I do surveys. Lots of them. But I do get paid for them, couple of weeks ago I got a cheque for £50 - an awful lot of money for me these days! That's about 10 months of surveys, though, so it's not like you can make a living at it. I don't do Toluna ones anymore, you have to do loads, they're really boring and then it takes them ages to send your amazon gift certificate details - actually, they don't email you, you have to check regularly on their website. The Populus live one is good, you get £1 for every five minutes of your time, that's the one that sent the cheque, their surveys are normally between 5 and 20 minutes long, so not ages, you don't have to do anything, they send a cheque out at the end of the month you get £50 in your account. The other one I do is 'My Surveys', normally fairly boring but you can rack up 550 points quite quickly for a £5 Amazon voucher, or 575 for a £5 paypal credit. The other one I do whenever one pops up is Shopper Thoughts, that pays you in Tesco Clubcard points, very useful for topping up to get T&M vouchers.
There was a scam a few months ago, where they ring and say they're from Microsoft, and they've detected a problem on your computer, and get you to go and change the registry settings which renders your computer useless. They then charge you a daft amount of cash to reset your computer. Brother in Law told me about that one, he knew it was a scam as he built the computer himself, he just kept hanging up on them. So every time they rang me I told them 'I'm sorry, I don't know where you've got my details from but I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER!!' Obviously a blatant lie, after a stunned silence, or repeating the statement there was something wrong with my computer, and me telling them again, they just put the phone down. If it was a genuine call, they'd know I did have a computer.
I do get lots of spam, normally from the free competitions I enter. Worth doing, though, yesterday I won a black & decker steam mop - I already have one, so that will be going on ebay for some extra cash - I normally win something every 8 weeks or so, but I do spend about an hour a day (normally in 10 minute chunks) entering them. I figure if you enter every day, you're 30 times more likely to win something than someone that just enters once. Seems to be working so far, this year I've won a goody bag, a 32 inch telly and now the steam mop. Still waiting for a big cash win!
Cold callers I just say I'm on the TPS, please don't bother me again, then put the phone down. Rude, I know, but it bugs me. If they ring straight back, I normally swear at them in punjabi, as English based companies risk a big fine if you're on TPS, doesn't apply to offshore companies. As they're normally Indian, something along the lines of 'Sally Gutty Ben-Judy' gets rid of them. Very rude indeed. I won't translate unless I get a PM requesting such (don't, it really is very rude). The benefits of a multi-cultural education.
A certain double glazing firm that we had some work done with kept ringing us up. After asking nicely, don't ring us, we'll ring you, I had a salesman out.
I've come to do a quote.
Fine quote away.
what do you want doing.?
I want your firm to stop calling me. If you carry on wasting my time, I'm going to start wasting your time.
Even that didn't work. They just rang up to see if I'd accepted the quote. Then I lost my temper. I said I would be logging and taping all future calls and invoicing them for £10 for each one.
Re the calls from Indian call centres- the husband of someone I work with said to one' who are you ? I don't know any ***** in India'....
I won't fill in the blanks!- I am a lady after all....
Frank/Dad- I frequently do the hash key on the phone when I call to complain- heard it years ago that you get straight through to a person so it's very useful! Especially now when there's no option to press for 'I want to complain about your b****y c*** company'. Think I told one of them that too...
Best story I heard about cold calling was the woman who had a conservatory company on the phone. She let them talk for ages and when they thought they had a sale they asked if they could come and measure up etc. That's when she asked them if they could put a conservatory on a 10th floor flat.........
Think they hung up.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
With Solar panels telephone calls,I let them go all the way through their spiel (they are paying for the call anyway) and then say............"that sounds really interesting I,ll have to ask the landlord"..seems to do the trick
I never do surveys.why should I want to give my details to a complete stranger.I also don,t want all the spam that comes as a result.
I also never press the options for getting through to a company,I,ve found if you do nothing you usually get sraight through to a real person.
Well, thanks for all your responses. I've read them all carefully and will be taking the advice. This was a reputable mail order firm - someone (I think) wanted to earn comission for getting new customers, sold it to me via ebay and then used the paypal details to impersonate me with the catalogue. I must have been bonkers to order it but I KNOW I did not telephone them and I never use mail order clothing companies. I will be writing to them - emails are evidently too easy to ignore. I want to tread carefully because they can affect my credit score (not that I want any credit) by reporting me as a bad payer. This is MY reputation and I want to protect it.
I have an add-on from Firefox which automatically causes cookies to self-destruct and I regard this as further protection against anyone spying on me.
What makes me angry GG is the fact you have to do that. Your details shouldn't be passed to anyone without your permission - but they do it anyway.
Gilly -you're right about not pressing any button. I do that as well. Again- ridiculous that we should all have to jump through hoops just to get some basic service from a semi literate person.
