Telemarketing, Indians and bad PR about India

[imh1b]

These days a lot of telemarketing calls come of India. We hear an Indian voice on the other side with bad accent and bad english.

Somehow they get our phone numbers, name etc and keep calling us even if we tell them not to call us.

Even if we register in donotcall.gov, these telemarketers keep calling us. Complaining to donotcall.gov does no good.

Telemarketers have found better ways of hiding their phone numbers when they call. Even if you enable your unknown call blocker by pressing *55 they still can get around it technically and call you. The phone provider companies cannot do anything about it.

If you firmly tell these telemarketers not to call you ever again, they will not listen and get rude with you. You cannot do anything about it and they will take out their anger against you by calling you over and over again to bother you.

These Indians are giving a bad name to all Indians and the entire outsourcing being done from India.

Have others faced such problems? What should one do against telemarketers ?

[thescadaman]

I Agree,

I too am getting calls from ICICI Lombard at 8:45 pm for the last few days. It almost sounds that the guy is calling from a tea shop - lots of background chatter and very unprofessional -- forget neutralized accent -- the English is broken and unclear. When asked, they said they are calling from Mumbai office. I see a 408 California number on my caller ID.

I don't get rude with them because I know that there is no overseeing authority over them. If I get rude, I am sure they will make this as a fun exercise to call me every day.

[hope4gc]

Guys,
I too get calls like this, i will just cut the call after i know that this is a marketing call. SO let them call several times. No point in being angry with them.

[imh1b]

Guys,
I too get calls like this, i will just cut the call after i know that this is a marketing call. SO let them call several times. No point in being angry with them.

Sometimes they call at odd times.

You are saying we should ignore and let them call over and over again? Does that not bother you if you get multiple calls all the time and the more you ask them to be taken off the list, the more they will call you?

Its like they are jealous of you that you are in USA earning dollars and they are still in India. They take fun in bothering you with phone calls and being rude.

All this behavior is hurting the impression of Indians in America. If they are doing with us, they must be bothering Americans too.

[hope4gc]

Sometimes they call at odd times.

You are saying we should ignore and let them call over and over again? Does that not bother you if you get multiple calls all the time and the more you ask them to be taken off the list, the more they will call you?

Its like they are jealous of you that you are in USA earning dollars and they are still in India. They take fun in bothering you with phone calls and being rude.

All this behavior is hurting the impression of Indians in America. If they are doing with us, they must be bothering Americans too.
Yes it does bother me, but we cannot do anything about it except for complaining it to the head office (mumbai/kolkotta) and give them details of the caller.
Wy i am saying this is, when i was india, i worked for a huge IT firm, they have sold each of the employees cell number to a ICICI agent had a good ranking profile in the market and she disclosed that if we have to achive the goal we have to choose some shortcut. THis was in 2003.
Believe me these people will do anything today to get our numbers to try their luck.
So, i believe it is no use yelling at them unless there is a channel to deal with them

[ivar]

This is very simillar to spam you get in your mail box. Atleast you have spam filters to filter unwanted emails. Unfortunately we cannot do that with phone calls.. even if we have caller id we still don't know who is calling from india. Sometimes it could be an emergency and it could be some relative of ours calling from a local phone booth, we can't just ignore calls, we have to answer them. Looks like right now there is no solution to this annoying problem, i wonder if anyone is ever thinking of an solution to tackle this problem.

[sumanitha]

These days a lot of telemarketing calls come of India. We hear an Indian voice on the other side with bad accent and bad english.

Somehow they get our phone numbers, name etc and keep calling us even if we tell them not to call us.

Even if we register in donotcall.gov, these telemarketers keep calling us. Complaining to donotcall.gov does no good.

Telemarketers have found better ways of hiding their phone numbers when they call. Even if you enable your unknown call blocker by pressing *55 they still can get around it technically and call you. The phone provider companies cannot do anything about it.

If you firmly tell these telemarketers not to call you ever again, they will not listen and get rude with you. You cannot do anything about it and they will take out their anger against you by calling you over and over again to bother you.

These Indians are giving a bad name to all Indians and the entire outsourcing being done from India.

Have others faced such problems? What should one do against telemarketers ?

Simple thing is put it in mute and do your work.. After sometime they may get bored and cut.. (May be Gandhi principle)

[americandesi]

Most of these calls are originated from Skype in the guise of US calls and they don't even spare cell numbers. The Do Not Call registry is specifically for land lines and tele marketers are not supposed to call any cell number by law.

The accent and communication of these telemarketers is so bad and many a time they don't know what they're asking for. They just a waste your time, cell phone minutes and money and derive pleasure out of it. At times they even leave blank voice mails.

They're specifically targeting Indians in US and I strongly suspect reliance indiacall in releasing our primary phone numbers to desi marketers. How do i know? I had recently changed my cell phone number and had updated the same in with reliance indiacall. Within weeks I started getting these marketing calls from an area code in Iowa.

Unfortunately, nothing can be done to stop these calls and the best way to tackle these people is to ignore their calls. I did that and they stopped calling me after few days.

[psaxena]

I used to get these type of calls a lot. May be beacuse I gave my number for calling card and online shopping on the different websites.
But heres the thing, they don't do this to harrass and irritate. They are trying to achieve their targets to earn the bread.

