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.
This seems similar to weapons dealers who sell weapons to both sides. Unfortunately they are selling bigger weapons to the baddies.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
I think the law should be sufficiently broad that no private or public enterprise may sell or otherwise benefit from distributing to third parties any information it has about you that makes you personally identifiable.
I don't have a problem with any enterprise selling compiled demographics.
So call (preferably during dinnertime) your representative!
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Because the lawmakers are fully funded divisions of whatever corporation needs them to write a crippleware version of a law that enables them to circumvent the public outcry that caused the law to be proposed in the first place. Hooray for democracy!
Never pet a burning dog.
(Although this is a bit off-topic). In Japan there is a telemarketing craze: call someone once on their mobile, then wait for them to call back. The client pays for the (overpriced) call. So phone manufacturers provide an option to disable the first ring. :-) Now the beepers ring twice and then hang-up.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
In Indiana, this already exists. Basically, our law states that if you've registered to be blocked from telemarketing, no one can telemarket to your phone unless they are a registered local fundraiser (i.e. Volunteer Fire Dept, etc) or a company you already do business with. In other words, Citibank could call be to offer me the latest services for my credit card. Kinda bites, because Citi is one of the worst for me when it comes to telemarketing. But I don't get any more offers to change my long distance service, thank goodness.
-AAAWalrus
From the article summary:
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 went to nynocall.com about nine months ago, and ever since I think I've gotten one, count 'em, one telemarketing call. And after I got it, I went back to the friendly nynocall.com site, and filled out a report so they could nail the bastards.
It's amazing what a great piece of legislation, plus a little enforcement, can do to solve the problem. Wish other states would follow New York's lead.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
From the article
Sales revenue has risen from about $435 billion in 1990 to around $660 billion last year.
Can anyone comfirm this? $500B is about 5% of GDP.
Do you spend 5% of your gross income on stuff that telemarketers sell you?
In a similar vein, I have taken to simply putting the phone down (quietly) and let them blather on until they realise that noone is listening.
As they say in the article: marketers value THEIR time, but not yours. I like to return the favour of wasting their time without wasting MINE.
AT&T
I do not have long distance service through them, my number is unlisted and blocked, yet they effectively contact me at least once a month (since they control the local phone service in my area).
When asked to be taken off their list, they claim it will take a month to go through yet I continually get called. They say they will send me writen notice about my request but I never receive it.
Anyone else harassed by this 800 pound gorilla?
come on fhqwhgads
I worked for a Market Research Company, the system we used in the office was to divide up a phone book for an area and flick through it until we had someone from the postcode we were targeting.
.... 2/3 of them would drown .... and they'd probably be glad.
That person was then called (and crossed off in the book).... and then we added 1 to the number and called that and repeat until we'd tried 10 people or called someone who complained we'd already called them.
This way we got people in the area we wanted and we didn't pay for any phone numbers - the phone book was probably free.
Occasionally we called the same person twice - but they would be very unlikely to be called more than twice.
Being X-directory or whatever would have had no effect whatsoever, and we did get a few people complain about this - surprise surprise.
P.S.
In my defence we were NOT selling anything, we were asking questions about what people thought of their water board and what they thought its environmental priorities should be.
I quit after a couple of days anyway (not what I'd signed up for). I'd signed up to call up companies and I see little wrong with calling bored secretaries and asking about what printers their firm uses (they are paid to answer the phone and are quite capable of saying they're busy).
Next time you're cold-called have *some* sympathy for the caller though as it is one of the most soul destroying jobs out there, having the phone slammed down and taking abuse 20 times an hour.
--
If you laid all the cold callers in the world around the equator end to end
Has anyone tried.... An automated attendant something like this: "By dialing this number your are agreeing to the terms and conidtions of this phone line. Please press one to hear the full terms and conitions. If you agree to these terms, please press two now. If you do not agree to my terms please hang up now." If the caller presses two the phone rings. If they press one they hear an hour long message full of legal mumbo jumbo that forbids unsolicited calls. Would that work? If I implemented something like this would I have recourse to sue telemarketers that press two???Just an idea.
Any junk mail that contains a "Business Reply Envelope" is a candidate for "reverse marketing". You simply rip out or obfuscate any references to your name, take all the promotional material and stuff it into the reply envelope for an all-expenses-paid trip back to the sender. I also heard about someone who kept a supply of junk mail on hand, to stuff into envelopes with their monthly payments, especially those who send junk mail with the monthly bill. The junk mail senders create a disposal problem; let them deal with it.
As for the telemarketers, I think the "loud noise tactics" are just stooping to the level of the bad guys. Instead, you make the standard "Put me on your do-not-call list, permanently" statement AND THEN RING A BELL, WHICH YOU WOULD POSITION NEAR THE PHONE FOR EXACTLY THIS PURPOSE. The telemarketers have little bells that they are supposed to ring when they close a sale. This is somehow supposed to produce positive feedback that lifts the spirits of nearby telemarketers in adjacent cubicles, in a desperate attempt to fight off all the rejection. Anything you can do to discourage or demoralize them should be accompanied by the "ding" sound of a bell, just to let them know who is in charge.
As pointed out, it should be possible to do this with a modem that interfaces with a sound card. So all you need is a program that captures the incoming stream and detects a pause of say, 1 sec, then plays a semi-random .wav file that the user recorded.
