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Telemarketer Blows Whistle on Tape-Altering Scam
Recently, Florida-based telemarketing firm Epixtar is frequently accused of cramming an extra $30 onto phone charges of small businesses, yet has proof of legality by recording their calls. Until they laid off some people, one of whom has blown the whistle. The companies' cramming tactics become "legal" by altering those taped recordings to include a quick statement about the $30 charge. MSNBC has the article, including a short audio clip of a sample call.
Until they laid some people
Well, I guess they really screwed their employees over, too.
Damn, say what you want about telemarketers, but I think I want to work for this company.
The whistleblower obviously was a person that was not laid.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
:P
You shank my Jengaship!
Makes my head hurt.
This is more common than you may think. I've been spammed jammed hacked slammed the only reason I stick around is to see what con comes next
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
How exactly does a business of any kind "lay" you? I've heard of getting screwed...but never getting laid.
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Seems like the ones not getting layed would be the ones to blow the whistle
Well that really depends on who was playing the "girl", the employer or the employee.
What happened to people reporting this sort of stuff before they had a grudge against the company? Why do only former employees report this sort of thing?
they lay some people and "blow" others, apparently.
Telemarketing in general pisses me off; but this kind of unethical crap is the worst.
Telemarketing should be against the law as an invasion of privacy, or at the very least, a public annoyance. With fair penalties of course. Nothing insane; although sometimes I think death would be appropriate, such as at 6pm when I'm eating dinner and they bother me to try and sell me some new windows..
Lends a different connotation to "blowing the whistle," doesn't it?
Here Enjoy.
I'm not Seth.
Another perfect reason to hang up on telemarketers!
But seriously you can imagine some people/businesses either missing the charge (especially if it is a long bill) or just not bothering about it if it is a once of charge. Especially when you consider the big run-around that customers get when trying to obtain a refund.
OMG!!1 It's M$NBC!!1 and it's SHOCKWAVE! I can't use that closed sores crap!
Grow up assholes
These tactics have been around in the industry for way too long. I had a roomate that used to make money off these cramming punks by telling them he had a better deal from X company and they'd give him 100 dollars to switch plus pay the switching fees and such. And he'd play all sides.
:)
Man let me tell you his beer fund was funded
"The company feels it operates ethically and has not done anything wrong," Nasca said.
If you're getting anrgy phonecalls from the people who are giving you money (more or less by voluntarely), you're probaly doing something wrong and / or unethically. Wether you give a damn is another matter entirely... many a sucxessfull business (spammers etc) depends on pissing people off.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
The solicitation most definitely looked like a bill (front page and back page). The bottom half of the page is a tear away bill stub and the solicitation notice on the top right hand corner is in a lighter font than the rest of the text (though it's harder to notice on the scan).
Fortunately, I'm in the habit of reading all of my bills when they come in, but some people aren't. They obviously got the information from the internet WHOIS database even though that database is explicitly protected by a clause saying you can't datamine from it.
The next morning, I filed a complaint with the United States Postal Inspectors because of the deceptiveness and the likelihood that others will be fooled by it. Here is the complaint I sent:
I received a solicitation from ICLS which deceptively looks like a bill. Located on it, is a tear-away payment stub with a customer number, due date and amount with no reference to the fact that it's actually a solicitation on the stub. On the upper right hand corner, it does state "THIS NOTICE IS A SOLICITATION AND RECEIPT OF PAYMENT WILL CONFIRM YOUR ANNUAL LISTING", however, it is a lighter font than the rest of the solicitation.
While I, fortunately, did not fall for the solicitation, I'm concerned that other people whom aren't as careful could easily be deceived as without close examination, it will appear as a bill.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the postal inspectors to see what they have to say.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
So I listened to the sample on the MSNBC page, and from what it sounds like to me is someone talking very fast and some guy saying "OK" to everything. Now, i didn't have a clue what that woman was saying, and i'm assuming that guy didn't either. If he did he would have said "no". So i guess what puzzles me is:
Why didn't the man saying "OK" ever say "what?" or "can you repeat that, slower this time?" He just mindlessly said "OK". This is akin to signing a contract where a bunch of the text is smudged and unreadble.
There's no doubt the company is using some shady tactics, but it says right in the article
"While it is not possible to verify if the call had been altered, the consumer who received the call said the substance of the recording is accurate."
And I've got a telephone, but I've not heard anything about this laying, blowing or cramming until now. Evidently I am in the wrong field.
All I ever get are wrong numbers.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
How to piss off AT&T
:-)
A Nice List
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50 Stupid things to Say
These bastards are a pet hate of mine. I've tried most of these at one stage or another. If you can keep from laughing, it's fun to string them along
I'm not Seth.
So, I know Epixtar added their "lightning-quick" phone-bill-altering deal to the tapes after the fact. However, what I want to know is: Is there some sort of legal requirement for how slow/quickly such statements have to be said? I mean, car commercials/ads routinely have quickly-spoken disclaimers at the end of ads and such. If Epixtar had merely tacked on the "we can alter your bill" or whatever phrase, only spoken at a Micro Machines guy speed so it seemed like crackly phone noise, would that be legal?
because no one should let telemarketers breed
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Are we doomed to see something in the future along the lines of philip k dick's vision? I surely hope not. What can we do to limit it to realms that it currently holds its position in. There are enough billboards already please stop building new ones.
