Slashdot Mirror
ABC Ads Target Answering Machines?
Nerftoe writes "ZDTV an article about
automated phone calls to promote its Friday lineup of shows. The odd thing is, ABC doesn't want to talk to humans. They just want to leave their message on your answering machine. What if I real person answers the phone, you ask? That's right, the automated system simply hangs up." I'm not in one of the markets that is doing this, but I have a personal policy of boycotting any business that tele-solicits me. (course the only show on ABC I actually watch is Who's Line is it Anyway, but since Comedy Central airs the much funnier sans-drew English version several times a day anyway, I don't consider that a huge loss either).
Yes $500 - easy money!
It's not like the answering machine can watch TV - why try and convince it to? That must be ABC's target audience, since humans have a tendency to do one of two things when they get an ad on their answering machine, either:
A: fast forward through the message. Newer machines just let you skip with a single button push.
B: Get so angry at this blatant waste of time and invasion of personal space that they actively avoid the ABC network, even if it means skipping Regis.
This makes no sense at all. Anyone who'd be influenced positively by an answering machine ad is probably too stupid to own and operate a machine in the first place, and accordingly has a job that pays so bad they can't afford any of the crap that gets advertised on ABC to begin with.
Hell, most systems only work when a human answers, they don't hang up. The only people who should be considering running answering machine ads for ABC are the other networks. If NBC ran ads for ABC that way, they'd be so pissed at ABC they might well skip their Regis fix.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I've been using this technique for years now - nobody on the line when I pick up, hang up. Why don't more people do this? Or why don't people learn that it's OK to interrupt a telemarketer's spiel with a kind "thank you, not interested" then hang up? Or just hang up when you feel like it? I think we need to offer Senior Citizens "telephone rudeness" classes to counteract the years of polite telephone etiqutte they have been brought up with that makes them so susceptible to these telemarketers!
The only problem I've had with the no-answer technique is with people calling from overseas (well, people I want to talk to). Sometimes there is a slight delay at the beginning of the connection, but you can usually tell because there is a bit more line noise than from a telemarketer.
Now that I think about it, even more annoying than those delayed telemarketers are the calls from machines that actaully tell you "please hold for an important message". Jeez, ok, you called me and you expect me to wait on hold as soon as I pick up? Right.
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
Haha.. I make myself laugh.. Try this:
The answering machine is big in the city where I live..
wishus
---
Right, but it does leave messages.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Couldn't ABC make the argument that the population of the USA has an established business relationship with them based simply on the fact that everyone has watched ABC at some point? They make money by selling our eyeballs, so if we give them our eyes to sell, that sounds like a business relationship to me!
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
After the first five seconds, I hang up, trusting that if it's someone I want to talk to, they'll call back.
If you pick up the phone and hear "Please hold" you are advised to hang up as it is either telemarketing or someone to whom you owe money.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
*ahem*
Anyway, it's really getting out of hand and we need to do some legislation to make these calls much more scarce.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Linux would be a great solution, but the reason I got this caller ID box instead of the rest was that it wsa the cheapest. (It also didn't have those anoying red LED's that blink each time you get a call, man, those things really get anoying. It had the largest LCD display also. It wasn't small, but not to big. I'll post the name of it tomorrow. :-)
--Brandon
Many people in this discussion have been talking about telemarketers hanging up on them Now, IANAL, so I won't get into the legality of hanging up, but I can shed some light the software that many telemarketers use. A predictive dialer works like this:
List of number is input/imported.
Dialer dials each number, really really fast.
If there is an answer, the dialer connects the call to one of the telemarketers. This is why, often there is a one or two second delay from when you say hello, and when the telemarketer starts in.
If the dialer get a connection and there isn't a telemarketer ready to take the call, i.e. they are all on the phone, the dialer hangs up and will try the call again later.
Annoying, but the good predictive dialers can call tens of thousands of numbers an hour. Somehow the dialers is hooked straight into the PBX and can dial the numbers at amazing rates. My $.02 worth.
Pair up in threes. - Yogi Berra
Before you call the number on yer Caller ID display and start venting, consider this:
Where I work there are maybe, I dunno, a thousand people in the building. When someone, anyone, picked up the phone on their desk and dialed an outside number, the number that showed up on the target's caller ID was the number to the receptionist. Who had to handle a good number of irate calls - "WHY DID YOU CALL ME?!?" - from people who simply wouldn't listen to the facts that it could have been anyone in the building.
As it turns out, we just told the phone co to block ID to save the trouble. Too bad - because I'd love to block anonymous calls with my nifty little Radio Shack Caller ID F-You Box, but I can't afford to miss a call from The Boss.
The lesson: The number you call back may not be the number that placed the call.
There's always time for politeness!
- Politenessman
US West has a solution for these and pretty much any solicitation calls. They call it "No Solicitation." Basically, you sign up for the service and when someone calls you, they get a soothing female voice telling you that your number does not accept solicitations and to put it on their do-not-call lists. Then they get a choice of pushing 1 or staying on the line and my phone rings. You can add numbers to a list that don't get the message, so your friends and family don't have to type 1 every time they call you. Since getting this service about a month ago, I've gotten zero phone solicitations. The only down side is that I have to pay money to be left alone, which I find kind of repugnant.
No, I don't work for US West. I actually don't particularly like them.
Tytso dun said:
ObDisclaimer: IANAL. I do not even pretend to be a lawyer on the Internet. Your mileage may vary considerably.
At least here in Kentucky, this type of sillybuggers would be illegal on at least two counts:
possible telephone harassment (as in calling, and as soon as a live human picks up, disconnecting--this is different from "predictive dialing" which is the cause of most hangups with telemarketers (basically, nobody available to take the call when your phone number gets rang)
A nifty provision in Kentucky's telemarketing law that prohibits nearly all recorded telemarketing announcements (you have to put a live human on the phone within ten seconds if the company doesn't have a prior business relationship with you, and in all cases you have to provide a number that may be called to be added to a do-not-call list).
Conceivably, you could prolly even get them on federal telemarketing laws for providing no easy way to be added to a do-not-call list and in fact doing everything they can to avoid do-not-call requests (many courts would be likely to see the fact they hang up the snecking phone when a live human picks it up as a deliberate attempt to avoid following federal telemarketing regs, and may even see it as prima facie evidence of "willful" disregard--read: $1500 per offence if you sue in small claims court).
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
I did this before I got CallerID and it seemd to work. Everyone I know will usually acknowledge your "hello" within a second or two if they are a friend or relative. If not, then they will call back again and you can assume that it's someone you know. A telemarketer will usually not re-call again right away, and if they do then you definitely need to flame them...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
>
> The problem is that the phone company turns around and offers a service to businesses: blocked anonymous call rejection override. That way, the businesses that pay the fee can still get through.
>
> They need to start selling is a blocked anonymous call rejection override override.
Why? So we can pay the phone company more to prevent marketers - whose harassment the phone companies already endorse by selling them ACR overriding services - from harassing us?
Why? So that after we've paid (twice!) for protection from harassment, the phone company can then sell ACR-override-override-override ability to the goddamn telemarketers, putting us right back where we started?
Fuck that. What we need is legislation such as the ballot initiative currently going around in California that would ban telemarketing altogether, thereby stopping the problem at its source.
Call rejection isn't the scam. The real scam is the fact thet the phone company makes a small fortune selling weapons to the combatants on both sides of the ongoing privacy arms race.
Another favourite trick is:
"I'm not trying to sell you anything but would you mind answering a few questions?"
"Umm. OK." (Big Mistake)
"If we were to offer you a whatever it is with a 30% discount, would you be interested?"
Of course the biggest offenders here in SF, CA are the political campaigns, both Democrat and Republican. I remember getting LOTS of Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown, et al. recorded messages last fall when the SF mayor's race was on. I'm sure the Repubs do the same thing in Orange County (say). If CA had this law, or similar federal law were in effect, the campaigns would face some very severe liability!
