I love calls that begin with ‘I am not trying to sell you anything’ because it’s an absolute guarantee that that is exactly what they are trying to do.
Sometimes one person will ask you all manner of questions, supposedly in the form of an independent survey, and then pass you on to a second person for the inevitable hard sell.
The advice has to be to tell them nothing. Any information, no matter how obscure, will give them an opportunity to attempt to sell you something.
While the intrusive and irritating nature of a cold call can infuriate the masses, there have been quite a few times in the past when I have tried to treat the unwelcome interruption with a bit of humour. How? Well when I see that the Caller ID has been withheld again, I resort to answering the phone in a way that could lead to an interesting conversation. Here are some of my favourite ones so far:
“Hampshire Constabulary Incident Room, DI Smith speaking,” (a personal favourite of mine).
“Surbiton Pizza Hut, is your order for collection or delivery?” (in the typical teenage tone).
“Cyber and Communications Crime Unit,” (always goes down well!)
“PPI Compensation Hotline, can I help you?” (get them with their own game).
“Thank you for calling ‘The Smithson Clinic’. To book an appointment, press 1.” (usually followed by a long list of different fake options).
What ends up happening next? Most of the time, the caller returns the handset within a split second but sometimes, comedy gold ensues! So next time you see the all-too-familiar ‘Caller ID Withheld’, pick a persona and see how it goes.
