Dealing with Telemarketers

[AnimeSpirit]

There is one stunt that I pulled on the Earthlink telemarketer that wouldn't stop calling. It wasn't as good as Tom Mabe up there, but it was worth a chuckle when you make them realize just how little they know about their own product. I like giving them these totally high-tech questions that call center reps aren't expected to know.

She called me to push some "high-speed dial-up" service from Earthlink, totally unaware that I know better. There is NO SUCH THING AS HIGH-SPEED DIAL-UP!!! Anywho, she starts trying to push this crappy service on me and I feel the urge to toy with this woman. The dialogue was something like this.

Woman: I'm calling today to tell you about our high-speed dial-up service.
Me: Really? How fast is it?
Woman: It is 56k per second.
Me: Is that kilobytes or kilobits?
Woman: Uh....one moment while I check on that.
**2 minutes later**
Woman: It's 56 kilobits per second.
Me: Ok, that's 7 kilobytes per second which is about as fast as regular dial-up on a good day. The average music file is 4MB which is just over 4000 kilobytes. It would take almost 10 minutes to download one song. How is that high-speed dial-up again?
Woman: Actually, it is up to 5 times faster than regular dial-up.
Me: Really? How are you getting around the standard dial-up overhead and line noise issues associated with dial-up speed limitations?
Woman: Uh...one moment while I check on that?
**2 minutes later**
Woman: I'm really not sure about that. I'd have to have someone call you back with an answer.
Me: Nah, that's ok. I have Bellsouth DSL and prefer keeping my high-speed.
Woman: Ok, have a good day.


I was tempted to keep her going. I could come up with some seriously complicated questions, but it gets boring when she offers to have someone call me back with my answers.