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
"Half the scientists in the universe were working on jamming the Electronic Thumb's signals, and the other half were working on jamming the jamming signals..."
--Phil (I, personally, have never before heard of "blocked anonymous call rejection override".)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
....
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--Hey Doctor Jones! No time for love!
It's also amazing how often I'll get hangup phone calls from telemarketers. Grr...
Can you imagine what would happen if lots of companies started using this terrible waste of technology? Right now, I get at least twice as much spam as I do real email. What would happen if all of a sudden people were getting twice as many spam phone calls (hang-ups / answering machine messages) as they were real phone calls?
I don't really see why ABC would be choosing such a low brow way of advertising, anyway. It feels as wrong as Apple advertising a new product through "forward this to everyone on your list" icq messages.
--
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
In he State of Texas, it is illegal to make a phone call without the intention of talking. Just my 2cents.. AC
Damn. Lots of modem users are about to be arrest in Texas.
-d9
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Ok, if you really want to stick it to the poor schlub doing that job, then go ahead and waste his time - 'cause you are making him lose money. That's fair enough, since they did actually call you, but realize who, exactly, you are getting your revenge on! I feel sorry for those dudes, so I just hang up (sometimes I even politely say "no thank you" in the middle of their jabbering, but sometimes not)
One guy I know just says hello then sets the phone down in front of the TV just to see how long they keep talking to nobody in particular.
A former boss of mine who is Korean thought he would outsmart them by only speaking Korean - of course they immediately switched him to a Korean-speaking telemarketer! (I think it was one of those long-distance companies, so maybe that's not so much of a surprise).
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
If you can't talk to a real person then how do you get your name removed so you don't get any more solicitations? Doesn't this go against the FCC's 1995 Telemarketing Sales Rules?
Two wrongs don't make a right, three lefts do!
And why is it again that you actually wait for them to switch you to a live person? Just hang up!
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
ABC Backs Away From Using Voice Mail to Promote Lineup
I think this is an excellent suggestion. Now how do we get the government to support this idea?
Something else I've noticed is that you can with about 99% accuracy detect a telemarketing call by the delay of their inital response. When you answer the phone and say "Hello" it usually takes a second for them to respond. Next time you get a telemarketing call, take note of this... if the person on the other end doesn't initially respond as quick as a normal caller would, odds are good it's a telemarketer. And I have a one sound answer to those calls.... "click."
"Say no more..." - Monty Python
Years ago, I witnessed my best friend tell an MCI drone that he didn't need to change his long distance service because he didn't have a phone. You could almost hear the wheels turning inside the telemarketer's head during the pause that insued. It was great!
I've been getting this stuff for a couple of weeks now. I've never gotten a message on my voice mail, but it does seem to be some automated thing calling me and hanging up.
I can't stand this kind of crap. I live and work not too far from L.A., something like this on my answering machine would have me finding ABC here in town and giving them what for. It's bad enough when automated telemarketing systems call me and expect me to listen to a recording.
What idiot moderated the parent to this thread down as "off-topic"? If the fool had read the story, they would have seen that the last sentence read "(course the only show on ABC I actually watch is Who's Line is it Anyway, but since Comedy Central airs the much funnier sans-drew English version several times a day anyway, I don't consider that a huge loss either). "
The parent thread discusses the English version. The parent thread discusses the ABC version. The main thrust of the story is about telemarketers, but the story also opens up other discussions too.
So moderate me down too. Ignorant pigs!
You can get nice new digital answering machines with good clarity :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Yet another possible abuse of DMCA.... I LIKE IT!!! Seriously, though, I am sure you can find a whole slew of laws to apply against this, and with caller id or call trace enabled, I'm sure you could make money off of lawsuits for a while until people wisened up.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
This is no longer the case. According to my New York Times on the 22nd, "ABC has backed away from a controversial plan to use sitcom stars like Norm MacDonald to promote its fall lineup by leaving taped messages on the home answering machines of viewers." I'm sure there's a copy available on the online NY Times archive, for a fee. :P ABC was facing a tremendous backlash, and changed their minds about this being a good idea. There may still be references available at the New York Times. The funniest promotional idea for ABC, however, can be found in the bathroom.
Do something about world hunger. Click here
Hello, this is Homer Simpson, a.k.a. Happy Dude. The court has ordered me to call every person in town to apologize for my telemarketing scam. I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to Sorry Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power.
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"It was people! People soiled our green!"
MUCH funnier... *shrug*
Just goes to show how people's tastes differ.
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
I'm pretty sure something like this could be argued as illegal in the DMCA, but IANAL, so I haven't a clue as to where to start.
I also seem to remember some federal statute regarding fax machines and the such and transmission of unsolicited advertisement on them. Maybe this can be used to combat ABC. Any takers?
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Was it a short, kinda roundish guy, covered in white fur and had large, floppy ears? He also has an affinity for using a switchblade.
Yeah, I think this is the guy.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
I got a telemarketer in trouble for violating two rules:
Must be a human who makes the call, and only switches to a recording when the recipient agrees to listen to it. This guy had a war dialer.
Must disconnect when the recipient disconnects. This is to allow someone to hang up and call 911 if necessary. This idiot's machine kept the line tied up for several minutes.
To make it short, I left my name and asked for a callback, then had a zillion reasons for being busy, until he finally gave me his number. Then a quick call to Pac Bell, who refused to do anything, and a call to the state PUC, who straightened them out.
--
Infuriate left and right
/joeyo
2^5
I have only a mobile phone anymore, so I no
longer get to do this, but, back in the day,
when I'd get a telemarketer calling, I'd
SIMPLY INITIATE PHONE SEX!!!
Ask the telemarketer what they're wearing.
Ask them to take it off very slowly...
etc...
Funny as hell!
That's why they're hanging up when a human answers the phone!
It's illegal to have a machine dial up and play a recorded spiel. It's easy to prove it if you live in a state that allows a single party to tape a phone call with or without the consent of the other party. A taped call with a spiel that drones on and on despite repeated queries of "Hello? Are you a human or a recording?" is pretty damning evidence that it's a robo-dialer.
But it's much harder to prove that the message on your answering machine was generated by a machine. Telemarketers can, have, and will continue to, perjure themselves on the stand by saying "Yes, that message was left by a live human", thereby turning the burden of proof on the person charging them under the TCPA.
Yet more reason why the entire industry should be outlawed.
Of course, you could just add "If this is a phone solictation, please remove me from your calling list" to your answering machine message.
All these marketers want to get peoples attention. Why don't they pay homeless people to urinate from the top of tall buildings onto the crowds below then hold up billboards. That'll get people to really look and get your name out there. It won't make people much madder either.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
In some states, it's illegal for telemarketers to simply drop the line after someone picks up. After all, it can be quite threatening for someone's phone to ring and then to suddenly drop the connection. For all you know, it might be someone checking to see if you're in before deciding to break into your house.....
I think you mean:
ABC: Finding yet another use for the color yellow.
What's going on? Why is this suddenly *really* bad (as of about a month ago)? I never had such a flood of telemarketing calls before...
Did some sleazy bastard sell his tech stocks and start up a company, and hire a few thousand cheap low-lifes that will annoy anyone for any tiny cost?
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
ABC might have managed to get some of the usual suspects from the original "Whose Line is it Anyway", but Drew Carey is dreadful. Clive Anderson is the probably the reason I like the original so much. I've even seen a few episodes that we were filmed in New York. They were funny, so that rules out the location.
And where do you think they got the list of all their viewer's phone numbers?
You guessed it. Calling the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" 1-800 number! Did you know that you can't block your phone number being relayed to a Toll-Free, 900, or 977 number?
I bet they sell this list to their advertisers too.
