NEVER start an answerphone greeting with "Hello!"

[Deja Q]

I did.

I decided to screen my calls today and, lo and behold, someone called.

After the answerphone said "Hello!", the other person said "Hello!", noly to be interrupted with "You have reached 3......." I think that ticked him off. :-(

So I changed it to start with, in a stern voice, "If you are a telemarketer, please hang up now. Otherwise, you have reached..." Yes, even when stern I'm polite. :D

[TrogL]

1. My greeting

You have reached 555-1212. It's going to beep. Talk.

[arwalden]

8. WOW! Your number is 555-1212??

I'll bet you get a LOT of calls!

-- Allen

[patdem]

2. My greeting is ring...ring...ring...ring...ring..ring..ring..

then I do a *69 if I feel interested enough!

[BiggJawn]

3. Mine. Gets rid of Telemarketers.

"Hello?........Hello?........Uh, you have reached 555.1212....Wait for Beep. You know The Drill......

"BEEP!"

I think the autodialers listen for that second "hello" then puts the call through. I get either a snippet of a Schpeil or the "if you'd like to make a call..." recording on the machine.

And when that gets old I put the "greeting" all in Morse at 25 WPM....

[Maddy McCall]

4. My listed name is close to that of a child-molester-auto-mechanic....

We have the same first name initial, and our last names only differ by a syllable. This guy was released from prison last year, and he came back into town, and started his auto repair business back up. Small town, everyone knows everybody, which is why I can't figure out why dumbasses call me to ask if their fucking cars and trucks have been repaired and are ready.

I finally got sick of it, and I recorded a message that said, "If you are calling for the child molester auto mechanic, you ought to be ashamed to even have your car fixed by him, much less to incessantly call THIS wrong number to find our when your car will be ready. Do not leave a message--hang up and do not EVER call this number again. If you are my friend or associate, however, leave a message and I will get back to you."

Still, these patrons of the child molestor kept calling my house to find out when their car would be ready. I finally started telling them shit like, "It will be a bigger job than Jack expected. Looks like he is going to have to replace the motor and the transmission. It won't be ready until week after next, and it's going to run you about 5 grand. He's gone out of town now, but you can call back next Wednesday to discuss it with him."

Finally, FINALLY, the calls have trickled down to one or two a month.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. rotfl!!

I love it!

"But if I can have your credit card info, and you pre-pay for the work, I will reduce the fee by 15%"

[Fenris]

7. I like the schnauzer!

Cute!

[Maddy McCall]

11. Thanks, Fenris!

She is my little sweetie and a dyed-in-the-fur Democrat pooch!

[LanternWaste]

10. Ugh!

It was about 1993 or '94 when I moved into a new apartment. When I turned the phone on, turned out I received the number that had until only very recently been the number of one of those big national eyeglass chains (OptiMart or some other insipid name).

For the year I lived there, a day would not go by (literally) that I didn't get a least one phone call asking about prescription prices.

On a happy note, I ended up dating one of the callers for about nine months when she called asking about an eye-exam on an evening a was really bored...lol.

[LynneSin]

13. My number was like 1 digit off of a Taxperson

This was back when I was living in Pennsylvania and moved into my first place.

I would have people calling my phone number for years and they would yell, scream and cry about their tax related problems. Of course the bulk of the calls would be around income tax times.

So when I had a message that "You have not reached a phone number for anyone here who handles tax related issues. I'm sorry you're having problems with your taxes, but unfortunately all I do is a simple 1040EZ and I'm done in 20 minutes. You might want to recheck your number and try calling again. If you're looking for Lynne - leave a message

[Ivory_Tower]

6. "Not-in-Service" tones

My machine starts with the three "doo-dah-dee" tones that indicate a number isn't active. After a second I apoligize for the tones and then ask the caller to leave a message.

There was an article a few years ago that revealed that autodialers listened for those tones, and logged the number as out-of-service so it wouldn't waste time calling the number again.

I used to get about three messages a day on my answering machine from telemarketers (either human or automated). Now I get about one every couple of days. But I recently got CallerID and see that some telemarketer numbers keep trying to call me repeatedly, so this approach might not work for much longer.

My recording also REALLY ticks off my friends, so at least I get a little fun out of it! :evilgrin:

[Jim Sagle]

9. My PhoneMate cordless phone has built-in caller ID, plus

an option to suppress ringing for incoming calls that have UNAVAILABLE or PRIVATE instead of a real phone number. Works great. I suspect a lot of phones have that feature.

[LynneSin]

12. I hate answering machine messages that say "I'm unable to answer the phone

Because if you were able to answer the phone you would have or maybe you're able to answer the phones by you're lying on you're machine claiming that something is causing you to be unable to answer the phone when in all reality you were just too damn lazy to answer thing thing.

:shrug:

[populistmom]

14. I just get tired of people asking me if my mommy is home

Yes, I'm a definate soprano (not the Italian mob kind, the high voice kind) but I don't think it's THAT bad. However, not a month goes by where I don't get a call asking me if my mom can come to the phone. Usually profuse apologies come when I tell them I haven't lived with my mommy in almost 14 years.
I've often said that I need to smoke about 2 packs of unfiltered Luckies for a few years and that would cure it, but I don't think my lungs could take it.

[LynneSin]

15. I've had detail phone conversations with my best friend's 6yo

For some reason her daughter's voice sounds somewhat old. She says "hello how are you" and I think it's her mother.

Go figure!

[Kat45]

16. "You talking to me? You talking to me?..."

I used to have a recording of that dialogue from "Taxi Driver" as my answering machine message. Got some interesting reactions. :D

But then when I had to look for a job and get calls from potential employers, I thought I should change it to a boring, normal message.

[havocmom]

17. Back in the pre-answering machine days...

I lived in a smallish city and my number was one digit transposed from the OB/GYN clinic night number. Used to get a lot of calls from flustered soon-to-be-fathers types. No amount of reasoning would get these gents to shut up and listen when I told them they had the wrong number.

My mother took a graveyard shift job with the local answering service. I finally decided it was just easier for me to take down the info from the hysterical papas-to be-and call mom with it so she could relay to the doctors.