cold calling bastards!

[rmd]

if you have a chance to do business with the benoit real estate group in somerville, i suggest not doing so. they just cold-called me offering a "free" market analysis of my home.

Comments

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Sugah, I get that stuff all the time. Call it the downside of being a homeowner who's either a)got a decent amount of equity or b)in an expanding market. It's annoying but it should make you feel good about the value of your home, if the dickey bugs are scenting something tasty.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh god yeah, i get a handful of things via snail mail every week. it's the cold-calling that cheesed me off. (that'll teach me to work from home...)

[cz_unit]

What, do they sell it out from under you?

Chris

[rmd.livejournal.com]

no, just interrupt my day with a telemarketing call. fuckers.

[cz_unit]

Ok. Apparently in Nigeria people will literally "sell" your house without your knowledge. Real riot.

CZ

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh, yeah, i've heard of that scam.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

That is stock standard for realtors everywhere.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

i've never gotten a cold-call before. just a variety of pamphlets, brochures, and handwritten-yet-misspelling-my-name envelopes containing letters.

[johnromkey.livejournal.com]

If you're on the National Do Not Call List then they've just broken the law... report'em.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yep. i did that right after i hung up with them.

[sixdeaftaxis.livejournal.com]

Then call their competitors and ask them for a free market analysis, and explain that you are calling them specifically because they don't engage in telemarketing sleaze. By the way, those free market analyses are just that. They measure your house, do a bunch of research on comparable home sales, and tell you how much they think it would sell for.

When I was selling my house in Watertown, I got a brochure offering me the service. I called the realtor and told him A) I wanted to take him up on the offer, and B) I was going to sell my house myself if that made a difference. He was quite friendly, and not only did the comp study, but brought over all the forms I would need to sell the house myself. The only sales pitch he made was to say if I didn't sell it myself he hoped I'd give him a call. I priced the house a few thousand above his optimistic price point, had an open house, and got an offer at my asking price (this was in 1999).

[aram-fingal.livejournal.com]

If you work from home and have your phone number on any business cards or anything like that, they would be able to get away with this. I don't know what you do, so I have no idea if that is the case. But if you use your phone line for business and this is known publicly in any way, they can't be fined for calling you.

Being in a business (insurance) where I do from time to time call people I really like the do not call list. If I want to do follow up calls with people I have just sent mailings out to, I can run all the numbers through the list, and find out who doesn't want people to call them. (which by the way, is almost everyone) I assume that the people who aren't on the list don't mind getting calls. (and beleive it or not, there are actually people like this) I used to hate calling people, because most people just got really pissed off. Now I don't mind it some much because most of the people I talk to don't mind, and the ones that do, I can just add them to the DNC list.

I still think political fundraisers should have to respect the list too. And really, to be fair, chairities should too. Or maybe have different "levels".