~GoRK
I am of the thought that if someone is indeed home, the machine logs the length of time necessary to answer the call, then collates the information for the target market. Otherwise, its a unsolicited "push-type" advert. Id wager that people would listen to the ad over sheer confusion as this wouldnt be the normal type of message one would be used to receiving.
Ok, so we know that ABC has backed off of its plan, but I got to thinking... how would something like this not be considered a Denial of Service? It is essentially preventing you from receiving authorized traffic on that line, not to mention filling up your answering machine with garbage. Is this really that much different from a bunch of people ping -f'ing abc.com? Setting up dialers to call an ABC 800 number?
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
That's why answering machines have a "delete" key...
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
Check the law.
It plainly states:
(b) Restrictions on use of automated telephone equipment
(1) Prohibitions
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States -
(B) to initiate any telephone call to any residential
telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to
deliver a message without the prior express consent of the
called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency
purposes or is exempted by rule or order by the Commission
under paragraph (2)(B);
Hello, this is Signal 11's answering machine. If you are a friend please leave a message after the tone. If you are a bill collector or an advertiser, please leave your message *BEFORE* the tone. If you fail to comply, you will be charged $45 for unauthorized access into this computational device as provided under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which categorizes this device as a protected database of confidential information. Thank you.
The company is called Voice Mail Broadcasting. They are headquartered in Pasadena. Big California cities are really tight with concealed-weapons permits; the scum who runs the outfit almost certainly doesn't have one. Buy the rattan for cash, style your hair funny and wear old clothes. Leave no fingerprints. Post a pointer to the news item, but don't say you had anything to do with it... to anyone. And make all of our days.
HELLO?
(Pause)
HANG ON A SECOND...
(Sound of stomping across the floor. Music stops. Sound of stomping across the floor.)
Hello?
(Pause)
Oh... Well he's not here, and I'm just a machine, so you probably should leave a message. (BEEP)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Telemarketer: Hello, is Mr. Tosh there?
Me: Yes he's here, what is this in relation to?
Telemarketer: We'd like to sell him a...
Me: Ok, I fetch him, just a minute please
Me [leaves receiver off hook, and goes back doing whatever I was doing before]
Me [20 minutes later, after a quick glance at my ISDN logs]: Gee, they are getting stupider day by day: this one stayed 13 minutes!
I sometimes just talk to telemarketers until they beg me to get off the phone.. cause I never buy anything.. I just ask stupid questions and make them waste time... one time a supervisor came on the line and said "Hang up now Tralula" because I had her on there for like 45 minutes..
"I have nothing better to do than talk to telemarketers and complain about slashdot polls"
YouTube & Google Video -> podcast http://castcluster.blogspot.com/
I thought the Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibited pre-recorded advertising messages unless the sender obtained the express permission or consent of the party...
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
I'm sure we'd all love the home phone number of the jag-off at ABC who dreamt this wonderful scheme up. Really, any high level executive's phone number will do. When's the last time someone like this got their telephone slashdotted?
[Phone Rings] Me: Hello? Hello?
[Telemarketer answers] TM: Blah blah buy product blah blah.
Me: Yes, I'm very interested, but I'm quite busy. Hang on one sec, I'll be RIGHT back.
I sit back down to dinner, phone off hook.
Several minutes later, that noise that tells me to hang up the phone starts, so I get up and hang up the phone.
The best part is, the most valuable thing they have is an interested customer, second is time. I make them waste time by pretending to be interested, until they decide I must not be... and eventually they hang up. Try it some time.
Lets slashdot those idiots. Option 1: Go find your local station at: http://abc.go.com/local_stations/ls_home.html Call them. If someone picks them hang-up. Repeat this until you get an answer machine and let that machine know how you really feel about this. Option 2: We all request a webpage from www.abc.com if a webserver answers, hang-up. Repeat 50 Gillizion times. DDOS as a form of justified civil disobedience. Heck, they are setting the precedent.
This gets into the other problem, of course. At least with spammers you can trace headers and nail 'em with their originating ISP. With phonespammers, they generally block their numbers, and the phone companies won't let you find out who they are without a hell of a fight. So finding out whom to charge is damn near impossible, even in the case of egregious violators like the piece of human shit that called me from AT&T - for the third time after I'd explicitly said "Place this number on your do not call list" - and who refused to give me his name (and who hung up immediately!) when I informed him of his violation of TCPA.
Is this true (about it being illegal)?
I only have a cell phone, which is great because 1) PacBell sucks and I no longer give them a monthly check, and 2) I only have one number, so people don't have to chase me around and leave messages all over the place.
The problem is that telemarketers drive me nuts, since other than them, only people I want to talk to have the number. I usually bust them with "This is a cell phone, and you just dragged me out of a meeting with my biggest client," but I would love to have some legal ammo to use when they persist:
Drone: I ... am ... calling ... to ... offer ... you ... a ... valuable... -
Me: Hello? Is this a sales call? This is a cell phone and I just left a meeting with my biggest account because I'm expecting an urgent call.
Drone: I ... understand ... your ... objections ... but ... this ... service ... will ... save ... -
Me: It's already cost me money. Please don't call this number again.
Drone: I ... understand ... your ... objections ... but ... this ... service ...
Me: click.
Cell phone: ring
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
I'm sure with voice recognition etc we can whip something up-
:).
Computer: Hi I'm Eliza.
Marketeer:
C: Does it please you to believe that you're from XXXX and have a great offer for me?
M: Yes!
C: Hmmm....Interesting, could you explain a little bit better?"
M:
C: You seem quite sure!
..
C: I'm actually quite boring, lets talk about you..
And so on
Link.
Probably the beep after the announce message. Seems the most likely method.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
alan.cohen@abc.com already confirmed that they are *NOT* doing this.
You see, prerecorded calls are *ILLEGAL*, in general, under the TCPA. The prospect of $500 minimum statutory damages *PER PERSON* probably stopped them.
Anyway, this is old news, it went through the TCPA lists a few days ago, and it's already dead.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
In the UK anyway we have a law that prohibits making calls "without intent to communicate" to stop people running wardialers searching for modems.
Sounds like quite a similar situation to me.
Like most european countries. Then you see (and your phone equipment too) the source telephone number.
One could program ones equipment to drop any calls from sources that either don't send CLID or that are on a blacklist (or not on a friends-list).
In fact I never answer the phone when I don't see the source phone number (people can block the CLID if they want to; in that case I don't need to talk to them).
When asked if ABC would ever consider voice-mail broadcasting again, Mr. Cohen said: "It's something we're putting aside. Our comfort level was just not there, and I don't think that'll change."
So howls of outrage by potential customers do affect some marketers
I thought the Telecommunications act of '96 made leaving commercial ads on your answering machine illegal? It wasn't _all_ bad ;-)
Channel Four, mate, not the BBC. You may find it hard to believe but we have commercial television in the UK as well.
Oh, shit!
You just gave them another idea....
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
I tend to think that the right approach would be a federal law requiring a working Caller ID number for all telemarketers, with a penalty for violation of $2000 per call. Then Caller ID box makers could add it to their list, or some enterprising soul could create a MAPS RBL equivalent...
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
And I've won $500 claims in courts against people using them. Right now I have to get around to getting a company called Independent Mortgage in Dana Point, CA, which uses one.
I think you should get $1500 but I couldn't convince the smaill claims court commissioner, even though I had documentary evidence the other guy was perjuring himself.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Talking to Norm MacDonald might be cool, but having a recording of Norm talk to a machine recording it is not.
I could understand how it would be cool to meet him face to face, but leaving recordings of Norm Macdonald's voice on people's answer machines is just cruel. Have you people heard his voice? Its sounds like a robot that's being kicked in the nuts.
And more obvious offense if you're like me and pay a small fee per voice mail message received. (i.e., US$.01 for the initial time you listen to the message; free after that). If ABC or any other company were to leave me a commercial voice mail, it seems to me that I'd be able to sue them under the same law that prevents junk faxes.
