Thursday, June 01, 2006

Don't Hang Up!

I am usually very intolerant of telemarketing calls. I try not to be rude, but I always just very quickly say "Iamnotinterestedthankyouverymuch" and hang up. But the other day, for some reason, I stayed on the line a little longer than usual and realized that the caller was really not trying to sell me something and was doing a survey for the MTA. So I decided to answer her questions for 5 minutes, and in exchange they will be mailing me a check for $10! And I'll be entered into a drawing for an even bigger cash prize at some later date, I forget what and when, but who cares.
Anyway, that's the oddest way I've made $10 bucks recently. And let's hope that in some small way, I've also helped improve the New York City transit system.

6 comments:

. said...

I really really hope you receive that $10 check. I say that because I participated in a lengthy telephone survey that lasted over a hour in exchange for a promise of a valuable restaurant coupon book. That coupon book never arrived. I will never again repeat that experience.

Madame X said...

Good point, it's not like I know who to call if I don't get my money!

Anonymous said...

It only happened once for me, but about 15 years ago I answered way more questions than I ever would to someone on the phone. I don't know why either. After about 10 minutes of that, she finished and asked if I would like to take a longer survey and get paid. I don't recall if they said how much. I agreed and took a chance on it. It was maybe 5 miles from home, and the survey took one hour (a ton of survey questions!). At the end they gave me $20. They never called me back (that I recalled), but it was cool when I was making less than that at my regular job.

Anonymous said...

Did you tell them how bad the L train is?

Anonymous said...

Did you tell them how bad the L train is?

Dude said...

Your too tolerant. I just slam the phone down. No response, no comments, just click.

Also I signed up for the no telemarketing list. It really works. I rarely get any telemarketing calls. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time we got a annoying telemarketing call. Even my cell phone as a privacy option where my number does not show on the other persons cell phone. Great service.