers, we are sending them into a data bank that companies swap with each other. The new privacy law obligates a company to ask if you want to receive third party information, and to be able to opt out. But there are always loopholes.
Whoever it is, when the phone rings with a number I don't recognize and the caller doesn't respond to my first hello, I know it's one of them. I've tried hanging up, but they just call back a few minutes later. So, I listen to the introduction and then fob them off. "No, I don't want to contract a television package."(Offered by our phone company. I have no intention of paying to watch more junk.) "No, I have no coverage from your company."(And they make no effort to spend the money and erect the antenna.) "No, I'm not interested in life insurance" (Our bank also offers insurance.) "No, I don't want a loan." (If I did, I wouldn't ask for it from my credit card company.) And, etc.
Extremely rarely, I get a visit from a representative of our bookclub. First, they call to set up a date (there's no way to put them off - only by a month or so), then they come by and set up a spiel asking how much I would consider paying a month for an excellent set of automatically up-dateable encyclopedias with an internet link and videos and audios and everything sweet and dandy and all wrapped up with a red bow. I say, about five euros. Not quite, all that can be mine for twenty euros a month. I say, No. Aw, come on! All that information at my fingertips is worth a measely twenty euros I won't even miss during the coming fifteen years! I still say, more emphatically, No. I can have information for free on the world wide internet. They give up, but leave me with a brochure that I can exchange within three months (and two hundred euros) for a two-day trip to paradise. They go out the door and the brochure goes into the trash. One of these days, I'm leaving that bookclub.
I buy only on necessity, sometimes on a whim, but never, ever because you offer it to me as essential, useful, cheap, popular, or top-of-the-line. I don't care. I don't want to be told what to do, I don't want to be led by the hand. I'll make my own decisions. I bought a washing machine last month out of necessity. I went to the amount I could spend (broken down over several months) and within that, to the washer that fulfilled most of my needs. I sought out information on my own. I tried to avoid the stars they wanted to fill my eyes with, and read the fine print.
My whims are small, and they might include something that catches my eye at a small price. If that price is too far up, I'll think about it and move away. And with every step I take, I resolve more firmly not to buy it. But if someone is touting that whim, then it stops being one and becomes an imposition.
No, I don't want any. Don't bother me.
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