Lying Cheating Sales People

I am so sick of telesales people who lie to get in the door. This morning we got a call from a telesales rep at Chester Ross claiming to be following up on our toner cartridge order. FYI Cherster Ross is in Toronto, we are in Ottawa, and we deal with a local office supply store.

She said she was “just following up on a call you made about your toner cartridge order”

Now, technically there are at least 2 things wrong with this (as well as the lie!):

(1) The word just is a bad word to use in sales because it’s meaningless and weak

(2) She startes with “I” which is a no-no for any sales professional

(3) It’s a lie. We never made that call. So unless they bought a customer list from our vendor in Ottawa…. we never called them

Its always a bad idea to lie to a prospect on the phone. In this case they were trying to trick Casey into thinking that she had a relationship with them. Thankfully Casey is smart enough to know that this was a trap and Chester Cross is now blacklisted from our vendor list. In our office, when it comes to lying sales people its a one strike you’re out rule!

This case reminded me of a scam from many years ago when I was at Enterprise. Our branches were getting calls form a company – also in Toronto coincidentally – asking them to confirm their mailing address for a fax toner order that was placed. The branch manager or employee, thinking that head office had oprdered the toner confirmed the address and the order was shipped – with an invoice that was 3X the regular price. It only happened once and the company was never able to sell t Enterprise again.

Seriously is lying to get a 1 time order worth it when it bans you from life from selling to the company ever again? Only if you are a scam artist.

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” – Colleen