The simple way to get rid of these calls is to talk to them and let them know you are not interested and request them to take your name off the list. Thats it, once they know you are not the target customer, they will not waste their time and money to make call to you. I used to get spanish, english and hindi marketing calls. Once I used this strategy for a few days it was a pain but now I dun get any calls like that.

[psaxena]

If you are using iphone, there is an app called donotcall which has a huge database of the donotcall numbers. once you install in app it will create a contact named donotcall with the list of the number, which will fitler most of the numbers

This is very simillar to spam you get in your mail box. Atleast you have spam filters to filter unwanted emails. Unfortunately we cannot do that with phone calls.. even if we have caller id we still don't know who is calling from india. Sometimes it could be an emergency and it could be some relative of ours calling from a local phone booth, we can't just ignore calls, we have to answer them. Looks like right now there is no solution to this annoying problem, i wonder if anyone is ever thinking of an solution to tackle this problem.

[imh1b]

How are they able to hide their phone number? and ignore donotcall.gov?

[imh1b]

I spoke to the phone company and they suggested phone trace feature that is Free. Use *57 after the call and trace the number. If the caller harasses you, you can even report it to law enforcement with the number of the call.

[ivar]

If you are using iphone, there is an app called donotcall which has a huge database of the donotcall numbers. once you install in app it will create a contact named donotcall with the list of the number, which will fitler most of the numbers

iphone app called donotcall, I will definately take a look at it. Thanks.

[addsf345]

if you get their caller id# (as some one mentioned 408) you can block them from calling you. You can add this number online using vonage or sunrocket protal (for most voip homephones atleast) - something called blocked numbers. I haven't tried this with vonage, but did it with sunrocket.

and by the way, it is not only from india. In fact I was getting (some time still getting) such calls from US.

[thomachan72]

Whenever I see "Unknown caller" I know it is from the Discover card. There is desperate group of people who have sworn to death that they will sell this to me. Usually I dont pick up the phone. Sometimes I pick it up and dont say a word..after about a minute I wistle a song (old hindi song) and gently place the head set back. I do this because initially I tried to reason with them; I am not interested in getting another card now. immediately they will ask "May I know why??" What do you say to that other than fume:mad::mad:

[shreekhand]

Not having a land-line/VoIP # for the past 5 years, I have not got a single telemarketing call, even on the cell. Going cell-phone only, has lot of benefits ! Not to mention the economic sense of doing so.

In a recent Economist report, going by the current rate decline of landline subscribers in the US, by 2025 landlines will become obsolete in US households ! Currently roughly 23% of US households are cell-phone only.

[smisachu]

A few years ago I had a similar situation. Some telemarketing call would come from a single number and repeated request not to call did not work. My daughter was very young then and these people would call right in the middle of the night and wake her up. Polite request, appealing to their human sense that they are disturbing a sleeping baby and threats did not work.

Finally I called my "homies" back in India and gave them the number. They called this telemarketing people a few times and very "politely" told the boss there that if another phone call goes to me they will burn the place down and burn his place down. My boys are very convincing; if you know what I mean.:cool: And lo and behold, the phone calls stopped.

[rb_248]

A few years ago I had a similar situation. Some telemarketing call would come from a single number and repeated request not to call did not work. My daughter was very young then and these people would call right in the middle of the night and wake her up. Polite request, appealing to their human sense that they are disturbing a sleeping baby and threats did not work.

Finally I called my "homies" back in India and gave them the number. They called this telemarketing people a few times and very "politely" told the boss there that if another phone call goes to me they will burn the place down and burn his place down. My boys are very convincing; if you know what I mean.:cool: And lo and behold, the phone calls stopped.

Sounds like a story right out of a bad Telugu movie.

[smisachu]

Actually the inspiration came from a good Hindi movie...Sathya

[maximus777]

Actually the inspiration came from a good Hindi movie...Sathya

But directed by a telugu director - RGV ;)

Any how, can your people pull of something similar with USCIS?!? :cool:

[Humhongekamyab]

Not having a land-line/VoIP # for the past 5 years, I have not got a single telemarketing call, even on the cell. Going cell-phone only, has lot of benefits ! Not to mention the economic sense of doing so.

In a recent Economist report, going by the current rate decline of landline subscribers in the US, by 2025 landlines will become obsolete in US households ! Currently roughly 23% of US households are cell-phone only.

I am sure the recent Economist report did not mention that cell phone use can cause cancer. Here is a WHO, $30 million study

Report: WHO to Announce Cell Phone, Brain Tumor Link - Health News | Current Health News | Medical News - FOXNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569465,00.html)

[saketkapur]

I had a similar situation where they were not even calling but usning a local CA number to leave robocalls and if I called back it would go to automated answering machine( I also made it a point thereafter to leave colorful messages in hindi and english on their machine everytime they bugged me).......and the annoying thing was that after I left my land line they started calling my cellphone...not sure how they did that.......

But I have verizon wireless and they let you block 15 numbers for free.....once I did that the issue disappeared.......

[smisachu]

But directed by a telugu director - RGV ;)

Any how, can your people pull of something similar with USCIS?!? :cool:

Aah, to do that I have to some how get all my boys to the US and then set up a "La Cosa Nostra":p..and then we can call some one who knows some one who knows some one at the USCIS...
But there is only one problem....by the time we pull this off and get our green cards, this thing of ours would have made the united states into a corrupt and in effecient state..and we will have to go back to escape from it all..