Thursday 18 October 2012

Why are people always trying to sell you things?


I had the rather unpleasant task of speaking with Santander yesterday. I rang just to double check that I am on the best mortgage deal for my circumstances right now and wanted any advice on the options available.

‘Sorry Mr Howard, we aren't allowed to give advice’.

Well, thanks, just tell me what the bloody options are then.

So, after 10 minutes of discovering that my options were limited and useless to me I decided that staying with what I had was the most useful thing I could do, as it costs £900 for me to change onto another deal (I’m not even locked in, that was the admin etc fee.)

Anyway this, done and dusted led my new good friend at the other end of the phone to decide I was ripe pickings for him to try hard sell. So they aren't allowed to give advice but they are allowed to try and sell you products that you don’t want. Go figure, to whose advantage are they working.

So amongst other things, he wanted to sell me a cash back credit card. The conversation goes something like this:

“So, how much do you spend in department stores each month, £100, £150?”

“Nothing”

“You must spend something?”

“No”

“Well I’ll put you down for £30 a month”

“But I don’t spend that”

“Well if you did spend that, this is the cash back amount you would get”

After some time and some calculations later, in which I started making hummus:

“So would you like me to sign you up for the credit card?”

“No thanks”

“You make great cash back on things you buy”

“But I don’t really buy much”.

I wouldn’t mind so much if I had actually phoned up about that. Poor man, he should have quit while he was ahead with me as my answers became more and more monosyllabic. He gave up when I switched on the blender.

On another note, why oh why oh why does blogger keep on telling me that I have logged out at another location? I’M NOT LOGGED IN ANYWHERE ELSE!

11 comments:

  1. I have one rule dan..... I don't discuss things on the phone..... my blood pressure just cannot cope with the fallout
    as for blogger? bugger only knows..I have been having problems with stats for three weeks now

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    1. It's a good rule. Blogger is a pain in the arse, I don't know what the hell is going on but commenting on people's blogs has become difficult again too.

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  2. I had a similar thing the other week, the Bank asked me to go in and discuss our finances, why I do not know, well I do, but never mind.

    I took in my spread sheet and budget, I bank on line so they know what goes in and out. The manager tried really hard to sell me a personal loan to go on a cruise......well actually OH and I both suffer from sea sickness so it would be a waste of good money......end of conversation, the lady did however change our bank account to one that pays miniscule interest on the balance in the account over £1000, so I gave in gracefully, its better on my money than theirs!!

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  3. I don't know why blogger is playing up for you either. We are currently receiving phone calls to let us know that we have worked in industry and might be hearing impaired! We aren't! She couldn't figure out first of all that she was speaking to my hubby and asked if it was me. He said, no he nor I were hearing impaired. The next day, I answered to the same company, hello is that Mr.? No. Our records show blah, blah, blah! Then your records are incorrect as neither myself nor DB have worked in any kind of industry. We are now waiting to see if they phone back again to say to them, it must be you that has a hearing impairment as you don't seem to understand what is being said to you!

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  4. We usually get some silly phone calls just as we sit down for our dinner. I usually just say that I`m not interested in whatever they want to offer, discuss or sell, and hang up on them promptly. That`s the only way you avoid any hassle.

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  5. The only problem I have with blogger is the new dashboard, it's so slow, and it tells lies. If I want to view my comments list it is always wrong so I have to go to an actual post, where I find there are more comments which are not showing on the list. Bloody pain in the bum.

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  6. That's a great rule that John lives by. Drives me mad when they ring you and do the hard sell, don't they realise I am mature enough to know what I need and perfectly able to make my own decisions about what I buy.

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  7. I'm in the same bank, always get the hard sell if I have to go into my local one...........

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  8. Dan, reference your comment on another blog. You should only be able to buy Borax substitute now as Borax itself, should no longer be available. Substitute works just as well but is way less harmful to life!

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  9. Typical banks, I get fed up with them pushing products I don't want, and refusing me products I do want.

    Don't mind the phone calls so much, even if they are a bloody nusiance sometimes, some of them have really good chat-up lines.

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  10. The ones that get me are people who come to the door, obviously trying(badly) to sell something and their opening salvo is something like,"Are you the owner of the house?" I always say in reply, "Do you own yours?" And then I might ask them how much they earn. Then, while they are figuring out how to answer I just close the door.

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