Slashdot Mirror
Telcos Play Both Sides of Telemarketing War
Monoman writes "Most Slasdot readers already know this but CNN has an article about how the telcos are reaping profits from selling your phone number to the telemarketers, and selling customers ways to block the telemareketers, and selling telemarketers ways to get around the customers who are paying to have telemarketers blocked and... I think you get the picture. It is nice to see stuff like this in the mainstream media." So either both sides pay the local Baby Bell for its protection racket, or you just pass a law and the problem goes away.
I live in Tennessee which lets you opt-out of phone solicitation. I have never had dinner interrupted since then. Talk to your state senator and try to get a similar law passed.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
"I don't think it's a case of we should pick one side over the other," she said. "We do serve both sides."
So... she's actually saying that Verizon does play telemarketers and consumers agianst each other, but not in a bad way? Huh? I think a little downsizing is way past due in Verizon's PR dept...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
The only reason you don't get telemarketers on your cell phone is that you pay for incoming minutes. When we start getting incoming minutes for free the telemarketing war will very likely be waged on that front as well.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
There's a simple solution to not being disturbed by telemarketers at 8am saturday...don't have a phone in your bedroom. I don't think outlawing telemarketing is the answer to the issue, but definitely coming down hard on a company that is playing both sides of the game would be useful. Especially if they could use existing law to do so.
yellowcat ^_^ ??
Telemarketers who violate the law are subject to a fine of up to $5,000 per call.
BUT...
In order to comply with the law and maintain accurate internal call lists... The Registry ... is available for a fee of $800.00 per telemarketer per calendar year
This won't stand up; "Restraint of Trade" comes to mind. Either the list must be made free to telemarketers because it is a law with selective application (no calls only to those on the list) which they must follow, or the fines will be dropped on appeal. You cannot force a company to pay for information it needs to keep itself legal every quarter. Think of the ramifications: if this is acceptable, then why not another law which requires companies to downlaod a list of people on welfare which every company must download for $500/month so that they can report if someone on Welfare is actually working for them? You must take the idea to the extreme when considering it because, come hell or high water, sooner or later some case will test an extreme beyond whatever popped into your noggin before.
I'm not against charging the telemarketers. I'm against badly written laws which give the telemarketers a way to weasel out in court and which have chilling potential future effects.
woof.
Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.
Yes, but it's kind of like e-mail spammers. They don't care if it is illegal, because they don't care about anything but their bottom line. If there's little chance of you pressing charges, they'll do it anyway.
This is why you should always press charges if a telemarketer calls your cell phone. Bleed 'em dry.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Arms dealers play both sides of the global war.
Lawyers play both sides of the legal war.
Congressmen play both sides of the political war.
That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure the rest of you can think of more.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Just Don't Pick Up the Phone
If I don't recognize the CallerID info, I don't take the call. Period. If it's an important call, a message will be left by the caller, or they'll try my wireless phone if they are important enough to me for me to have given them the number.
Get on a Do Not Call List
If your state has legislated a Do Not Call list, get your name on it. It may not help, but it surely can't hurt.
Turn Off That Ringer
I only have one ringer on per floor in my house. The basement phone's ringer is set to low volume. The one on the phone in my bedroom gets shut off entirely when I don't want to be disturbed. I got one of those Fone Flasher things from Radio Shack for my bedroom. It's positioned so whether I'm watching TV or working at the computer, I will see it out of the corner of my eye.
Roll Your Own Technology-Based Solution
Since I already had a computer running the house lights and stuff like that, I just bought a modem that supports Caller ID and got a hold of MacCallerID. Now I can leave the ringers off all the time, and the computer lets me know when someone I want to talk to is calling. I have a whitelist of callers, and when someone on that list calls and the house is not in 'sleep' or 'away' mode, the computer verbally announces their name through wireless speakers scattered throughout the house. During the day I can also hit my server from any machine with web access, and see a list of the last 10 people who have called my house.