Does anyone KNOW of any such anti-spam software?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Unless, of course, they are:
A non-profit organization.
A business with a prior relationship (or 'affiliates' of such businesses).
Political Groups.
Businesses that will not complete the sale on the phone.
So that cuts out exactly who, now? The spam calls I get are exclusively within the abovementioned categories. It's not even worth my time to figure out how to get on 'The List'!
When I switched to Sprint some four months ago, telemarketers started to call like crazy (8-10 :)
calls a day) regarding changing long distance etc. I thought... why not wasting their time and
money by setting up my answering machine to pick up the call on the second ring? (since their
computer hanged up on the third) Sure enough, they continued to call, and my answering machine
picked up and they had to listen to my message. (they never left any messages.) It continued for
four days and then they took me off their list. I've not had a signle telemarketer calling me from
that day on! I guess they didn't like to get their time wasted and lose money on each call my
answering machine picked up.
My employer gave me a phone line in my apartment so when I'm working at home, I don't pay for work related calls. The first thing I say to ANY unsolicited calls is "This is a business line" and I am immediately told "We'll take your number off our list"
If you've ever wondered about the legalities of recording calls without one side knowing about it:
Can We Tape? (Summary: In most states, it's legal.)
Though I don't have a link, I am fairly certain this practice is legal in all Canadian provinces also.
Something to think about, if you've ever considered threatening or cursing at a telemarketer (very likely), or if you find they do it to you (less likely).
I don't know if this would apply here, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's been used already in numerous cases (see link).
Freedom: "I won't!"
Are for when my cell phone battery is dead, or I need to send a fax. (Although I can technically do that with my cell phone, I don't).
Simple way to make people go away.
"AT C0S0=1" Sent to your modem and have a nice day. Just make sure next time you dial out to set "C1" though or it won't work.
"AT"=Attention, "C0" Disable Transmitter (prevent would be war dialers), "S0=1"=Auto answer 1 ring.
See it here.
/.ed...
Someone please mirror this and reply to this msg to keep it from getting
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I hate to think about how much business with me AT&T has lost due to their poor record keeping or just plain sleezy tactics, though I doubt it is the latter.
My wife and I have been customers of local AT&T broadband phone as well as AT&T long distance. This is relevent because we have been getting solicitations to switch our local phone server to AT&T broadband at least twice a week for months. What have they to gain from selling me a service I already have? Even worse, when I tell them I'm already a customer THEY DON'T GET IT and continue their pitch.
If they do stop their pitch, I always stump them with the "If you can sell me a package with local, long distance, high speed internet (cable or DSL, don't care much), & cell". Every once in a while they answer that they can't do that as AT&T Wireless is not the same company, at which point I go into the circular argument about how AT&T Wireless couldn't use the AT&T name without being part of AT&T.
The bottom line is that the service we get from AT&T Broadband for our local telephone service is FAR better than the original carrier, but AT&T customer service is AWFUL, and that includes their telemarketing.
Symonette, for instance, bought a $150 Siemens phone that "speaks" the caller's name and number, so he won't actually have to get out of bed to learn who's calling. It seems like a computer should be able to do anything that these gadgets can do. I was wondering was if there were an open API for voice modem operations, that included call-id/call-waiting capabilities. And if so, why is it that such software is not freely available. There may be some barrier that I fail to see. I would appreciate any input on this.
Actually I heard Kevin Mitnik, talking on Emmanuel Goldstein's show, Off The Hook, about how it is very easy to spoof caller ID and tracking by hacking a PBX. Download the october 16th show it is described. According to them they can make any number appear as the origin, and it is nearly impossible to track, since the pbx itself is responsible for logging the call.
"Could Jesus Microwave a burrito so hot, that he himself could not eat it."HS
Why are you even saying no? Just ask to be put on the DNC list. If they fail to comply, they owe you money.
I simply don't fucking understand people who think they are obligated to be polite to telemarketers.
If you do not have a "Do Not Call List" in your state, and you get a telemarketing call, state the following:
"Per the Federal Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act of 1990, I would like to be placed on your federally mandated Do Not Call List. I would like written notification of this, and a copy of your Do Not Call policy mailed to me."
This law actually exists. I've just memorized the spiel and can repeat it back verbatim. The amount of calls I get has dropped 90 percent. I found out about it when Sixty Minutes had a thing about it several years back, a guy in New York actually keeps track of the people calling him and sues them if they call him a second time. For $20 mailed to him, he'll even submit your name to the proper Do Not Call lists and then go to bat for you legally if someone violates it. Wish I had a transcript of that one.
Never look down your nose at others. Someday, someone is bound to see your boogers.
I get almost no telemarketing calls whatsoever. This is how:
In the last few months, I've gotten two or three "prerecords" -- automated callers that left recorded messages on my voice mail. I reported those to the phone company and California AG, since they are illegal. I have never gotten a telemarketing call to my cell phone, and have never been disturbed by one to my home phone number either.
When California has a do-not-call list, I will list the home phone and cell phone. If that proves to open the floodgates to telemarketers calling my cell phone, I'll just change the number and not repeat that mistake. :)
Catherine
Kevin Mitnick actually did this when he was on the Art Bell radio show, he found Art's unlisted phone number and called him up making the call display show something completely different from what it should of been. Needless to say, Art was a little bit spooked :)