Though it irritates the hell out of me when people do not answer my call because my number projects as one of those call centre 087 numbers, I fully understand where these people are coming from.
There is nothing more irritating than when you are having a bad day and someone from a call centre arrogantly tries to sell you a wonderful offer of a car or life insurance.
Have you noticed how, to get you back, the whole call centre will call you to irritate you further should you end up arguing with one of their own?
To get his own back the call centre agent will tell eight of his friends to call you with the same offer. By the end of the day you'll be so pissed off, you'll be ready to pop a Valium pill to calm your nerves.
The telemarketers are similar to touts who will try to lure you to their products at every turn.
A colleague of mine told me how she makes sure that she dodges the touts in the mall selling people expensive beauty products containing ingredients they claim come from the Dead Sea.
This took me back to my childhood when my aunt would rush into the house and close all the curtains to run away from "Watch Towers" (Jehovah's Witnesses).
Like the mall touts, these people would hound you until you listened to them.
While they had good intentions - to save our souls - my aunt was put off when a whole family of Watch Towers once invaded our dining room and stayed for two hours in what turned into a religious convention.
We did not have a gate that locked and having seen us scurrying into our house, the Watch Towers knocked on our door until their knuckles hurt. Back then it felt like we were running away from the sheriff or debt collectors.
A friend recently told me that he was duped by timeshare telemarketers to waste an entire afternoon.
He was on holiday in Port Elizabeth and these types who usually pounce on tourists on the beach got to him.
Their modus operandi is to entice you with a small bottle of cheap sparkling wine and a promise of a guaranteed prize of a holiday excursion.
What they don't tell you is that you have to sit through six hours of gobbledygook to claim this prize as they try to confuse you into buying their timeshare.
My friend said the workshop started off with more than 30 people but as the hours ticked by many tourists realised they would rather go back to the beach to enjoy their hard-earned holiday than be cooped up in a conference room listening to presentations.
Two hours later there were only six people, who were all promised a hot air balloon ride.
He felt he might as well stay until the end to claim the prize after wasting so much time already. By the end of the presentation he was the only one left.
Despite laws clamping down on them, telemarketers keep hounding us. We just have to find clever ways to get our own back.
I have found one that works almost every time. As soon as the person on the other end of the line pronounces all the names on my ID and tells me that the call is being recorded, I go into my own spiel and try to sell them a Sowetan subscription.
Without giving them a chance to sell me a vehicle tracking device or cell phone package or insurance, I go on enthusiastically about the deal I want to offer to them. This usually baffles them into dropping the call.
Follow me on Twitter @MapulaNkosi
Art of dodging telemarketers nothing new
Though it irritates the hell out of me when people do not answer my call because my number projects as one of those call centre 087 numbers, I fully understand where these people are coming from.
There is nothing more irritating than when you are having a bad day and someone from a call centre arrogantly tries to sell you a wonderful offer of a car or life insurance.
Have you noticed how, to get you back, the whole call centre will call you to irritate you further should you end up arguing with one of their own?
To get his own back the call centre agent will tell eight of his friends to call you with the same offer. By the end of the day you'll be so pissed off, you'll be ready to pop a Valium pill to calm your nerves.
The telemarketers are similar to touts who will try to lure you to their products at every turn.
A colleague of mine told me how she makes sure that she dodges the touts in the mall selling people expensive beauty products containing ingredients they claim come from the Dead Sea.
This took me back to my childhood when my aunt would rush into the house and close all the curtains to run away from "Watch Towers" (Jehovah's Witnesses).
Like the mall touts, these people would hound you until you listened to them.
While they had good intentions - to save our souls - my aunt was put off when a whole family of Watch Towers once invaded our dining room and stayed for two hours in what turned into a religious convention.
We did not have a gate that locked and having seen us scurrying into our house, the Watch Towers knocked on our door until their knuckles hurt. Back then it felt like we were running away from the sheriff or debt collectors.
A friend recently told me that he was duped by timeshare telemarketers to waste an entire afternoon.
He was on holiday in Port Elizabeth and these types who usually pounce on tourists on the beach got to him.
Their modus operandi is to entice you with a small bottle of cheap sparkling wine and a promise of a guaranteed prize of a holiday excursion.
What they don't tell you is that you have to sit through six hours of gobbledygook to claim this prize as they try to confuse you into buying their timeshare.
My friend said the workshop started off with more than 30 people but as the hours ticked by many tourists realised they would rather go back to the beach to enjoy their hard-earned holiday than be cooped up in a conference room listening to presentations.
Two hours later there were only six people, who were all promised a hot air balloon ride.
He felt he might as well stay until the end to claim the prize after wasting so much time already. By the end of the presentation he was the only one left.
Despite laws clamping down on them, telemarketers keep hounding us. We just have to find clever ways to get our own back.
I have found one that works almost every time. As soon as the person on the other end of the line pronounces all the names on my ID and tells me that the call is being recorded, I go into my own spiel and try to sell them a Sowetan subscription.
Without giving them a chance to sell me a vehicle tracking device or cell phone package or insurance, I go on enthusiastically about the deal I want to offer to them. This usually baffles them into dropping the call.
Follow me on Twitter @MapulaNkosi
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