And as for that b****y 'Greensleeves'......if I have to hear it once more.....
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
A friend advised using a hotmail e-mail address to give to companies when he was suspicious that he wouldn't be able to get rid of them. If it gets too bad just close it & open another.
Many years ago a cousin ordered a cookery book, part of a series but wrote & told them that she didn't want any more. Another was sent, then another until she had the full set. She phoned several times to no avail then wrote to say that the goods were unsolicited & gave them a time limit for collection or would charge them rent (she's a solicitor so has the language!!). They wrote back & said it wasn't worth paying her the postage to return them & she could keep them.
I haven't heard "Greensleeves" for years...........
Sorry to return to this subject, but this morning's rant is the Post Office - again!
The postman has just delivered another pile of junk-mail, most of it the same as delivered over the last two days - in three days I have amassed nearly an inch of paper! With this junk there were several letters, two dated 27th and 28th May - one was to remind me that my car insurance was due to expire on 1st June ( lucky I had renewed elsewhere!)
I know that the argument is that the Post Office need the junk-mail service to help provide a decent postal system, but a decent postal system is not what I'm receiving at the moment. Then the local Council is constantly nagging us to ensure that every last bit of 'our' rubbish is properly sorted - I'm b......d if I'm going to sort out the Post Office rubbish - it's all just gone in the local postbox for them to dispose of!
The bane of my life is Virgin media, every week without fail this large envelope drops through the door with a pile of other rubbish, there is nothing on the envelope to say what it is although properly addressed to me, then on opening I find more half price offers. Having told them I do not have, want, or even need be on the same planet as them they still come, Branson would not be a Virgin long if I get my hands on him, why can they not understand that not everyone thinks them the best thing since caviar ice cream, in fact why should I pay them for even more rubbish programmes than are on TV now. Can we bring back hanging quartering and the roasting of entrails whilst still alive please.
@pemtillie.. that is the point thou.. the postal service is getting worse and much more expensive to use.. why? because they dont care about us.. they make money for each piece of junk mail they put thru yr door and the account they have with amazon for delivering hteir post and some of the courier services use them too.. joe public is not their main income anymore.
as i was advised by my postie.. ring your sorting office and request to be removed from the unaddressed junk mail list.. my postie is very happy to have less wieght in his bag. And he said he would get round so much quicker as he doesnt have to go to every damn door in every damn street just to deliver them.
Posts
I do surveys. Lots of them. But I do get paid for them, couple of weeks ago I got a cheque for £50 - an awful lot of money for me these days! That's about 10 months of surveys, though, so it's not like you can make a living at it. I don't do Toluna ones anymore, you have to do loads, they're really boring and then it takes them ages to send your amazon gift certificate details - actually, they don't email you, you have to check regularly on their website. The Populus live one is good, you get £1 for every five minutes of your time, that's the one that sent the cheque, their surveys are normally between 5 and 20 minutes long, so not ages, you don't have to do anything, they send a cheque out at the end of the month you get £50 in your account. The other one I do is 'My Surveys', normally fairly boring but you can rack up 550 points quite quickly for a £5 Amazon voucher, or 575 for a £5 paypal credit. The other one I do whenever one pops up is Shopper Thoughts, that pays you in Tesco Clubcard points, very useful for topping up to get T&M vouchers.
There was a scam a few months ago, where they ring and say they're from Microsoft, and they've detected a problem on your computer, and get you to go and change the registry settings which renders your computer useless. They then charge you a daft amount of cash to reset your computer. Brother in Law told me about that one, he knew it was a scam as he built the computer himself, he just kept hanging up on them. So every time they rang me I told them 'I'm sorry, I don't know where you've got my details from but I DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER!!' Obviously a blatant lie, after a stunned silence, or repeating the statement there was something wrong with my computer, and me telling them again, they just put the phone down. If it was a genuine call, they'd know I did have a computer.
I do get lots of spam, normally from the free competitions I enter. Worth doing, though, yesterday I won a black & decker steam mop - I already have one, so that will be going on ebay for some extra cash - I normally win something every 8 weeks or so, but I do spend about an hour a day (normally in 10 minute chunks) entering them. I figure if you enter every day, you're 30 times more likely to win something than someone that just enters once. Seems to be working so far, this year I've won a goody bag, a 32 inch telly and now the steam mop. Still waiting for a big cash win!
Cold callers I just say I'm on the TPS, please don't bother me again, then put the phone down. Rude, I know, but it bugs me. If they ring straight back, I normally swear at them in punjabi, as English based companies risk a big fine if you're on TPS, doesn't apply to offshore companies. As they're normally Indian, something along the lines of 'Sally Gutty Ben-Judy' gets rid of them. Very rude indeed. I won't translate unless I get a PM requesting such (don't, it really is very rude). The benefits of a multi-cultural education.
