That reminds me of an encounter I had. WAY back at my first tech job (when dot matrix printers were still all the rage), I would get called 3 or 4 times a week by folks wanting to sell us their ribbons. Having been stupid enough to try a "free sample" from a vendor one time (and getting bitten), I began to just tell those folks "thanks, but no thanks". As you mentioned they were often downright rude. The most egregious being one fellow who kept repeating how it was going to save us money. Finally flabbergasted by my refusal, he said (and I quote), "Oh, too stupid to save money, then" and hung up. I am pretty sure the same person called again about a month later, too. Bill Mayo
________________________________ From: Ralph Smith [mailto:m...@gatewayindustries.org] Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 2:58 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Ink & toner "cold callers" I used to try to nicely explain to them that I wasn't interested, but most of them are so rude this got old fast. I started just hanging up on them when they wouldn't shut up, but sometimes they would actually have someone else call back and yell at me for being rude! Then, since we are a non-profit, I started immediately soliciting them for toner donations - that usually got them to hang up. But this still takes too much time. Now I tell them (mostly truthfully), that we don't buy toner because it's included in our service contract - thanks anyway, and I hang up. I still get 1 to 3 calls a week. Everyone at our agency knows that I am the only one who orders toner, so no worries there, at least. From: "John Aldrich" <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:05:47 -0400 To: NT System Admin Issues<ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com> Subject: Ink & toner "cold callers" I'm assuming most of you are like me and in charge of the "consumables" for your laser copiers/printers/fax machines. How do you have your people trained to deal with the cold-callers who try to get you to buy the toners? Mostly, my users are trained to refer the call to me, but it's starting to get old with upwards of 3 or 4 calls per week and having to tell them "sorry, we're under a maintenance contract. Goodbye" and hang up. It's 45 seconds to a minute I'd rather spend reading this list, etc. :-) I thought about emailing my users and telling them that there are only 3 people who order ink & toner and if the caller doesn't ask for one of us by name, they aren't our supplier, and that I'd prefer the caller never get passed along; but I'm afraid that if I do that, someone might go ahead and order toner from someone other than our normal suppliers. (I don't have a lot of faith in my "users" :-)) Confidentiality Notice: ****************** This communication, including any attachments, may contain confidential information and is intended only for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. Any review, dissemination, or copying of this communication by anyone other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email, delete and destroy all copies of the original message. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
