Not too long after I got home from work yesterday the phone rang.
I answered, “Hello.”
A female voice with an American accent said something to the effect that she was trying to connect me to a call and asked me to wait. This is novel, I thought, someone is calling me and putting me on hold. I usually have to ring large companies to be put on hold but here I was being put on hold without any effort on my part.
I immediately responded, “Hello, hello.”
No use. It was a disembodied voice that was probably recorded back in 1993 and has been proudly annoying phone owners ever since.
The next thing, the voice tells me that she’s still trying to connect me to my call and thanks me for holding. By this stage I’m pretty sure that it’s someone trying to telemarket something that I don’t want, but I’m interested just enough to hang on until I hear a real voice so I can politely say, “No thanks” and hang up.
Some seconds later the voice keeps the conversation alive by once again thanking me for holding then telling me that she’s sorry that she wasn’t able to connect my call and she’ll try again later. Beep … beep .. beep … beep … beep. Call over.
What? An automated voice calls my home, puts me on hold, then tells me they’re not able to connect me? I thought bizarre stuff like that should only happen in my dreams.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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That’s bizarre!
At one point we were receiving a call at about the same time each evening. When we answered there was just silence on the other end. We thought it was a crank caller, but when we phoned Telstra to ask what could be done we were told it was most likely a telemarketing company company whose equipment was playing up! It stopped after a few days.
That’s just plain rude, if you ask me!
Bruce reckons it’s bizarre.
Jennifer reckons it’s rude.
I reckon you’re both absolutely right. 🙂
Well Rodney, I had to laugh last night. We received the same call!! Only we were actually connected, and yes you were right, it was a telemarketing crowd. I don’t know what they were trying to sell, we told them we were not interested before they even had a chance to tell us! The company name was Southern Cross, or something similar, if this is any help?
freaky!
Southern Cross have called our home ph also. They are just a phone company trying to sell you a fantasically brilliant ph deal, because it’s sooooo much better than the one you’re currently on. Try-hards. Will they ever stop.
At work I get an average of 5 calls a day from telemarkers. I have a small amount of patience allocated for them, as I used to be a telemarker myself – although we didn’t cold call (we called existing clients only). However, I had one telemarketer get angry at me the otherday for refusing to put her through. One of my roles is a PA, so if you don’t tell me what the call’s relating too, you don’t get through. She told me that I wouldn’t understand what she was talking about (?!), and that she needed to speak with the owner or the manager. That got me annoyed…for all she knew, I could have been the owner or manager of the company answering the phone…