Litebulb ripoff?

I ask them to hang on then come back and ask if they are still there, hang on. Kept this up for a half hour on one. Wife says I have too much time on my hands. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

The next time she says that you should tell her, "I could be playing my stupid jokes on you, instead." ;-)

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:04:11 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Gerald Miller quickly quoth:

I have a couple of idiots who call on a regular basis and won't take no for an answer. I should use that on them. One guy cusses me out for not buying, if you can believe that. Of course, that's the one which has a bogus caller ID so I can't report him.

Yeah, I'll keep that turkey on the line as long as I can.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:10:03 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Bruce L. Bergman quickly quoth:

I got a dozen of the dimmable CFLs off eBay last year for $24 delivered. I've been using 7 of them daily and there have been no dropouts (like the 3 Feit bulbs I got last year) so far. They even work in lamp home automation modules, but they do flash a wee bit all night. Off current is a fluctuating portion of 1 watt due to the cycling of the inductive bounce through the cheap lamp module. I only have one on a lamp module. The rest are either hard-switched or are behind relays via appliance modules.

Note the exact time he calls, and request the phone company to tell you where the call really came from. If you are on the Do not call list, and in the US, you can file charges with the state attorney general's office. Record the call, if you can. Or just tell him you record all calls, and that you are going to report him. :)

When I was working turd shift, these jerks ignoring the do not call list really cut into my sleep. I have to leave the phone on, mom and uncle are not all that young.

Oh, and when you get x or something, note separate shipping and handling as in instead of one box with 5 in it, 5 boxes each billed out separately. Another part of the scam.

I think an open season on telemarketers should run from January to December. They are nothing but scum.

Wes

er. =A0They are

I got an automated call about credit cards, punched one, and told the kid that answered that I was on the Do Not Call list.

He said " good for you. I wish I could be on the do not call list ".

I hate telemarketing, but suspect most of the people are just trying to get by.

Dan

Agreed. I don't see the point in giving some poor shmuck who'd rather be doing something else to make a buck a hard time. On the other hand, this is awfully funny without being too mean spirited:

Indeed. Those are the only ones my Dad ever bought for the homestead and his business

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:32:52 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, Wes quickly quoth:

Bullpuckey. Didn't you have a neighbor who could answer your daytime emergency calls and wake you if necessary? Turn the phone off and get a good night's sleep, people! (Yeah, I know it's too late for you, Wes, but others might learn if they're now in the same boat.)

Amen. Let's put telemarketers, missionaries, and lawyers on 365 day open seasons.

The dimable CFL integrated lamps are a crap-shoot - and make sure they are a 'second generation' design, The 'first generation' dimable CFL's AIUI had a habit of catching fire, which is bad...

I was talking more the dedicated fixture dimmers for F40T12 and F32T8 lamps. (Among others, but those are the workhorse sizes.)

And even with the new ones you have to gang-change the lamps and burn them in at full brightness for 100 hours before dimming.

-->--

All depends. In a sign or somewhere you need to rent a lift to get to, and they are used every night all night, I would gang change. They all have 12,000, 15,000 hours on them.

Unless you were just there last month and one died - then you don't gang change. This is why you carry a Sharpie and date the lamps.

For tennis courts that don't get constant usage, then you change individually. The variation in lamp life can mean years of extra life left for the lamps at the high end of the bell curve if they only get lit for 10 hours a month. And those 1KW MH lamps are $40 or more.

For offices that just take a 6' ladder, do the whole fixture at once. Or at worst the whole room at once if they are on one switch. But I usually give the customer a 15-second explanation of the options and offer them a choice.

-->--

Good. That's the kind of answer I expected from you. :)

The id10T I was dealing with was doing supermarkets & retail stores. I was looking for 50 or more used 8' tubes for an old warehouse. I had two working fixtures, and was converting the building into a TV station. The ceiling was over 25 feet, and the bulbs only had to last about 150 to 200 hours. I didn't want to buy new bulbs, then rip the lights out a couple months later when the studio lighting gear arrived.

Other parts of the country I'd worked, i could pick up working pulls for a dollar or two per box. Some relamping services would give you up to five dozen, for free.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: There was no brand name on them but they were marked

If they really are Krypton-filled, they might be worth the price. See if you can find somebody who buys old Krypton-filled bulbs. That stuff is QUITE expensive.

We have the same outfit here in MO, "Lifeline Industries", sells the same KRAP bulbs and trash bags for the same outrageous prices. I hang up on them now, after buying ONCE many years ago.

Jon

Stop right there.

That scam is older than anyone reading this.

Do you also buy brooms "made by the handicapped" from door-to-door guys?

Don't be a chump.

I used to have an Oriental who kept calling for Gerard Miller (rather than Gerald) and kept working on him to get him to pronounce the "L" He wanted to sell me a service plan on my furnace since he already had a service plan on my rental water heater. I argued that there was no service plan but he insisted that it was included in the rental, "then why haven't you serviced it in over twenty years?" "Oh, you mean the furnace plan is free also?" I kept giving him such a hard time he finally gave up. Appearance of stupidity can be an asset in dealing with these A**holes. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

An accusation of harassment sometimes works well. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Before the 'do not call list' I got 45 calls from a telemarketer for a local HVAC company in less than a week. I told her that f the calls didn't stop, I would have my retired friends call their office all day long with questions, tying up all their phone lines and keeping real customers from getting through. She yelled, That's harassment! I told her she had been harassing me, and that if I got one more call, she would find out what harassment was really like.

Sometimes screaming at them that you are disabled, and they woke you after the only five minutes of sleep you've had in days, scares them enough to keep them from calling back.