Anyway, do what I do when companies ask for a phone number: give them your cell number. Why? It's quite illegal for them to call you for commercial purposes---it's a clear shift of the advertising cost to the target rather than the advertiser. If you need to call them, you can still do so through your land line.
Norwest/Wells Fargo ONLY has my cell number; the few times they've called me about "refinancing your mortgage" (okay, I'm a student and have about $7.56 in my checking account...) I simply interrupt and say, "this is a cell phone". As long as I get that out in the first minute (incoming calls, first minute doesn't count against my air time), it's really no problem and has the effect of cascading through "don't bother calling" lists. And I can get telemarketing calls anywhere... class, the bathroom, in my car, at lunch, at work, etc. Quite fun to answer, "This is a cell phone and this is a really inconvient time--I need one hand to hold my book and the other to wipe, after all.)
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
The only downside about getting all of your calls on your cell phone is that there are never answering machine messages to check when you get home. Of course, you're never depressed that you have no messages. Say.. this ABC plan is a good idea. Never come home to an empty answering machine!
Not a bad read. I've got a couple problems with it though.
/. arrive as AC's themselves, or maybe they haven't learned about changing their thresholds, and so they see ALL OF IT. Every last damn word."
/. could just make it so only the spammer saw his postings, then he'd presumably get bored and go away (I don't know how well this would work for ACs on /. though).
/. editors would have time to go through everything and delete the junk. Maybe they could hire someone... Although some people would probably scream bloody murder.
"And, except that all newcomers to
Isn't the default threshold at 1 for ACs?
I don't agree that everything below 2 is crap. There are some good posts that remain as 0s and 1s. They're just not as interesting/insightful/etc. as other posts. Moderators do tend to catch the spam and mod it down to -1. So all spam ends up as -1. I do agree that this is wasting moderation points and also discourages people from reading at -1 (and seeing badly modded posts).
A little revision wouldn't hurt. Not that I'm doing anything to fix the spam problem. It'd be cool if
Kuro5hin.org has a no tolerance stance on spam. Freedom of speech != spam. Don't know if the
I unwittingly managed to create a Telemarketer Trap using my answering machine. My message is a very quick "Leave a message after the tone".
The device that calls poor unsuspecting rubes during their dinner will first ensure that someone picked up the phone and said something. Then it tries to connect a telemarketer to that line, but it usually takes about 3 seconds (which is longer than my message). The net result is that the telemarketer gets to hear the sound of my answering machine recording a message.
I get about 2 messages a week consisting of "Hello? Hello? Helllloooooooooo?"
I get great satisfaction out of wasting their time, for a change.
Due to a backlash, ny New York Times reported on the 22nd, "ABC has backed away from a controversial plan to use sitcom stars like Norm MacDonald to promote its fall lineup by leaving taped messages on the home answering machines of viewers.". The article can probably still be found at the New York Times for a fee. The funniest promotional idea of theirs, though, can be found in the bathroom.
Do something about world hunger. Click here
Why not ban unsolicited commercial direct marketing? What would happen?
Well, the US Post Office would get an exemption on the grounds that junk mail subsidises other mail (or at least it should; I'm not sure if it's really not the other way around).
For phone, fax, and email direct marketing, a new business would be created. Consumers would get paid to opt-in. You could fill out a marketing demographic survey, and then you would get a credit on your phone bill paid for by the direct marketers who called you.
With opt-in systems, consumers get paid for putting up with advertising. Those who don't want the advertising pay their own way. This is already happening with ISPs. This is also how TV works (you can get free TV with ads, or premium/rental services without).
--
You are a fucking moron.
I've found that people trying to sell phone long distance are a great source of amusement. Asked how many long distance calls I make, I tell them none, cause I don't have any friends. "Will you be my friend. PLEEEEEEEASSSEEEEEE. We can go to hockey games any everything. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEE EEEEE."
I suggest everyone on Slashdot, when called by a telemarketer, say "I'm sorry, I can't buy X because of turnip", and then hang up.
You have to think telemarketers will get confused after the 30th person who won't buy a magazine because of "turnip".
Hell, I think this is a good idea! They should make these types of telemarketing calls legal, and outlaw all other types. This way, when I get home from work, all I have to do is keep my finger hovered over the delete button to trash the telemarket calls. And when I'm home and physically pick up the phone, I'd be guarenteed that there's not going to be a sales pitch at the other end.
_______
2B1ASK1
I love it. HEY, EMBEDDED PROGRAMMERS! Here's something that would sell like hotcakes.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Fsck it all, if I hear one of those things go off while I'm taking a leak, that box is going to say hello to Mr. Leatherman. Then I'm going to start slowly mailing pieces of it to ABC and demanding ransom.
There's got to be a more direct way of affecting change in big corps' marketing depts. Vigilantiism, for instance.
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Exactly, telemarketing is a much bigger issue than handguns on a bedside table.
Not the point, though. Next time you've got a message on your system you don't wan to hear, hit 337 on your dial pad. It fast-forwards to the end and deletes the message, effectively a "skip and delete" command. I use it all the time. 339 will skip and save, FYI.
Although I'm going to sound like a moronic newsgroupie, me too.
:)
For the past month or so, I've been getting on the order of 10-15 calls a day (According to my caller-ID), and exactly zero messages on my machine. All of the calls are listed as unavailable. It's gotten to the point where I don't answer the phone when it's listed as unavailable, because I'm wasting my time. Sure enough, when the answering maching picks up, no one leaves a message.
Side note: I had my answering machine message really short (Something like "Leave a message").. It confused the telemarketers because they never got on the line in time to hear the message and I got a lot of messages saying "Uhhh, hello? Hello? Is anyone there? "
Telemarketer: [sales spiel]
Him: I'm interested, let me go find my credit card...
Him: [checking back every 5 or 10 minutes] I almost found my credit card, hold on, just another minute...
Repeat until the poor sucker finally gives up.
Say hello to zMac.
Simple, get ISDN and then REFUSE calls that don't provide a number. It's so satisfying to NACK a call setup request -- no phone rings; I don't have to clear a channel (hang up); nothing... the D channel light flashes, an event is logged and that's the end of it. They get a friendly "your call did not go through" message :-) That alone is worth 85$ per month.
I also like being able to do a fast reverse number lookup (I know it's a "wrong number") and tell the caller who they are and that they most certainly have the wrong number. [My ISDN line is for data, not inbound voice.] One poor lady in Clearwater FL almost had a heart attack when I did that -- she kept dialing the wrong number (mine) every 15 minutes for an entire day.
...all the time in the Chicago area. It's getting to the point where nearly half of the phone calls we receive have `dead air' on the other end. Then, some time later, we get a call from a real telemarketer. The current theory is that the telemarketers have their computer call to see if anyone's at home, then queue up the call to one of their telemarketing drones who make the real call.
OK, this isn't exactly what the main posting's about. But this is: I have received several messages on our Ameritech voice mail containing what sound like computer synthesized messages. Mostly regarding whether I want/need new cellular service (Hint to Motorola: NO TO BOTH QUESTIONS!) Since I cannot fast forward through voice mail on Ameritech's service, this really torques me off. If it keeps up I'll have to cancel my voice mail and go back to a tape machine. Wonder if I complain to Ameritech enough whether they'll do anything about the annoyance... Nah! What am I thinking?
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Is this coming from the same place where one in three has a handgun on the bedside table? I think you have more surmountable issues to address.
Just a theory, but playing data CD's through speakers can blow them out. Why not hook up your old walkman with a 100 Free Hours On AOL! cd to a big red button on your phone that turns off your receiver (to avoid damaging it), then starts to play the cd? Should fry the telescum's (usually non-cheap) equipment, yes?
Ah, just a thought. At least until I get some schematics.
