OT: How to stop UltraDNS sales people calling
Hi, I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product. We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it). I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling. He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person. In the interest of Anglo-American relationships - any Neustar people on list willing to help ?
Get the guys direct number and start calling him all day. Direct marketers/debt collectors really hate it when you call them at work and bug them.. :) Andy Davidson <andy@nosignal.org> wrote: Hi, I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product. We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it). I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling. He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person. In the interest of Anglo-American relationships - any Neustar people on list willing to help ? --------------------------------- Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jon Lyons wrote:
Get the guys direct number and start calling him all day. Direct marketers/debt collectors really hate it when you call them at work and bug them.. :)
Or give them a premium rate number that they can call that goes to permanent holding pattern... - -- COO Entanet International T: 0870 770 9580 http://www.enta.net/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFbFtlR+KszLBLUT8RAg3ZAKCKEFTt8xMKNAJqs5Pfu/N45r919ACgpWyQ 8ZpqbzZ7gAtjZu4tz4N31ss= =t58h -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
here i am replying to an offtopic post. what's the world coming to? andy@nosignal.org (Andy Davidson) writes:
I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product.
every month or two somebody will ask me "does BIND really drop 20% of all queries it receives?" and i say, "um, no, why do you ask?" and the answer is always "that's what the ultradns salesman told me." i can't argue with their success, but i guess i am ready to quibble over their manners. -- Paul Vixie
Paul Vixie wrote:
every month or two somebody will ask me "does BIND really drop 20% of all queries it receives?" and i say, "um, no, why do you ask?" and the answer is always "that's what the ultradns salesman told me." i can't argue with their success, but i guess i am ready to quibble over their manners.
Hi Paul, just curious, someone over at UltraDNS called and told me my own bind server is dropping 20% of queries. Can you please explain to me how did they log into my systems? -- ==================================================== J. Oquendo http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x1383A743 sil . infiltrated @ net http://www.infiltrated.net The happiness of society is the end of government. John Adams
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of J. Oquendo Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:06 PM To: Paul Vixie Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: OT: How to stop UltraDNS sales people calling
Paul Vixie wrote:
every month or two somebody will ask me "does BIND really
drop 20% of all
queries it receives?" and i say, "um, no, why do you ask?" and the answer is always "that's what the ultradns salesman told me." i can't argue with their success, but i guess i am ready to quibble over their manners.
Hi Paul, just curious, someone over at UltraDNS called and told me my own bind server is dropping 20% of queries. Can you please explain to me how did they log into my systems?
Sendmail. Jamie
Hi Paul, just curious, someone over at UltraDNS called and told me my own bind server is dropping 20% of queries. Can you please explain to me how did they log into my systems?
That's nothing. A company in California emailed me a phony report that gave the names and contact info for various Fortune 500 contacts who had visited our web site. For a low low fee, we could install their software and start generating sales leads instantly! Regards, Ken -- Ken Simpson MailChannels Corporation Reliable Email Delivery (tm) http://www.mailchannels.com
On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 16:44 +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product. every month or two somebody will ask me "does BIND really drop 20% of all queries it receives?" and i say, "um, no, why do you ask?" and the answer is always "that's what the ultradns salesman told me." i can't argue with
andy@nosignal.org (Andy Davidson) writes: their success, but i guess i am ready to quibble over their manners.
The volumes are different, but the message is the same when I am called, there's a claim that we are dropping queries because we use bind, but the people on the phone can't explain why. This is a problem when our CTO gets the sales call, as it generates effort explaining that the company are employing scare tactics. Thanks for the volume of offlist replies with some good suggestions, too, everyone - many were very amusing.
Tell them that you have absolutely no interest in doing business with their company now and in the future and that any future calls will be considered harassment. If that doesn't work, explain to them that they have an inferior product to that of their competitors and that you are more likely to utilize their competitors products instead of theirs and if they try to tell you the benefits of their product stop them short and say it doesn't matter if their competitor's product isn't as good, you will use them simply because they don't call you. Or call them a doody face and be done with it. If their number stays the same each call, call block them. That seems to work for me on most telemarketing issues. Greg -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Davidson Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 6:42 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: OT: How to stop UltraDNS sales people calling Hi, I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product. We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it). I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling. He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person. In the interest of Anglo-American relationships - any Neustar people on list willing to help ?