A certain double glazing firm that we had some work done with kept ringing us up. After asking nicely, don't ring us, we'll ring you, I had a salesman out.
I've come to do a quote.
Fine quote away.
what do you want doing.?
I want your firm to stop calling me. If you carry on wasting my time, I'm going to start wasting your time.
Even that didn't work. They just rang up to see if I'd accepted the quote. Then I lost my temper. I said I would be logging and taping all future calls and invoicing them for £10 for each one.
The phone calls have finally stopped.
Re the calls from Indian call centres- the husband of someone I work with said to one' who are you ? I don't know any ***** in India'....
I won't fill in the blanks!- I am a lady after all....
Frank/Dad- I frequently do the hash key on the phone when I call to complain- heard it years ago that you get straight through to a person so it's very useful! Especially now when there's no option to press for 'I want to complain about your b****y c*** company'. Think I told one of them that too...
Best story I heard about cold calling was the woman who had a conservatory company on the phone. She let them talk for ages and when they thought they had a sale they asked if they could come and measure up etc. That's when she asked them if they could put a conservatory on a 10th floor flat.........
Think they hung up.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
With Solar panels telephone calls,I let them go all the way through their spiel (they are paying for the call anyway) and then say............"that sounds really interesting I,ll have to ask the landlord"..seems to do the trick
I never do surveys.why should I want to give my details to a complete stranger.I also don,t want all the spam that comes as a result.
I also never press the options for getting through to a company,I,ve found if you do nothing you usually get sraight through to a real person.
Well, thanks for all your responses. I've read them all carefully and will be taking the advice. This was a reputable mail order firm - someone (I think) wanted to earn comission for getting new customers, sold it to me via ebay and then used the paypal details to impersonate me with the catalogue. I must have been bonkers to order it but I KNOW I did not telephone them and I never use mail order clothing companies. I will be writing to them - emails are evidently too easy to ignore. I want to tread carefully because they can affect my credit score (not that I want any credit) by reporting me as a bad payer. This is MY reputation and I want to protect it.
I have an add-on from Firefox which automatically causes cookies to self-destruct and I regard this as further protection against anyone spying on me.
What makes me angry GG is the fact you have to do that. Your details shouldn't be passed to anyone without your permission - but they do it anyway.
Gilly -you're right about not pressing any button. I do that as well. Again- ridiculous that we should all have to jump through hoops just to get some basic service from a semi literate person.
And as for that b****y 'Greensleeves'......if I have to hear it once more.....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
A friend advised using a hotmail e-mail address to give to companies when he was suspicious that he wouldn't be able to get rid of them. If it gets too bad just close it & open another.
Many years ago a cousin ordered a cookery book, part of a series but wrote & told them that she didn't want any more. Another was sent, then another until she had the full set. She phoned several times to no avail then wrote to say that the goods were unsolicited & gave them a time limit for collection or would charge them rent (she's a solicitor so has the language!!). They wrote back & said it wasn't worth paying her the postage to return them & she could keep them.
I haven't heard "Greensleeves" for years...........
Sorry to return to this subject, but this morning's rant is the Post Office - again!
The postman has just delivered another pile of junk-mail, most of it the same as delivered over the last two days - in three days I have amassed nearly an inch of paper! With this junk there were several letters, two dated 27th and 28th May - one was to remind me that my car insurance was due to expire on 1st June ( lucky I had renewed elsewhere!)
I know that the argument is that the Post Office need the junk-mail service to help provide a decent postal system, but a decent postal system is not what I'm receiving at the moment. Then the local Council is constantly nagging us to ensure that every last bit of 'our' rubbish is properly sorted - I'm b......d if I'm going to sort out the Post Office rubbish - it's all just gone in the local postbox for them to dispose of!
The bane of my life is Virgin media, every week without fail this large envelope drops through the door with a pile of other rubbish, there is nothing on the envelope to say what it is although properly addressed to me, then on opening I find more half price offers. Having told them I do not have, want, or even need be on the same planet as them they still come, Branson would not be a Virgin long if I get my hands on him, why can they not understand that not everyone thinks them the best thing since caviar ice cream, in fact why should I pay them for even more rubbish programmes than are on TV now. Can we bring back hanging quartering and the roasting of entrails whilst still alive please.
Frank.
@pemtillie.. that is the point thou.. the postal service is getting worse and much more expensive to use.. why? because they dont care about us.. they make money for each piece of junk mail they put thru yr door and the account they have with amazon for delivering hteir post and some of the courier services use them too.. joe public is not their main income anymore.
as i was advised by my postie.. ring your sorting office and request to be removed from the unaddressed junk mail list.. my postie is very happy to have less wieght in his bag. And he said he would get round so much quicker as he doesnt have to go to every damn door in every damn street just to deliver them.