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Couldn't you put a messgae like: "By leaving a message on this machine you agree to be billed for $500/minute by the owner of this phone." Then send an invoice.
Here at ABC we're breaking new ground and pioneering new ways to annoy people and attract bad press. Now that America's answering machines have been conscripted into our ranks, we're turning to other opportunities to push our way into your lives and annoy you at the same time. Opportunities like our teams of cat burglars, who will sneak into your bedrooms and change you default browser's homepage to Go.com. And don't forget our Disney DVD's that come chock full of annoying previews that'll make your kids cry for copies of our films. We're so full of useful innovation!
ABC... definitely.
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Call the operator after they hang up on you. Explain that you are receiving prank calls, etc.. whatever it takes to bother them. Everyone do this. Do it EVERY time this happens. The phone company will become so bogged down, they'll demand ABC stop doing it.
Back in the days, I got an operator to talk to an answering machine. I recorded an outgoing message in advance on a different number.
....... yes, I accept.
Me: Operator, I'd like to third-party bill a long distance phone call please.
op: The number?
Me: (gives number)
op: calling
Answering machine: Hello?(my voice).......
Operator to answering machine: Will you accept the charges for blah blah blah?
Answering machine:
The operator patched the call through. She didn't realize she was talking to an answering machine(I put a long pause before "hello?" and "I accept") or the fact the outgoing message had the same voice as me. Heh.
Even if the answering machine plan has been cancelled, people using urinals may soon hear wise-ass remarks from ABC star Norm MacDonald as they try to do their business. It's all part of ABC's new strategy: "ABC: As If 'Is That Your Final Answer?' Was Annoying Enough."
BTW, other companies have used answering machines to send advertising. It's similar to "Important Memos!" about vacation packages in Florida coming through the fax machines of office buildings. The phone system where I now work was hit three months ago with telemarketers calling at 5:00 AM and leaving voice mail commercials. Funny thing was, the quality was so bad, you couldn't hear what they were saying over the staticky background music.
For more information, click here.
I happened to have Regis and Kathy Lee on this morning by mistake, and they showed a clip from a few years back when someone had dialed the wrong number and gotten on the show by mistake... kinda funny their phone just starts ringing in the middle of them talking...
I just think it'd be funny for someone to WAR dial this number as a response... it would be no different than what ABC si doing... well...
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
I've had a few cases recently where what sounded like real humans left telamarketing messages. I laughed, thinking that they were pretty stupid expecting a response.
Now I wonder if they called intending to leave an advertising message.
Well, about I ever use the land-line phone for anymore is 'net access, when the cable modems make I to my neighborhood, it might go.
When the telemarketers get a hold of my cell phone number (I don't even let the people at work know *that*), then I'm going to scream.
Jim Buchanan
If this starts a trend, and all kinds of businesses start calling to leave advertisements, how long will it be before you can buy an answering machine that automatically detects if the incoming message is on tape, then drops the call and removes the message?
I am guessing the company that came up with the technology to determine if the other end is a human or an answering machine already has this product developed, and is just waiting to sell a bunch of product A to companies to help sell product B to consumers.
Must be monday....I'm always cynical on monday. =)
For your right!
To make /. AC spam-free
Remember the good old days, when the biggest problem with AC posts was the First Post! post?
Kinda makes ya nostalgic, don't it?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Sounds close enough to me. Can we have this shot down before it gets out of control? IANAL of course, but I think we can defend against this...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
i get lots of those messages, and they ususally say "call this number for more information or to schedule an appointment". then, when you call it, they tell you to leave a message with your phone number and a good time to call you back. I use this opportunity to leave nonsense on their machine. Then I do it again.. and again.. and again..
pt
Will the real Richard Stallman please stand up?
It was because of telemarketers that I got a call privacy package added to my phone service. Although I hate giving more money to the telco, it's preferable to dealing with those other wankers.
For those who don't know about or have access to call privacy, it does the following: for all anonymous or blocked calls, the caller is intercepted and forced to say their name (or my name as some of my friends at the office would do!). When I pick up the phone I get to hear the message and either refuse it, answer it, or send it to voice mail. For my friends with cell phones, or co-workers, who don't show up on my caller ID display, I've told them a simple code to bypass the system so that they don't hang around.
It is worth the wait to sing to the lovely recorder call for hold people.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
They were selling it at 14 bucks a pop at the Javits Center show in NYC last year until they sold out.
This is what I had on my machine last year:
.....this is still the answering machine. Please leave a message.
Bill: Hello, you have reached Bill and Bryan's room. We are
Bryan: Hello?!?!
It confused quite a few people. However, one time, I came home right during my part on the machine and picked up "Yes, this is really me now. Seriously. Hello?" but they hung up by then.
If anyone knows were I can get a device like this, please let me know. I've been searching for one for quite a while.
They just don't get it, do they? Their idea is "to catch the ear of young men during a quiet, relaxed and attention-grabbing moment." I get few enough quiet relaxed moments already, and they want to annoy me then?
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Harken slapped the mule to get it going. With heavy feet, the creature ambled on down the road away from the trading post. Harken had made his monthly foray into civilization, once again loading the mule with everything from waybread to a large stone sledge.
As they made their way down the road and the outpost faded into the countryside, Harken slapped the mule again. The mule had not stopped, or shown any signs of slowing, but Harken felt like slapping it so he did. Harken was a man who liked hitting things.
The journey from the outpost to Harken's den would take four days. It was always the worst part of the month - the eight days to and from tne outpost to restock his supplies. He guessed the mule liked it, however, because it was all the walking the mule was allowed to do.
Monotonous though the journey was, it was necessary. The monthly allowance from his master only afforded the necessary supplies for the month - there was not even enough left over for a room at the outpost and a woman for the night. But then, his master demanded secrecy, and Harken was not a man to risk displeasing the master.
The mule hated Harken. It hated him with every fiber of its being. It was hard being a mule to begin with, being the bastard child of horse and donkey, but being Harken's mule was even worse. The man left it tied up for three weeks of every month, left there to stand and sleep in its own feces. Then, on these trips, Harken loaded the mule until its back felt like breaking, and slapped it all the way back to the den.
The mule was not keen, and never considered itself so. It did pride itself in doing a bit of thinking every now and then, when it wasn't focused on hating Harken, and it decided that it would have to formulate a plan. Someway to rid itself of Harken and the whole business.
Four days later, after Harken had unloaded the mule and was preparing to tether it again, the mule suddenly bucked and kicked him in the head. Laying dizzy on the ground, Harken opened his eyes just in time to see the mule's hooves coming down upon his chest, crushing his ribs, as the mule charged off into the wilderness.
Will the real Richard Stallman please stand up?
How wound a computer be able to detect whether it's an answering machine on the other line or a human?
Would it be possible to nab them by somehow tricking their machine into thinking that you're an answering machine rather than a real human?
Seems its more than just the answering machine blitz, but also a urinal blitz. Thank God I don't have to worry about that one!
ABC's 'Norm' Catches Audience with Their Trousers Down
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a promotional campaign for one of its TV comedies, the ABC network may have redefined the concept of bathroom humor.
The U.S. network's idea is to catch the ear of young men during a quiet, relaxed and attention-grabbing moment -- while they are relieving themselves at the urinal.
A local hardware store sells a little button you can push when you get a call from a telemarketer. It plays a pre-recorded request to remove you from their call list, quotes the approproate legal passages at them, and disconnects.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A "Susan Richards" from Harris Publishing called me not too long ago, offering to place me in the Oak Hill High School alumni directory. That high school isn't local to this area, nor did I attend it. I saw it was "out of area" so I didn't answer it, bhey left a message on my answering machine, with an 800-546-2533 number to return the call.