Blacklisting is NO fun! Try searing for Asterisk+Telemarketer+Torture http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Telemarketer+Torture Ryan On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Gregory Taylor wrote:
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:45:23 -0800 From: Gregory Taylor <greg@xwb.com> To: 'Andy Davidson' <andy@nosignal.org>, nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: How to stop UltraDNS sales people calling
Tell them that you have absolutely no interest in doing business with their company now and in the future and that any future calls will be considered harassment. If that doesn't work, explain to them that they have an inferior product to that of their competitors and that you are more likely to utilize their competitors products instead of theirs and if they try to tell you the benefits of their product stop them short and say it doesn't matter if their competitor's product isn't as good, you will use them simply because they don't call you. Or call them a doody face and be done with it.
If their number stays the same each call, call block them. That seems to work for me on most telemarketing issues.
Greg
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Davidson Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 6:42 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: OT: How to stop UltraDNS sales people calling
Hi,
I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product.
We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it).
I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling.
He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person.
In the interest of Anglo-American relationships - any Neustar people on list willing to help ?
Just turn the sales call around and ask them if they want dns and website hosting :) Colin
setup a charge line, ask them if they would be nice enough to call you back on that number so you can conf call it with your supervisor... hold them on the line for a nice 30min and let them pay a nice fee of 10$/min... :) -Payam Colin Johnston wrote:
Just turn the sales call around and ask them if they want dns and website hosting :)
Colin
Hi,
I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product.
We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it).
I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling.
He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person.
In the interest of Anglo-American relationships - any Neustar people on list willing to help ?
I have a very special voice mailbox assigned to a fictional person. Any sales calls get transferred to it. No, I don't monitor it. :-) -- _________________________________________ Nachman Yaakov Ziskind, FSPA, LLM awacs@ziskind.us Attorney and Counselor-at-Law http://ziskind.us Economic Group Pension Services http://egps.com Actuaries and Employee Benefit Consultants
Nachman Yaakov Ziskind wrote:
I have a very special voice mailbox assigned to a fictional person. Any sales calls get transferred to it. No, I don't monitor it. :-)
Said fictitious person in our organization is one Ms. Helen Waite. Telemarketers and the like can all go to Helen Waite. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
I have a very special voice mailbox assigned to a fictional person. Any sales calls get transferred to it. No, I don't monitor it. :-)
Yes, he works here too... Devlin Nuhl.... Good old Dev Nuhl. There are things he is responsible for that even I can't handle. Tuc/TBOH
On Nov 28, 2006, at 3:28 PM, Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET wrote:
I have a very special voice mailbox assigned to a fictional person. Any sales calls get transferred to it. No, I don't monitor it. :-)
Yes, he works here too... Devlin Nuhl.... Good old Dev Nuhl. There are things he is responsible for that even I can't handle.
Tuc/TBOH
We to have a Director of Almost Everything here that is apparently very bad at returning phone calls and is always away from his desk or on the phone :) He is also responsible for our telephone service, and all of the copiers in the office. The funny part is that people now call up and ask to be transferred to Doug Quaid (who sounds a lot like the current governor of California). If you get really bored there are some good sound boards out there that are quite amusing. "I have a couple of questions, and I want them answered immediately" is a person fav. -Patrick -- Patrick Muldoon Network/Software Engineer INOC (http://www.inoc.net) PGPKEY (http://www.inoc.net/~doon) Key ID: 0x370D752C Host System Not Responding, Probably Down. Do you want to wait? (Y/N)
Andy Davidson wrote:
Hi,
I am really fed up of calls from UltraDNS - we seem to get them every few days. We don't need their product.
We've tried saying no, and additionally we've tried putting people on hold indefinitely, trying to be enough of a nuisance to drop off their sales call list (works with UK telcos - try it).
I just had a guy on hold for 18 minutes before taking him off hold to say that we didn't want their product, and could he please stop calling.
He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person.
It sounds like Jane Barbe is the right person. Capture their caller ID, set your asterisk dialplan to forward to (or play a recording of) the intercept announcement of your choice. Or if UltraDNS has a toll-free number, letting them eat their own excrement for a while can be fun. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Levine wrote:
He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person.
Next time, try asking for the name and phone number of his boss, so you can call and report what an excellent job he's doing.
and then setup your asterisk box to forward all calls from his number to his boss via the premium rate you just setup... - -- COO Entanet International T: 0870 770 9580 http://www.enta.net/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFbJ5zR+KszLBLUT8RAnnWAJ9q4gVwUZaH6UHJ/rFKo3e+cgGYJwCeNQmT U3qunlhL+rbCsr97cdErcbU= =9FlE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, James Blessing wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
John Levine wrote:
He told me he would still calling until he got through to the right person. I am the right person.
