drbond

Has anyone else been harrassed by Watchguard Identity Theft Solutions as a result of signing up with Citibank? They call every other week at all hours and days of the week. I have told them NO and they still keep calling. I contacted Citi and told them to take me off of marketing due to this.

drbond

Here is the number. If it comes up on your Caller ID.. RUNNNNN!
888-465-3152

anaggie

why RUNNNNN?

Are you on the DO NOT CALL list? If so, tell them that and report them...

andol469

I wonder how these credit card companies decide who to call. I've never gotten a telemarketing call from any of the banks I do business with. Maybe my TeleZapper works?

mia

Do you actually answer the phone when you see that it is from a toll free area code?

drbond

Yes I am.
Read your t&c you voided your do not call status when you applied.

Dunbar

I don't think they call numbers with a known cell phone pre-fix. I gave them my cell phone number and they never call it.

srallen

Either you are the telemarketer are making a mistake in this process. This shouldn't be happening. Some things to consider (that telemarketers also now consider):

1. Time is money. If you aren't going to buy their product the best thing for THEM is to terminate the phone call and go to the next one. It is imperitive that you make this clear immediately. If you engage in conversation, you are giving them hope of a sale and wasting everyone's time. Remember that this is just some working slob and like it or not, it's the best job that the person has.

2. Do not wait for them to finish talking - interrupt and ask if this call is a solicitation. This is not being rude, this is freeing you up from wasting your time and freeing them up to try to make business elsewhere.

3. If the calls are repeated, interrupt the person and get their name, number, etc and THEN ask to speak with a supervisor and clearly ask them what you need to do so that they will never phone you again.

4. The "do not call list" is not relevant because of your business with Citibank, although you may be able to get Citibank to flag your account as a "do not call" account. I have done this with many companies with whom I do business and it has always worked.

On a related note, JUNK MAIL. Those catalogs are expensive!!! I'm sick of throwing them away and filling up our landfills. If you phone the retailer sending the catalog, soliticitation, etc and ASK them to stop sending you all mail, they WILL. It sames them money. As an alternate if you feel a little vindictive, most junk mail comes with a postage paid return envelope. This costs them MORE than $0.39 for you to send back to them. It costs them even more if you fill it up with something heavy. Start recycling your trash by sending it back to people who send you junk mail in their postage paid envelopes.

karthik

If I'm feeling really bored and the person on the other end basically goes into an undending monologue without giving me any room to talk, I act interested then start asking more and more inane questions until they realize I'm not all that interested after all.

Generally, however, I go with option 2. "Sorry to interrupt. This is a solicitation, right?" "Yes, sir, but..." "Thanks. Bye." <click>

I don't get many telemarketers not having a landline. Recently, however, I got 4 calls over 2 days from some sort of political research group (who are stupidly exempt from do-not-call laws.) Since I'm overseas, I don't answer my US cell unless I recognize the number due to roaming charges. Called the number back from my cheap AU cell and got a recorded message stating who they were and that they used a computerized system to randomly dial numbers, and due to that there was no list to remove me from, but that getting more than one call from them would be extremely rare due to the random dialing pattern. Yeah, 4 calls over 2 days, real random. I was given a chance to leave voicemail at the end, which I did in a slightly annoyed manner. Haven't heard back from them, but I doubt anyone cared about my voicemail.

gingeroo

That might be true. My cell phone is my only home phone and I have never gotten a call from Citibank.