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 don't get telemarketers.
a telemarketer tried to sell me one of those telezappers i'm pretty sure it was a prank
http://www.ganocall.com and you can sign up online.
siri
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
I know this is off-topic but I can't help it. I was reading one of these threads about telemarketers awhile ago and someone mentioned that whenever one called, he simply replied with "corflakes" I thought it was the funniest thing ever and I've been doing it ever since. I'm not as good as he is/was though. I've only gotten up to saying it 10 times....
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
I think I'd rather chat with a telemarketter for 10 minutes than wait for that site to load...
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
According to the suits, the laws that prevent the telemarketers are violating their 1st amendment right to free speech as well as unfairly restricting business.
Personally I'm glad to see the calls gone, but i do see their point too..
I expect in the end the laws will be struck down. after a long and expensive ( tax payer funded ) battle. Only one getting something out of it will be the attorneys.
Of course we all know lawyers play the same game, start up suits and make money off both sides.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://nocall.wisconsin.gov/
Not Effective until Jan 1
Morphing Software
(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?
What would be nifty would be the ability to transfer telemarketing calls to a little black box that, upon detecting a pause on on the part of the speaker, says a short, encouraging phrase, like "Tell me more!", "Sounds interesting?", "How do I sign up?", "Do you take credit cards?", "Hold on a sec.", etc. The idea would be to keep the caller on the line for as long as possible. Also useful for in-laws, bill collectors, etc. I shall draw up a patent application forthwith.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
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?
It is too bad their attack is so bilateral. With unilateral mailings for credit cards, I simply scribble all over the application such messages as:
"Find respectable work."
or
"Stop exploiting poor people."
And the company gets to pay the return envelope postage. With telemarketers, however, we are forced into the uncomfortable twinge of countering our ingrained impulse to be polite on the phone. What my roomate used to do is this: when they start talking, take the phone from your ear, put it to your mouth, and just SCREAM!!!!
Then laugh as you imagine the dork at his cubicle, ripping his headset off and holding his ear in pain.
Boost Advil sales.
Medicate all your pets.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
When I get a call from a telemarketers I try to slashdot them at home by putting them on speakerphone and having my whole family (and the bird) yell at them at once.
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.
A friend of mine used to work as a telemarketer. He tells me that these companies treat a hangup, even after you yell at the poor slob on the other end, as an "accidental disconnect", and put you back on the call queue.
Have to tell them to put you on the "do not call" list.
Wisconsin has a no-call law too, effective January 1 2003.
Sprint has this feature for $4.95 a month that disallows all non-Caller ID readable calls (blocked, private, anonymous, etc.) But there is a passcode that you can give out to "trusted" friends and family that allows them to bypass the restriction. But those 4 digits are defaulted to the last 4 of your phone number, so it's quite easy for telemarketers to guess (and they do).
Now, most of us here are probably careful with our information, and giving it out, but I'd say the other 99% of the population aren't. Now, I'm not saying that the telcos aren't using these underhanded tactics, but don't leave user stupidity out of the equation.
Here's a list for all states that have a web site.
Apparently, the anti-telemarketer website doesn't seem to have a problem with pop-ups though...
The counterscript is fun and easy.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
This guy I once knew got so many telemarketing calls (on his cell, no less) that he took to answering the phone like a chicken. He'd just pick up the line and start immediately with the clucking noises. His friends all knew he did it, so they'd just say "Rob" and immediately he'd be like "buk buk buk.. Oh hey what's up." If the other person started laughing, or acting puzzled, he'd just step up the chicken noises. Funny and effective.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
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 machines dial numbers stored in a database using a mathematical algorithm to predict when a telemarketer will be ready to finish one sales call and start another. When the machine reaches a person, the call is supposed to be transferred to a telemarketer who is just finishing a previous call.
Automated dialers are illegal in many states, Washington State being one of them. A good story about this:
Link
Calls made using an automated dialing-and-announcing device for a commercial purpose -- to sell property, goods or services -- are against the law in Washington. Consumers are entitled to $500 in damages for each call.
Check your states website for information.
Another good source for your rights against telemarketers:
PrivateCitizen.org
Connecticut's "No Call List" is accessible at http://www.state.ct.us/dcp/nocall.htm.
Transcript show: self sigs atRandom.
Any bets on whether Verizon's CEO could list all the Rules of Aquisition off the top of his head?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
That is not required in every state, nor in every country.
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
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.
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.
Apparently my submission of this same story was too late, but I included a link to the FTC proposal to create a national registry of numbers that telemarketers CANNOT call. They have extended the public comment period, so go make yourself heard.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
Whenever I am in need of some amusement that can only be had by sadistically tormenting another human being, I answer the telemarketting call pretending to be my own next of kin.
I politely explain to the caller that I had been killed a week prior in a terrible car accident, and that as a result, I am no longer interested in health insurance, long distance service, vinyl siding or a penis extension. This is the source of much amusement.
I further request that I be permanently removed from their call list, since I am, quite dead, and thus unlikely to be interested in their offer, no matter of remarkably opportune, in the forseeable future. This reduces my future call load.
If they've not complied and hung up by this point, I become audibly emotional (cue my sobbing girlfriend in the background) and become irate about the insensitivity of the caller, and their corporate policy. This is the fun, sadistic part.