Next time, try asking for the name and phone number of his boss, so you can call and report what an excellent job he's doing.
and then setup your asterisk box to forward all calls from his number to his boss via the premium rate you just setup...
Okay, this was fun and I am all for OT fun. But can we please stop putting down a part of our community? Especially one which contributes to NANOG so much? We all have sale trolls to live with. Gadi.
On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 05:56:19PM -0600, Gadi Evron wrote:
Okay, this was fun and I am all for OT fun. But can we please stop putting down a part of our community? Especially one which contributes to NANOG so much?
We all have sale trolls to live with.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that the put-downs are a bit excessive (I laughed more than once :-) ), but I disagree with the "sale trolls" comment. UltraDNS's sales staff *does not* have to behave like this. "Guerrilla" marketing is not an effective way of selling a product, nor does it help establish an initial "good impression" of a vendor, regardless of who they are, or what their track record is. In fact, at least when it comes to me, the less aggressive a salesman is, the better chance he/she has of selling me whatever it is they're selling. (In general, they're best off not contacting me in any way, instead letting me come to them if I spawn interest in their services.) Based purely on the OP's description, it sounds as if UltraDNS is bordering on unsolicited telemarketing. This should really be reported to both someone within UltraDNS's mid-tier or upper management; their sales tactic reflects very badly on the company as a whole (this entire NANOG thread is proof of that; chances are many of us now have a lesser opinion of UltraDNS than we did prior to the initial post). If that doesn't work, it's time to talk to the FCC, who may do nothing. But they would be more than willing to tell you if there have been previous complaints about UltraDNS's solicitations. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |
Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 05:56:19PM -0600, Gadi Evron wrote:
Okay, this was fun and I am all for OT fun. But can we please stop putting down a part of our community? Especially one which contributes to NANOG so much?
We all have sale trolls to live with.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that the put-downs are a bit excessive (I laughed more than once :-) ), but I disagree with the "sale trolls" comment.
UltraDNS's sales staff *does not* have to behave like this.
Agreed. When I get such calls, the first question I ask is, "Is this a sales call?" If I get an honest "Yes", I'm somewhat more inclined to continue the conversation. If the first thing a salesperson tells me is a lie, game over. Similarly, any company that spams me selling network equipment or connectivity is clearly way beyond stupid and not one with which I would ever consider doing business. Yes, this thread is OT to a large extent, but we are network operators. Many of us have sales staff. Educating our own sales people on what not to do is a step towards noise reduction, albeit out-of-band noise as far as this forum is concerned. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
On Nov 28, 2006, at 6:56 PM, Gadi Evron wrote:
Okay, this was fun and I am all for OT fun. But can we please stop putting down a part of our community? Especially one which contributes to NANOG so much?
We all have sale trolls to live with.
Like someone else said, I both agree and disagree. I agree that the OT thread has probably gone on long enough. I disagree with your implied assertion that because "[UltraDNS] contributes to NANOG so much" that they deserve a bye. Scummy business practices are scummy business practices. Period. Full-stop. Just because they contribute to an organization doesn't mean that the organization should feel obligated to keep quiet about their misdeeds. It may very well be a "rogue" within their organization causing the problem, but if they're that involved in NANOG then someone is probably being crucified as we speak, and maybe they'll chime in with their side of the story about how they've corrected the problem. If they haven't, then, frankly, this less-than-flattering portrayal of UltraDNS is not entirely undeserved. Cheers, D -- Derek J. Balling Manager of Systems Administration Vassar College 124 Raymond Ave Box 0406 - Computer Center 217 Poughkeepsie, NY 12604 W: (845) 437-7231 C: (845) 249-9731
participants (20)
-
Andy Davidson -
Colin Johnston -
Derek J. Balling -
Gadi Evron -
Gregory Taylor -
J. Oquendo -
James Blessing -
Jamie Bowden -
Jay Hennigan -
Jeremy Chadwick -
John Levine -
Jon Lyons -
Ken Simpson -
Nachman Yaakov Ziskind -
Patrick Muldoon -
Paul Vixie -
Paul Vixie -
Payam -
Ryan A. Krenzischek -
Tuc at T-B-O-H.NET