How To Profit From Telemarketing

jsprat writes: "From the Seattle PI: A man gets an automated message from a telemarketer. He complains. Two weeks later, he gets a check and an apology! In the article, another man is mentioned who claims to have collected $2650 dollars over the last year for illegal spam, faxes and automated calls. Another weapon to fight these clowns?" What's your personal cash-won record?

Comments

Ben Livingston's success

[Jerky McNaughty]

Ben Livingston has a web page with a lot of good hints for anyone interested in suing these people. He also has a complete list of everyone he's sued, the outcomes, and in some cases, even a scanned image of the check they sent him.

My personal cash-won record?

[Saint Aardvark]

No way am I pissing off these guys...I'm gonna make MILLIONS by selling those penis-enlargement pills! And it's not even MLM!

I hate to brag, Timothy, but I think you're being just a little short-sighted about this.

So far, about $3250

[Anonymous Coward]

And counting. Not bad for a poor grad student. I make sure I post to Usenet quite a lot and surf random porn sites. This seems to be the way they get hold of your address. Once they have it on one list it will soon migrate.

The key here is persistance. Its amazing how almost anyone will crumble when faced with a legal threat. Think about the way Scientologists went after slashdot, thats how I go after spammers. I may even be on thin legal ice so to speak, but the mere threat of the law usually sees these guys settle. At the moment, its cheaper for them to do this.

Its also worth noting that I am Canadian which makes it a whole lot more complicated (and therefore expensive) from a legal perspective.

I would urge slashdotters to take up my hobby, it takes about 1hr/week and can be very lucrative.

Well, I work for RIAA

[prisoner]

and we just got (pinky in mouth) One Million...oh wait, this is enemy territory....never mind...

Telemarketers have evolved...

[Gruneun]

(I was on the fence about putting this out as someone may start doing it, but...)

I received a phone call a few months ago. The call rang once and ended before I could pick it up. When I checked the Caller ID (never go home without it) it had a number outside of my area code with a label, "Prize Claim Dept" attached.

When I checked the area code it was somewhere in the Carribean. I have seen more than a few jobs listed in the classifieds that had similar numbers, charging $20 a minute (legally) without warning.

This was pretty crafty, though. First, they get you to initiate the call, making it much easier for them to get your money. Second, if there ever was a problem, they could easily argue that they dialed the wrong number, realized it, then hung up. They didn't expect you to call them.

Ethically lacking, but pretty crafty.

Re:Telemarketers have evolved...

[Alexius]

I saw this warning a while ago, in an email. I figured it was about as realistic as the warnings about my kidneys, but before I told the person that it wasn't true, I called my operator and asked. It turns out, this may be legal, but while I was on the phone, I found something else out. My phone company, PennTelecom will not a.) pass along any third party bills, (except for a long distance provider specified by me), and b.) will not give out any personal information on me. The effect is that if I dial any number that is supposed to collect money from me, the company that is supposed to collect the money has to send me a bill themselves, they can't just add it onto my phone bill. However, they also can't send me a bill because my phone company adheres to their privacy policy and won't give them my name or address.

I used one of the 10-10 numbers once, and I got a bill from AT&T mailled to me, addressed to one of my aliases. Obviously they'd pulled the name from some marketting database and managed to match up my phone number that way, but they obviously didn't have any actual evidence to force me to pay that bill, or ruin my aliases credit.

Well I'm no lawyer,

[Anonymous Coward]

so I wouldn't know about using the law to get back at spammers (as in the article), but here in redneck country we have much more effective methods.

For example, just last Tuesday I got $574 dollars and a $200 Rolex from a salesman who failed to notice the "no solicitors" sign on my front gate. He said he'd sue for excessive force and I said he's welcome to have his other eye blacked out too, and to get the fuck out of my house before I take that spiffy suit to go with my new rolex.

Must be new to the area.

Destroying the telemarketing industry.

[defile]

See this page for a method that would surely destroy the telemarketing industry if enough companies did it.

Re:Destroying the telemarketing industry.

[Croaker]

Hmm... imagine what could be done with this technique given:

1. A reserved phone extension someplace.
2. A phone sound card connection for this phone.
3. A PC with voice recognition/voice synthesis software. Voice synthesis would have to be very convincing... perhaps just using canned voice samples. For voice recognition, you might only have to catch a phrase here or there, or maybe just detect silence.
4. Faux "AI" software, such as Eliza or Racter. Perhaps seeded with marketspeak phrases ("yes, but what's the ROI?", "How do you address the currently shifting business paradigms?") The longer the conversation gets, the more surreal and random the AI should get ("Is it effective on monkeys? Our server room is full of monkeys. Flying ones. They glow blue. And they are tiny.") The AI should also throw out bones form time to time, to keep the marketeer on the hook ("Excellent!" "I can see a need for this in our organization, RIGHT NOW!").
5. An MP3 server to let everyone else listen to the precious sounds of a telemarketer slowly going insane.

Indiana is trying at least.

[Peyna]

Here is more information on the state of Indiana's anti-telemarketing law that was recently passed, and everything that goes along with it.

We might not have daylight savings time, but at least we are trying to keep out telemarketers. I suggest you look over the text of the law before making any comments, since it provides many ways for people to legally call you, such as not-for-profit orgs using their own volunteers, etc. Anyway, I think it has helped tremendously, and I'm still waiting for a business to get sued over it to really enforce it. (That will be the true test of the law.)

I also believe it is being challenged by a number of groups right now. At least it is a step in the right direction. Heck, the attorney general based his entire last campaign on this issue alone.

I won 3500 and am suing a few others for 5x that

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in NJ, when most of these companies are located out west or south, it's easy. I sue for 499 a pop, they never show, auto judgement for me, and if they refuse to pay I can fill out and file for free an asset seizure on their bank accounts.

The deal is that anything sent to my business domain name is for business (in or out). I clearly have a statement at the bottom of the site that states that unsolicited email will result in an hourly charge, with a two hour minimum for my services and time. The judges here crack up when they see that, but they have yet to rule against me. I just don't do it enough to be annoying to them.

Specifically, I have filters with auto responders in place stating that the email was unsolicited and that I reserve the right to bill them for time and expenses per my companies standard policy. My email details that they should remove me from their list and immediately disclose the source from which they acquired my private email (which is NOT listed on the site or given out freely on the net). If they don't respond, fine, if they respond negatively or I recieve email from them again unsolicited, I sue. If they actually hand over their source for the mail address (a few have), I sue that company for disclosing my private email and information without permission (that suit is automatic by the way in NJ).

Most just remove me and don't send any more mail, a few are irate and spam me some more or repsond directly in a derisive way (they get sued), a couple have given me their sources and remove me from the list, and a few even apologize (usually the larger, more legitimate outfits).

So far I have spent about four hours in court (I only make 175-200 an hour, so I profited here) and about six hours on the net or working towards filtering and responding. I laugh my ass off at the ireate repsonses, and even more when I have their bank acount frozen until they pay their legal obligation to me settled by default in small claims court.

Re:How about $10000?

[dirk]

The hard part is proving you requested to be taken off their list. You usually need to at the least send a letter before it is "official" that you requested to be removed. You can request it when they call, and a lot of them will remove you, but if they don't there is no way for you to prove you requested it. It comes down to your word against theirs, and the burden of proof is on you. So yes, by law they have to remove you if you request it, but if they don't it's up to you to prove you requested it.