When I returned the call, I found the person at the other end was rather accustomed to offended people calling back:
- they knew that since nothing was being sold it was not an "illegal" telemarketing call
- they were well-trained to keep a calm demeanor in the face of an obviously irate client
But, venting for a few minutes got it off my chest, and it was on their nickel.
Doug
Most recently, MCI called trying to sell me long distance. I acted amazed at hearing another human voice, and revealed that I had been 'hiding in my Y2K bunker for the last 7 months!' My roommate even got in on it and began shouting in the background about 'cracking open the airlock'. It was a riot!
Other ideas I have tried:
1. If they are trying to sell you a newspaper or magazine, insist that you are psychic and do not need their product, then become disgusted by what they are thinking at that moment.
2. Act like you are in the midst of hostage negotiations. Play the cop side of the conversation. "So if I agree to subscribe to that magazine, will you release some of the hostages?"
3. In an agitated and paranoid voice, ask them how they got the number. Insist that they are lying and are really 'part of the conspiracy' or 'one of them'. There are endless possibilities with this one.
There are also some really great things you can do with a prepared tape of sound effects.
Have fun!
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
If ABC were bound by this it would be in violation, but under exemptions in the document it states:
Since ABC is definitly not selling the callee anything (they're selling viewers to advertisers) I don't belive this applies to their calls.
Also ABC's plan doesn't quite fit the documents definition of telemarketing:
ABC is not selling anything, and the calls would have to be interstate if ABC were to be bound by this, and just looking at cost ABC would probably set up call centers in the cities in question and get around this.
If there is a federal law that would stop ABC this is not it.
Oh sure, like picking up the phone and hearing a busy signal isn't going to be weird. If that happened, I'd call the phone company and report something broken.
'Just like an advertisment on TV', sure, except that TV shows are free, the phone and voice mail are payed for already.
I'd support a complete ban on any unsolicited commercial calling, and a $500 fine or something hefty to back it up. With jail time for anyone found repeat offending.
It is illegal to make unsolicitated calls to a cell phone (US for sure, not sure about other countires) because I pay for the time. I don't answer my land line phone, as that is for the computer, and will soon be cancled when something better comes through. Turns out that with free long distance it is cheaper for me and my roommates to use a cell phone with 600-1000 (day vs weekend) mintues a month.
The ABC Friday lineup simply SUCKS. They have nothing good (in the way of post-adolescent) programming on Friday nights. I guess they are hoping that someone is going to listen to their answering machine and somehow come away saying "...must ... watch ... Sabrina the Teenage Witch..." or "Gee, let me listen to that most annoying theme song to 'Boy Meets World' JUST ONE MORE TIME!"
Give it up ABC. Why not take friday nights and put on back to back episodes of the Drew Carey Show and Who's Line is it Anyway? like you did all week long during the last few months?
Or howabout a new "reality television" show called "Who Wants to be a Pauper?" where we watch failed contestants from "Who Wants to be a Millionare" try to survive among the nations homeless eating rats and fishing street drains for cigarette butts? (Each week one of the contestants would be voted out and forced to play "Big Brother" - a fate worse than "MTV's Real World". The final contestant gets a chance to slap Regis and choke him with his monocrome tie.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
I wonder if an automated system telling another automated system to remove the first automated system from the calling list of the second automated system would work? Probably require yet another automated system to edit the list.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
"If you had Norm MacDonald call you and remind you his show was on, we thought it would be fun, the type of thing people usually tell their friends about,"
Give them a prize for missing the point.
Talking to Norm MacDonald might be cool, but having a recording of Norm talk to a machine recording it is not.
Malk-a-mite
I thought there was some kind of law that prevented a company or organization from making automated calls.
Isn't there also an unwanted soliciation law that if a person requests to be removed from the list and calls are still placed the company could face penalty charges for each call.
I also wonder if the ABC station where there testing this is up for renewal on their liscense, because I know I'd file a complaint!
Oh well, maybe they should just learn to put a better lineup over the air, don't change it around every two weeks, and give plenty of warning when new shows are added or dropped.
Wouldn't the name of the show be "WHOSE Line is it Anyway?" Imagine if there was an editor at /., who simply looked at every posting before mister taco put it up...
(3) The term ''telephone solicitation'' means the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services, which is transmitted to any person, [unless based on a prior relationship]
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States ... (B) to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by rule or order by the Commission under paragraph (2)(B);
(3) Private right of action A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of that State - (A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation, (B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater, [emphasis added] or (C) both such actions. If the court finds that the defendant willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.
In other words, if ABC calls you and either (a) hangs up without talking to you or (b) leaves a prerecorded message on your answering machine, you can take them to small-claims court and get somewhere between $500 and $1500. Not bad for a day's work!
Incidentally, this is the same section that prohibits junk faxes. It can be pretty profitable to read the entire statute.
I use BellSouth for my land line at home. They offer 'Anonymous Call Rejection'...but Anonymous is not the same as Unknown. Anonymous only applies to people who opt not to publish their number to CallerID. Anonymous Call Rejection does nothing to stop Unknown Name calls. So basically you end up paying for nothing with this service. Scam....si senor.
don't believe the hype
and if they like hot grits
thank you very much
Ok. Lets see, what idiot came up with this plan in the first place, and how did it almost happen (even if it was canned). I mean, we all HATE spam in our inbox. I know that execs at ABC by now realize that we don't want unsolicited ads in our e-mail (though the thought probably occurred to them).
In my e-mail box, I can read the subject ahead of time, and delete it.
On my voicemail, I have to wait for that slow voice to read out all of the info on the message, or even play the darn thing, before I can burn it.
Goodness, I'd rather get spam in my e-mail from them.
Besides, how freaking effective do these idiots think such a marketting tactics would be. I mean, I don't always listen to a friend, a critic, or a stranger telling me to watch shows. Now an annoying machine, which is the only message on my machine will do the same thing.
"Hello Dungeon Dweller. We know that we are the only message on your machine, that you have no friends and no life, so we decided to tell you that all of the cool people are watching 'Suddenly Susan' and her quirky antics. Byeeeeee."
Yeah, that will sell great.
We're all different.
Eh...
"An answering machine is a device to talk to people you don't want to talk too. A VCR is a device to tape shows that you don't to watch"
I think I got that more or less right.
So what you do is connect your Answering machine to the VCR, then ABC Can talk to the VCR with out bothering you. Then hook up the VCR to your computer and pump the whole thing out on Gnutella. (This is so that all of us have the option of not watching the shows, more effective then if each of ignored the shows on our own.)
Please do this right now, as I want to start stopping watching ABC soon.
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
Here's your answer from the relevant US laws:
From Subpart L - Restrictions on Telephone Solicitation
a.2.Initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by sec. 64.1200(c)
section c says this:
c.The term "telephone call" in sec. 64.1200(a)(2) shall not include a call or message by, or on behalf of, a caller:
1.that is not made for a commercial purpose,
2.that is made for a commercial purpose but does not include the transmission of any unsolicited advertisement,
3.to any person with whom the caller has an established business relationship at the time the call is made, or
4.which is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.
So there you go! ABC is giving out $500 checks to everyone who is lucky enough to get a call! Make sure you save those answering machine tapes, boys and girls. The small claims court judge will want to listen to them. While you're at it, go over to www.junkbusters.com and print out a copy of the legislation for the judge. It should be a very easy case to win.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
For your right!
To make /. AC spam-free
The Windows cut-n-paste K1dd13s strike again!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
That should read "No person may initiate..." in section a.2 above. Sorry.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
How long do you think this will last? I predict an apology coming from ABC after people start to complain en-mass.. An' do they block call display?
-
Starsucks
I'd rather have messages on my machine, it only takes a second to delete if you've got a digial answerer and you don't have to go through the trouble of talking to the (often) moronic people on the line. However, what ABC is doing seems illegal, but I'm not sure on that, wonder if they got all the numbers off people sigining up for Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
TM: Hi, this is [name] from [Big Marketing Company]. Would you be interested in...?
