....and caller ID said it was WHYY, the PBS station. We've been getting these calls every day, sometimes twice a day, because it's fundraising time. We also get fundraising mail just about every week.

So this time I answered to tell them to take me off their call list. Young-ish male voice asks for my husband. I identify myself as "Mrs.", and cheerfully ask to be put on their Do Not Call List.

He stammers...mumbles something about "that may be difficult"...there's some shuffling noises...and then I hear him mocking me in a whiny tone..."I'm Mrs. __ and I wanna be on the don't call list" before click-he hung up on me.

Wellllll.....menopause being what it is, he picked the wrong day to pull that crap. LOL So I e-mailed WHYY and told them about it, along with the exact time of the call and the number that it came from. Got an automated "We can't answer every e-mail" response, figured that was the end of it.

So it was a pleasant surprise to get an e-mail from WHYY yesterday.

"I wanted to thank you for bringing your experience to our attention. I can’t tell you how essential it that we be aware of these types of occurrences. We pay a third party service provider to speak to our members on our behalf and how they represent that relationship is very important to us. Clearly, your interaction with our representative was not acceptable. I can’t apologize enough.

All the calls with our service provider are recorded, so when a complaint (or compliment) comes to our attention, we can listen to the interaction between the agent and our member. This system is supposed to help prevent exactly the type of scenario you experienced. I did listen to the call and I simply don’t know what to say. Please know the agent has been disciplined by the agency.

You have been immediately removed from any future telemarketing campaigns – in essence, WHYY will not be soliciting you for any donations via the telephone, ever again."

Woohoo! What a great response.

TERRIFIC!!! ~ I have found if I complain about <whatever> nicely, I generally get a positive response ~ glad it worked for you too, Chaos ~

Sooz

That po' "representative is now unemployed and homeless... dumpster-diving behind the pizza shop after closing.

That's a great story, Chaos.

I would like to point out that these workers often deal with a lot of angry people and are paid poorly.

That doesn't excuse his behavior.

Maybe he does this all time and Chaos was the first to complain.
Maybe his wife just left him.
Maybe he's a jerk to everybody.
Maybe he hates his job.
Who knows?

I always try to consider the fact that we don't often know why someone acts the way they do.

In any case, cheers to you, Chaos. You did what we should all do when these things happen. And cheers to PBS for taking the steps they did.