Bye-Bye Ads

Since no one has clicked on any of the Google ads for going on two months now, I've dropped them entirely. I've been considering the move for a while, but Google finally changed its policy on payments so I could get paid. Until recently, Google would pay out on the ads after my account balance reached $100. Considering that I was averaging 4 cents a day, that was going to take a while. By the new policy, they'll pay any balance over $10 when the account is terminated, so I can cancel my participation and get the cool $10.85 I've earned since I started this back in October. It is nice to know, though, that I've been generating around 45 page views a day lately, and that's without having blogged about telemarketers in a while. Traffic always seems to spike whenever I post about how to get your credit card company to stop calling you to offer credit protection insurance.

However, now that we're on the subject, here's a few hints from someone on the other end of those annoying calls (though I would like to stress again that I don't sell anything):
1. It's OK to just interrupt the caller and say you're not interested. We don't take offense. As a rule, I don't get anything from someone who just calls me up, either.
2. If you're not interested, just say you're not interested. I don't believe the excuses anyway.
3. The people manning the phones probably don't have a clue where the company gets its lists from. My call lists literally just appear out of the ether. I can take you off mine, but unfortunately I can't do much to help you track down where the leak is from.
4. Saying you are dead doesn't get you any further removed from the list than a polite request to be removed.
5. Being hostile isn't any more effective, either. And whistles or air horns can cause permanent physical damage to the operator's ears. Is getting someone to hang up really worth maiming them?
6. We know you're not just sitting by the phone waiting for someone to call and pitch you something. I take it as a given that if I manage to get a human on the phone, I've interrupted something that is probably, at the moment, more important to you than a pitch for life insurance.
7. Getting a person who is downright nice to me on the phone actually makes my day, even if he doesn't want what I offer.