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Disconnecting Telemarketers
Anonymous Scientist at UMass sent in a story about opt-out telemarketing laws, and several people submitted this story about a spam bill in the Senate. New York's telemarketing law does work - since we put our number on the list, we've gotten a couple of calls from charities (not covered by the law) and a couple of calls from Time-Warner Cable, asking us to sign up for cable. Time-Warner's calls would be banned, except that we have a pre-existing business relationship with them - you see, we already have cable. Update: 05/18 15:30 GMT by M : Oh, and if you live in New York: NYNoCall.com.
It's simple. Get rid of the land line. Cell phones are cheaper and easier. Telemarketers don't have cell phone numbers. Of course, if you use your land line for dial-up like I do, we just removed all of our telephones in the house. No telemarketers. Simple.
Any more suggestions?
Yes. Say "I'm not interested" and hang up.
People who work for telemarketers work on commission. When you stall, "parrot," or anything else, you're not wasting the company's time, but the person's time -- and, consequently, their paychecks. The longer you keep them on the line, the less opportunity they have to close a sale with someone else.
Look, I'm not trying to elicit sympathy for the telemarketing companies. I hate the intrusions as much as you do. But the callers themselves are not evil people; they are simply looking for a regular job like the rest of us. When you stall the call to "get them," you're not getting the right people.
'If you're part of the solution, you're part of the problem.' as the say goes. Maybe they do need a job, but they're still cold-calling and so they are not exactly innocent parties. If they're innocent, then what about the manager that instigates the marketing campaign? After all, they're just trying to do their regular job like the rest of us. Can we blame the company, after all, it's just trying to make a profit from it's time like the rest of do. Where exactly do you draw the line? Personally I do so at anyone who is willingly involved.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a heartless bastard, I'd rather just waste the time of those at the top of the chain but thats not always possible.
Say for example that all cold-calling had to be opt-in. So few people would opt in that there'd be hardly any market for it. Consequently, the wouldn't be a great number of jobs in it. And that same person wouldn't even have a job to receive a paycheck for. At the end of the day, the two are intertwined - you can't hurt the idea of telemarketing without also hurting the person's paycheck.
So until the day that goverments decide to make it opt-in, the best way to hurt the idea of cold-calling is to make the job such a poor earner that nobody will do it.
Nobody forces them to work for a telemarketer and even if sheer hunger and desperation were to drive people to get on the phone for some sleazy telemarketing scam, that still makes stealing other people's time not right. I will call you, don't call me.
Very true. I always get a little annoyed reading stories like this, when they turn to harrasing the telemarketers. It's not like anyone sets out in life with the goal of telemarketing. Yes, I find it annoying getting telemarketing calls. But I imagine as agrivating as it is for me to get a call, every moment of their lives at work, every day, over and over again has to be far far worse. If somone can't have a little compassion for people in this kind of bad situation I think getting bugged by telemarketers is a pretty just payback.
Everything will be taken away from you.
So I should give them my postal address os I can get paper spam.