Me: No thanks.
TM: Are you confident?
Me: Yes.
TM: Is that your final answer?
Me: That is my final answer.
[Game show sounds in background]
TM: No, I'm sorry. That is the wrong answer.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
With normal telemarketing calls, US law says that I can tell them to put me on their do-not-call list, and they have to pay a $500 penalty if they then do call me (assuming I'm willing to go to the hassle of taking them to small claims court).
With this, they hang up before I can ask to be put on that list. Does the law that requires them to honor such requests allow this?
And what about bans on computer calling? Or do they have a real human talk to the answering machine (talk about a boring job)?
This sucks. Now you have to be verbally reminded of the upcoming shows on TGIF! Just when you though you could forget them!
There's a radio station nearby where I live in the Bay Area that also drops such crap on your answering machine. I'd be rather pissed if I only got part of a message because the memory on my answering machine (I've got a digital answering machine, thus I said memory, not tape :) ) ran out because part of it was filled with an ADVERTISEMENT.
If they never talk to a human, though, then they will never be subject to this law. Seems pretty sneaky to me.
-----------------------------------------------
How can anyone possibly see this as being a good idea? You come home on Friday afternoon and check your messages, and hear a commercial for TV shows, come on. At least you can just hang up on on tele-marketers, or hold an airhorn up to the phone. Perhaps ABC would like for everyone in these major cities to call in with ads for their personal businesses. The thought of people leaving ads on my answering machine is very disturbing!
--C:\DOS C:\DOS\RUN RUN\DOS\RUN
Go to http://www.the-dma.org/ and hunt around -- you'll find that you can OPT OUT of telemarketing, EMail marketing and EMail.
It does work.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
drew carey is a serious buzz-kill on that show. it's like he doesn't get the humor and role of clive anderson, yet tries to duplicate it. he's just not funny and every time he tries to explain the concept of scoring the game, i'm lucky that there's nothing sharp near me so i don't stab myself. i originally thought he just felt that he had to descend to the level of his audience, but the more i watch it, the more convinced i am that he just doesn't get it. the holdovers from the originaly english version (ryan and colin) make it worth watching otherwise.
I wish they would ALL just call my answering machine. It's much easier to delete them that way and I don't have to deal with rude telemarketers wasting my time reading a script to the end even though the first words out of my mouth are: "no thanks, I don't want to subscribe/buy/get a loan/switch long distance blah blah your product/service" The world would be a better place if targeted marketing was a completely opt-in thing, but then we wouldn't have as many funny Jerky Boys audio files to make us laugh.
Hammer of Truth
It's bad enough having to delete spam out of email but off of my answering machine too!?
Good grief Charlie Brown, you've been spammed! Bruce
For all of you crazed -want-to-get-upset-, you can contact: Voice Mail Broadcasting in Irvine, Calif. (sorry, not link) and let them know of your discust with this process. They do this for many businesses, and give the user a busy signal or a beep if a human answers the phone. (I'd still be pretty upset if I was taking a nap to get woken up by a busy signal)
However, ABC has pulled this decision to do this idea... BUT this has not stopped all of their ignorance though. Look at this idea:
(From NYTimes Artical)
ABC is, however, sticking with a plan for the 2000-2001 season to have restrooms in bars or restaurants fitted with digital audio chips that deliver spots promoting "Norm," using recordings of Mr. MacDonald that begin playing when people move around. Mr. Cohen said that plan "makes sense for 'Norm'; it's such a guy show."
I personally don't want to have to listen to some guy talking about TV shows while being in the restroom. What restaurant would do this, and not have customers get upset?
Whats your opinion, and what can we do to let ABC know that the world thinks they should fire their merketing team?
Candidate records a message, or has a heavy hitter speak on their behalf, and it gets pushed out, and hangs up if a real person answers, as it is only a computer on the other end.
matt
I do this same thing. If everyone did it, they'd get a lot less pitches in (as it is, nobody has EVER called me and sold me something -- 39 years and you'd think they'd learn). I used to get angry and yell at them, but this method is far more effective, at the minimal cost of reducing your connectivity. Besides, it gives the poor schlub who took the job a bit of time to think about where he's going in life. Further, the phone company alerts me with that horrid noise when they've finally caught on to the fact that nobody's ever coming to the phone (cyberdonny and I are far from the only ones who use this trick).
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
The tele-marketing computer will hang up on me? I guess that'll save me the trouble.
I hate the idea of a hangup. I live with my girlfriend, who's ex kidnapped her little boy. It's been ten years and it's few people who can understand what she has been through. I knew her before and after the kidnapping. It took a huge toll on her.
After the kidnapping, even now, she gets hangups. These calls bring on a nightmare for her. Her ex likes to call up and bother her. He knows the police and FBI cannot find him. He calls for only a few seconds without saying a thing, then hangs up.
Now many companies, not just ABC are doing the recorded message bullshit. It's made life a living hell. I not only stopped watching cable, but got rid of cable all together because they are a group of inhuman maximized profits. Ok, I'm ranting, but I'm mad. Forgive me.
We need a good way to fool these machines into thinking that there is a person there, so they hang up and don't leave a message. How does one hack a solution?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Yeah, the moderation on this was unfair. People should read the parent comments before moderating. /. does not provide a mechanism for conversation other than the posting forum, and therefore, answers and replies to such things are perfectly acceptable. Besides, this is a weblog, we're not writing a daggon book. What, do you really think that someday people are going to start buying the /. archives in paperback (not a bad idea ). At any rate, it may not describe heisman's uncertainty principle in relation to dickheads calling you with machines and leaving spam on your answering machine, but it is relevant converstation to the parent post. Those moderating this post, please read the parent as well.
We're all different.
Eh...
Telemarketers never say "we'd like to sell you X." They now say "We'd like to tell you that you've been selected to receive X, with a no-risk trial for the next 30 days! All we need to do is confirm your address and billing information. Okay?"
The fact that telemarketers now _tell_ you what you want to buy, instead of asking, is another type of "guerrilla" tactics that prey on stupid people.
For more information, click here.
"I feel a distrubates in the force" - ObiWan
Soon as some spammer pirates a copy of this software, all hell is going to break lose. Phone rings constanly, but everytime you answer it, it disconnects. You come home from work and have an entire tape filled with 500 messages, or 4 hours of "voice spam".
Oh you don't think it will happen? Phone numbers are easy to get compared to email address. In fact most, if not all cities organsize a list for free, avaiable to spammers of "live" phone numbers, it is called the phone book.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
The other day I got a phone call that said something lake:
;-)). Polling is a trickey enough matter that you shouldn't try to alienate most of your sample.
"Hi, this is (some generic name) with (some survey company), we are taking a random survey about (some boring subject), the results will be reported to newspapers, radio, and TV. Please press 1 to start the survey."
At this point I hung up. If whoever was calling didn't care enough about my opinion to have a real person call... well too bad.
It really concerns me though that surveys like this could be sold as true random dial surveys. It would seem to me that any such survey is omiting a large percentage of the sample space that is inteligent enough to be insulted by a survey like this (IQ>75?
A local radio station (KRFX FM in Denver) has been doing this for at least two years.
...etc
They have a recording of their morning drive-time shockjocks calling people to remind them to listen to their morning show.
something like:
"Hello....Hello....Turn down your radio, I can't hear you....."
kind of a prank call, but AFAIK, no one has every turned them in for doing this.
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
How can they tell if a human anwsers or a machine?
-If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.
They aren't as hard to hang up on. For this reason, I suspect that they are less likey to sell the product which they are trying to sell anyways.
What an innovative idea.
BTW, I haven't seen this for sale in the longest time... it was too expensive, most likely.
For more information, click here.
