Revenge of the Telesales
Like most people I get Telesales calls on my mobile from time to time. My response to this sort of thing is a universal "no" before I hear any of it, but "no" can be phrased with various degrees of politeness.

One day I got such a call from a Scots gentleman when I was feeling particularly irritable. I asked him if I knew him from somewhere or whether I'd given him my number and when, obviously, he replied in the negative to both I asked him why the fuck we was phoning me up then, and ended the call.

A minute later my phone started ringing - a glance at the screen revealed it was the same number as before so I just pressed end call. Then it rang again. And again. And again. For about fifteen full minutes the guy kept ringing my number over and over again. Occasionally there was a pause and an answerphone message indicator would pop up.

I chose to listen to the first message in the queue. My persecutor begin to describe, in labourious and grotesque detail, his weekend encounters with various Scottish ladies of questionable virtue. It wasn't low grade-porn, but seriously revolting filth. I listened to it for long enough to realise what he was up to and then deleted all the messages.

Unfortunately the guy was clearly not smart enough to have bothered to check whether or not his number was screened. It wasn't. I tried calling it but got an "outgoing calls only" response. Then I tried googling it - nothing. *Then* I tried googling the dialing code - success! And, further searching later I discovered that there was only one call center in the vicinity. So I called that, spoke to the receptionist, confirmed that the nuisance calls had indeed come from there, and lodged a complaint.

30 minutes later I got a call from the manager there who told me that of course, they log all outgoing calls, and he'd listened to what his employee had left on my answerphone and was so disgusted that the employee had been fired on the spot and literally thrown out of the building along with the contents of his desk.

I felt a mixture of triumph at having tracked the bastard down, and guilt at (temporarily) ending his livelihood. After all, I'd wound him up first. What do you think - who was the sinner here, him or me?
(MattDP (Squiggle), Mon 3 Aug 2009, 11:50, 9 replies)

You

(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 12:17, closed)

Him
I've worked in telesales, I've had people hang up on me. It's not exactly going to help you by harrassing someone who didn't want to speak to you in the first place.

Besides which, rule #1 is you're just a voice, representing your employer, whether you get anywhere with the person you're speaking to or not, it's about exposure as much as anything.

So my point is, you were allowed to wind him up. So it was his own damn fault he got fired.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 12:52, closed)

This didn't happen to be Irvine did it?
My brother worked at the call centre there and told me that it was common to put any rude people on for a call back 5 minutes later. Then some other poor call centre worker would ring them up and have to take all the abuse.
(AyeMe, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 13:05, closed)

Don't remember
But this wasn't one callback. It was 15 minutes of constant back-to-back calls.
(MattDP (Squiggle), Mon 3 Aug 2009, 13:23, closed)

Him
Telesales cunts need to remember that they are the ones being done the favour to, not the other way round.
( 100% Cock Raw like carrots., Mon 3 Aug 2009, 15:37, closed)

If you work in telesales
people being rude to you is inevitable. It just is. You didn't have to be so cuntish but he didn't have to hassle you - especially when the calls are logged so really his own stupidity got him fired.

As an ex-customer service monkey though I shall admonish you for being mean...you wouldn't like it if people were shitty to you just for doing your job, after all...
(berk, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 15:39, closed)

But surely
it's a cunt's job, so only a cunt would be doing it?
(St Sepulchre's Belle tolled for thee on, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 7:49, closed)

He deserved the sack
for a. being abusive and b. being stupid enough to think you wouldn't be able to trace him.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 3 Aug 2009, 18:23, closed)

Him.
Don't do the crime if you can't deal with the consequences (or similar cliché).
(aroe_m0rre, Tue 4 Aug 2009, 10:21, closed)