On occasion, when dealing with a cold-call from a business which clearly got my number second or even third hand, I've claim to have died many months ago, in order to raise the question of validity of the information they purchase.
Since the marketting calls in my area wax and wane over the period of several weeks, this can be literally hours of fun each week. I highly recommend it.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
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.
SET pickupdelay +2
Problem solved. We used to laugh at the people who wasted their money on those things, and then sputtered and fumed at us that we shouldn't be able to get through. Truth is, those things may work for 30-40% of your telemarketing calls, but thats it. Other things, like the delay it can take for the phone lines to connect, also shorten the tone to the point where it stops before the dialer believes you're out of service. But adding a delay before it picks up if by far the most common ploy.
The other thing people don't realize is that direct callers don't have one big list of numbers that they constantly whittle down. Most do as we did, randomly generating phone numbers, then filtering out the numbers on the no-call list and in cell-phone domains. If your phone gets marked as out-of-order, it will still go back on a list with that same company within a week... they expect your number to be used by someone else quite quickly. And no, just because the company that does sell number lists thinks you're out of order, doesn't mean that they'll never try again. Think of the math... how many people have only had their phone number for a few years? How many people get new phones everyday?
And, before I left, I heard a wonderful tidbit... the list-sellers may soon set up auto-dial systems that do nothing but call the numbers marked as disconnected. If they ever get anything but that tone (say, because you're on the phone), you go back on the active list, with a little mark next to it that will bias the ranking of your number so that it won't be marked out-of-service for a very long time. It costs them nothing to keep trying your number.
And yes, for the record, even though I was doing good things (making all those pretty commercials you see on TV and all those shiny ads in the magazines), I still feel dirty sometimes =)
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
From AT&T trying to sell me on their local service.
Now, I use AT&T for my long distance (got a deal with my cell... when the contract's up, I'll probably change), so I had a little bit of leverage.
This drone wouldn't take "Not interested." for an answer, so I told them, "Hang up NOW, or I will call AT&T and cancel my existing service, and tell them that it was your telemarketing company!"
They hung up.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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!"
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!
This past summer I spent a few months with a large, evil Canadian telecom company. The system in place to obtain an unlisted number or block unwanted calls is simply twisted.
The telco trained us to only suggest privacy services as a last resort and try to talk a customer out of it if they requested the features.
Our department was responsible for busting fax marketers that peppered our clients with unwanted junk. But whenever a client called to complain about annoying fax or telemarketing calls they receive at all hours of the night, we had to tell the poor sap to either subscribe to caller ID or spend money to *69 the call. If marketer's number was unlisted, we basically said "tough luck", even when we had the number right on our screen.
An open apology goes out from me to any of you that might have called me to complain about tele/fax marketers. Sorry everybody, THEY made me to it!
"Al Qaeda Network, this is Omar speaking, How may I help you?"
both would get you on the NSA Shitlist real fast...
nbfn
I think that one of my friends had the best idea for how to defeat telemarketers.
:-) and he didn't have to pay for services to get rid of telemarketers either.
Now, it's obvious that you have to pay to have for an unlisted phone number, but what you don't have to pay for is a phone number with the wrong information on it. To make a long story short, my friend's phone number was listed in the phone book under Mark Twain's real name.
Knowing this, one could use the phone book to look for their phone number. But when telemarketers tried to do this, they'd ask for "Samuel Clemens" at which point my friend would reply with "sorry... you have the wrong number."
Worked like a charm.
-Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!
just cut out the middle-man. Sell your own phone number to the companies. That'll show those telco's!
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
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.
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
I have a cheap-o digital answering machine that I picked up for $15. I keep my ringer off or at least low, keep the volume at a decent level, and set the message to "You've reached blah blah, calls from solicitors will not be returned." This prevents most solicitors from ever getting a hold of me, but there have been a few obnoxious cases where they will rattle off their shpiel, and almost every time it is either due to a political campaign call (in Colorado I've noticed a heavy load of anti-Mike Feely campaigning; whether he's good or bad, his opponent is a scumbag who has sunk to the lowest possible level by calling people with live and automated messages, sending out endless fliers that all repeat the same drivel, etc) or a moronic satellite-dish salesperson. My favorite thing to do when this happens is to pick up the line while they're wasting the space on my machine, and scream "I SAID NO SOLICITORS!" and then hang up. Hopefully that gives them a sufficient jolt.
Personally I think it's rude to be excessively mean and nasty to telemarketers, especially in this crap economy; sure, there are plenty of better jobs they could be looking for, but it's the idiots who actually buy this stuff that perpetuate the cycle, and not the phone-slaves who feel the need to stick with whatever pays the bills. But when they deliberately waste the limited space on my machine after being told "calls from solicitors will not be returned," I feel they've crossed a line and deserve the worst.
Another fun thing to do with them is to let my girlfriend pick up the phone, and as she tries to gently wriggle her way out of the conversation without just slamming down the phone, I belt out in my best, loudest white-trash voice "Whattya doin' woman? Who you talkin' too!?" She whines in her best dimunitive dame voice and I yell at her to hang up the damned phone.
When I was younger and still lived with my parents, I'd just extract a bunch of WAV files from DOOM for DOS using DMAUD, and would create a little batch file to play them back in horrific sequence. *shotgun blast* *imp dies* *demon attack* *human death scream* etc...whoohoo.
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
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.