The Telemarketer Game

Hey, I’m streaming and recording live all the freakin’ time. We’ve got telemarketers selling newspapers, giving away vacations, and asking to take surveys. Guess they’re looking for free advertising, eh? Lockergnomie Harmon Everett has been following my “escapades” with telemarketers, and has taken some remedial action. Fed up with Telemarketers, too? Make a sport out of it. He has some recommended scoring. When a telemarketer calls:

• If they call you while you are preparing or eating a meal: +2 points
• Every minute you keep them on the phone: +2 points
• If you buy what they are: +10 points
• If they buy something you are selling: +5 points
• If what they buy from you is a direct competitor to their product: +10 points
• If the product they are selling is inferior to a product or service you already own: +2 points
• If you get them to go to your vendor to purchase your favored brand of product: +2 points

For instance, a mortgage refinancer called the other day - while I was preparing supper. Plus, two points for timing. My mortgage is fixed at 6.5 percent, while they were offering a variable that started at 6.7 percent, and I kept them on the phone for ten minutes while we discussed that: 24 points.

Or last week, a caller offered me a deal on a nationally known video documentary collection. It took fifteen minutes, but I sold him a copy of the historical documentary I made about Billy Durant, the creator of General Motors. 40 points.

And don’t even get me started about credit cards, mine has a fixed rate of 4.9 percent, they send an end of the year categorized analysis of the account, and once my wife was in Paris buying some things at the same time my daughter was in Toronto buying some things, and their security staff called me up to ascertain whether that was supposed to be happening. I’ve sent several phone marketers to them. Maybe one a week or so.

This is almost fun.

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