In my state, PA, actually in my city, a telemarketer called someone that told them to put this person on their not to call list. He actually went through with a lawsuit and won. Now just by itself this isnt that significant but the trend caught on in my city(it is very small, population is 780) and what do you know, more lawsuits were filed and won. Needless to say, I dont hear many people around here getting phone spammed.
"The 85 I fear they don't got a clue."
I don't know about everyone else or even how common this is, but I have received numerous telemarketing messages on my answering machine which were clearly intended to be recorded there. A normal telemarketing recording would start as soon as the machine picked up, but these clearly started "after the beep." I get so many hangup calls that it is hard for me to say that I have been affected by answering the phone when one of these beasts call.
According to the NYTimes, they killed this plan already: "ABC has backed away from a controversial plan to use sitcom stars like Norm MacDonald to promote its fall lineup by leaving taped messages on the home answering machines of viewers. The decision came after the network, known for aggressively seeking ... July 22, 2000, Saturday "
Get it here:
sit.wav.
Sue them. Legally you can take any company to small claims court and get about $500 if you ask them not to call and they do it anyway. With such an automated system they will probably call you back and if enough people took it up ABC would most likely stop doing it.
2 or 3 million viewers doing that and it could seriously hurt the company :). Not a bad idea of you ask me. Maybe we can get some of the "sheep-like" public away from their TVs for awhile!
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
This is wildly offtopic, but while were on the subject of telecommunciations abuse, I'd love to here what the /. crowd thinks of this:
:P)
I get 10 or so calls every 30 min to 1.5 hrs during business hours M-F at home. They hang out long enough to leave a blank message on my answering machine.
So, um, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
I'm about ready to get Ameritech's "privacy manager" to make this stop. (Hell, maybe Ameritech's DOING it to promote privacy manager though
Telemarketer: Hello, is Mr. Tosh there?
Me: Yes he's here, what is this in relation to?
Telemarketer: We'd like to sell him a...
Me: He's got better things to do than talk to you.
*click*
I'd rather have messages on my machine, it only takes a second to delete if you've got a digial answerer and you don't have to go through the trouble of talking to the (often) moronic people on the line. However, what ABC is doing seems illegal, but I'm not sure on that, wonder if they got all the numbers off people sigining up for Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
So which would you rather deal with
Telemarketers (yeah sure you give me YOUR home phone# and I'll call you when I'm free)
Annoying Pauses wehn you DO answer the phone (I usually hang up on them immediately, or let them try to sell their product to my three year old who just LOOOVES to talk on the phone)
or a telemarketer who hangs up when you answer (I agree with the above poster about that being a little disconcerting)
well I guess they went the way of door-to-door salesmen... What's the next great Arthur Miller Spin off..... Death of a Telemarketer (Spammer)???
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
The answering machine is the big city where I live.. I get at least one call every day that is a hang up, and while I can't attribute all of those to this kind of marketing, I would venture to guess most of them are by the number of recorded solicitations that appear in my voicemail.
I recently bought an answering machine with 3 separate mailboxes.. You have to push *2 or *3 to leave a message in boxes 2 or 3, but if you don't press anything it defaults to box 1. My friends and family know to press the "secret code" so I can easily discern between messages I want to hear and messages I probably don't.
I toyed with the idea of charging for telephone solicitations, and even called a few companies back to get their mailing address so I could send them an invoice. Most of these were local businesses, horrified at the thought and instantly put me on their do-not-call list. I never followed through with the actual mailing of invoices, but no one called my bluff either.
of course, someone will post the obligatory link to junkbusters' telemarketing script, but that doesn't really help with these machine calls, so i won't bother.
wishus
---
We called and got everything blocked, our name put on all lists to be removed.
This cut out 90% of the calls. The last few, we had to dial a number afterwords and do a trace.
We then call the phone security (hah!) department, and have them open a complaint... Oh yeah, we have to pay for it!
I can filter my email, Why cant I filter my Phonecalls!
-Brook Harty
I'd like to know if there's anything I can put at the front of my recording that might put these machines off. I guess this is probably more of a question for phone phreakers out there. I do wonder if anyone has taken the time to see how these machines work to differentiate between a human and answering machine.
One possible solution I can think of is if the machines check for the beep, then I put a beep at the beginning of my greeting message, so the spam war dialer talks while I am, and doesn't leave a message.
Any other ideas?
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
but what does it do if I'm ONLINE ALL THE TIME? Plus I don't own a TV! I realized how worthless commercial TV is and got rid of it. So call me if you want ABC you'll only be wasting your own money. Typical for a 2nd rate media whore
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
Furthermore, it only works when the number is reported. If the number is not shown on caller ID, it is not provided to the phone service to be blocked. This is generally only a problem with long-distance calls.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Now i gotta install portsentry on my goddamn answering machine. *pfffffffffffffffffft*
--
You can be an atheist and still not want to succumb to some weird cross-over sheep disease -- AC
It is long past time for us to have the legal right to either get onto a company's do-not-call list the FIRST time they call (whether they get the answering machine or a human, and whether they have a marketer available to talk or not), or have some other means of rejecting advertising calls pre-emptively. It is also long past time for advertising companies to have to supply CLID information on all their calls, like all us normal schmucks. Anyone for a letter-writing campaign to Congress?
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
At first it was CLID that was supposed to deliver us from telescum. Now we need "Privacy Manager", because so many telescum refuse to provide CLID information. Someone mentioned that some phone companies are selling the equivalent of a privacy-manager-defeat to the telescum. I think it is high time for a class-action suit against any RBOC that has done such a thing, because they have represented their service as doing X and then gone right out and made it NOT do X, for a fee. This appears to fall into the category of "sharp practices", allowing triple damages. The amount of damages can start with the total amount all subscribers have ever paid for "Privacy Manager" services, and go up from there.
After we have won on that, we can demand as part of the settlement that the RBOC's refuse to connect PBX's which do not send out a legitimate originating number and company name. Suddenly, Privacy Manager services become superfluous, telescum no longer have any way to hide, and people can enjoy their peace.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
lyng in bed one evening with a lady friend. phone rings. me:hello TM:is (someone that wasn't me) there? me:nobody by that name here. TM:that's ok, i'm calling from X-charity. do you want to donate? me:i already have.(lie) TM: i don't think you have sir. we don't have your name in our computers showing that you have. me:maybe becuase i haven't given you my name?you called for somone else remember? TM:oh...yeah...*gulp*...sorry... me:(click)
"learn to swim" - TOOL
In related News: Eminem and Dr. Dre are planning a similar ad campaign.
Yankees suck. yep you know it.
The details are:
(d) Required oral disclosures. It is an abusive telemarketing act or practice and a violation of this Rule for a telemarketer in an outbound telephone call to fail to disclose promptly and in a clear and conspicuous manner to the person receiving the call, the following information: (1) The identity of the seller; ...
Since the ABC telemarketing device (and I believe advertizing television shows still falls under telemarketing acts) will purposily fail to identify itself, I believe this is an attempt on ABC to intentionally conduct an "abusive telemarketing practice."
While I was chatting with someone (Probably on icb, I don't think I was into irc at the time) I got call-nuked by a church's automated invitation service. Since then I've had an unreasoning hatred of schemes like this.
Now if only there were a physical copper connection between them and me so I could run some wicked voltage to them...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It sounds all too "1980's distopian view of the future" to me.
If ABC wants to spend money leaving messages on my machine, fine by me. I would rather hit the "delete" key on the recorder than deal with a telemarketer.
Now, the real genius advertising manuever would be to hack the caller ID screen to say, "watch Drew at 9!" so the recipients wouldn't even have to pick up the phone to get the ad into their heads.
I can foresee the big hinderance to the plan will be when people who are home alone start getting all these hang-ups and get freaked out.
"These are the days that must happen to you." -Walt Whitman
I called ABC to complain about this pratice, but a human picked up, so I hung up, I only wanted to leave a message on the answering machine.
Time does not wait.