The bottom line is, no self respecting Slashdot reader should have to pay the phone company to rid themselves of the annoyance of telemarketers.
~Philly
The first amendment does not imply a right to be heard. The DMA has often argued that the first amendment means that they can do whatever they want to pitch an advertisement even to people who don't want it. That's like arguing that I have the legal right to break into your home so that I can argue a political point.
The DMA is run by crooks and thieves. They're just rich enough to bribe the right Congresscritters.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Why oh why did you link to the New York one? Don't you know there are more?
There's also an effort to make a national one.
And don't forget the DMA lists.
If you have done business with the company, it's not illegal
Unless you tell them to stop, at which point it is illegal. I've gotten two calls, one each from two of my credit card companies, and they lasted less than a minute each. Much better than when I had my "land line" and was getting two or three calls a day.
Easy solution, if I get a call from a number I don't know, I don't usually call it back. Not because of cost, just because if they can't be bothered to leave me voice mail, it must not be that important.
While telemarketers technically get the brunt of our rage, it's the telemarketing company that's at fault.
I know someone who worked as a telemarketer. She was a nice person. She said that you don't even know who you are calling -- a machine does it for the telemarketer. That's why they frequently stumble pronouncing your name -- they don't see it until the moment you pick up the phone.
Telemarketing is a thankless job, but it pays well, and for someone who doesn't have a degree -- heck, with the economy the way it is now, even people *with* degrees -- it's a job that pays well without requiring physical exertion or long hours.
Have you heard what most telemarketers sound like? They aren't thrilled about their product. They're not excited to tell you about it. They're just running through a script they've been given. Most telemarketers I hear sound tired, they sound stressed, they sound worn out.
If you simply tell them "Put this number on your do not call list" then they are obligated by law to do so and cannot call you for a year. On the other hand, screaming or attacking the person who calls you isn't constructive. It just increases the stress of that person, and, probably, yours.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
While I respect your view and will admit that screaming at them is not the nicest thing to do, getting paid to waste my time isn't something I'm going to be nice to you about.
It's like in the Army. If you do something, you are morally responsible for it, regardless of who gave the order. Shooting Jews because you're "following orders" is still wrong.
Your friend is among those that choose to waste my time, thus I hold them accountable.
I should add that I've never done more than become stern and just hang up with telemarketers, so keep the flames down.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
The "No call" lists don't include businesses. They are only for residential lines. This is absurd. When I get a call at home I can let my asnwering machine say "Telemarketers fuck off, all others leave a message at the beep". I can't do that from a business phone. Yet the "No call" lists won't do business lines. Why is that? That's where I need it most.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In the case of one of my friends, double shifts at Burger King would prevent his seeing his young son and taking classes at university part time which he does to get out of his hellish job.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Well, bud.. that's too bad for your friend... but it's still not enough for me to be polite to him or to have respect for him if he calls me in the middle of the evening and tries to sell me a magazine subscription or tries to convince me to switch to MCI long distance.
I have a basic respect for all people... as long as they show me the same respect. Telemarketers and telemarketing companies intrude on people's privacy and basically annoy people for no good reason. I consider that to be very disrespectful and I will not tolerate it.
Hopefully your friend will finish school soon and move into a more respectable career where he will not be intruding on other people's privacy or disrespecting them and still be able to spend time with his young son.
That would be from your own post, specifically "Problem solved". It certainly created the impression that the delay was done in order to solve the "problem" of not getting through to people with telezappers. So strike the word "deliberately" from my original post; the rest stands.
if you wanted to indicate that you didn't want intrusion into your life, then maybe you should have let intelligence intrude into your head and signed up on all the various no-call lists (cost: free) instead of wasting your good money on something that doesn't work
I really don't understand your contempt for the people whose lives you were interrupting. Perhaps they didn't know about the no-call lists, didn't trust telemarketers to honor them, or didn't want to spend the time to figure out how to get on them. Time is not free, although I wouldn't expect telemarketers or those who use their tactics to understand that.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.