Fnord.sig
Can't even explain this one away by blaming the submitter of the story, eh, editors? I mean, seeing as you wrote it all. :)
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I want one of two things: Either the company responsible for telemarketing fraud is fined the entire dollar amount of all assets plus 50% and all employees directly involved in the particular incident receive no less that 10 years in prison and a fine of no less than $25,000 per instance with all fines being equally disputed among those victims of this company's fraudulant operations.
Or I want button installed on my phone that will kill whoever is on the other line.
If you're working at one of these places you're doing it for the money, not for a warm feeling. Morality is a luxury many people can not afford.
How many bottles of Mt. Dew have you chugged?? Don't you think it would be wise to lay off the caffeine??
All the people who just had to comment on the ommision of the word 'off', as in 'laid off', they play CS, right?
Someone hates these cans.
Check out this answering machine for your PC that deals with telemarketers who withhold their caller ID. The software can be configured to hang up on these cases and you will never hear the phone ring. It also implements white lists and black lists. Usual disclaimer applies.
Yes there is a risk of IDing legitimate calls as false positives. However, I've been monitoring my caller ID for over two years and can confirm that this is becoming less of a problem as more bell systems make their caller ID protocols compatible. So the risk is diminishing with time.
Yes this is a drastic move but until the law catches up this is how you have to deal with aggressive deceptive practices.
Caller ID is a godsend people - use it. Yes the telcos should be hung by their balls for extorting extra services out of the customers by selling personal information to scum telemarketers. In my next residence I will register my phone under an alias. If anyone calls asking for the alias, then they are immediately identified as a telemarketer and I will tell them there is no one here by that name. This crap has gone far enough.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
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Its serious business, this phone scam company. Billions are lost every year.
Saying people got laid is'n t funny. Con men can be violent and agressive (that is why they are criminals who should be shot), and it is a good thing some brave men and women turned them in.
I suggest you read Slashdot
It almost is a good enough reason to drop the landline entirely. It adds to the TCO of a landline.
Somehow I see E-mail dying (replaced by online feedback forms) and Landlines dying (replaced by VoIP and wireless).
Any good technology can be turned into trash with the right tools.
The truth shall set you free!
you're about to get laid. and by laid I mean fired.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Okay, okay, so we've heard about the scam they were pulling. Let's get to the meat of the story though... The fact that this company was LAYING its employees!! How sweet is that?! Unfortunately there are no details. I want to know things like, was there any anal or oral sex, or just standard hetero-penis-in-vagina-sex? Who was this whistle blower, and was she a good at blowing? Why was she blowing the whistle? Was the sex unsatisfactory, or too infrequent? Answers, I want answers, dammit!!
This will eliminate a small number of telemarketers - the rest will get through because they're calling from overseas and would have simply shown up as "out of area" or blank on your caller ID unit.
Hold on. Slashdot has so many people experiences in social engineering. Why not give Epixtar a call and sell them some choice beachfront property in Arizona? Then if they don't pay, present them with a recorded conversation. After defending their strategy in court they wouldn't be able to just back out of it.
Better yet, try it on the next telemarketer that calls you. Should be fun and legal, since they called your "business" to "inquire about your services" themselves.
okay means "not bad, not good." It is not agreement. I doubt you'd find any court to uphold that as an oral contract, even as made.
Can anybody verify if these companies are one and the same?
they should learn the lesson that they can screw either their employees or their customers, not both. Even lawyers don't do it.
This actually happened to my dad. Keep in mind my dad works nights, and typically sleeps all day.
Telemarketer: "Hi, my name is [somebody] and... excuse me, can you hear me?"
My dad (still groggy): "Yes."
Telemarketer: "I'm calling to offer you suchandsuch a service... [blah blah blah garbage]"
Dad: "I'm not interested. Goodbye. *click*"
Next month, he notices his long distance service has been changed to (I think) AT&T.
They used his "Yes" answer to an irrelevant question, and turned it into a "sale".
People like that should be thrown in jail.
o/~ All God's children shall be free in Pirates of the Caribbean, when we reach that Magic Kingdom in the sky... o/~
Until they laid some people
This reminds me of a joke:
Jack & Mary's boss had to lay one of them off.
So he walks up to Mary and tells her: It's like this - I have to lay you or Jack off.
She replies: I'm affraid you'll have to jack off, because I'm late for my bus...
Man, I *hate* it when the people I lay, blow the whistle on me. :)
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
What ever happened to opting in for things like spam, services, etc. A few weeks ago, I saw an ad in the paper listing government jobs. I called the number, and it was just a company with a catalog of 'potential future' government jobs for an 'easy' payment of $59.99. Naturally, I wasn't interested. The guy on the other end assumed I would be paying for it, and skipped 'selling' it to me. Instead, he immediately started asking for my credit card, info, etc. Since I had already given him my name and address (for location-based positions, he said), he became increasingly pissed off as I didn't want to buy it. He even demanded that I go get the 'fucking card and pay for it, its not that expensive'. When I refused, he tried one more time. When I refused again, he said that he was going to send it to me anyway, and that I would be billed to my address. I asked for the name of the company and its location, but they refused to give it out. Or let me talk to a supervisor. Wish I still had the number, I'd deliver it to the BBB.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
What he meant
"If you blow the whistle you'll be laid off"
What he actually typed
"If you blow my whistle you'll be laid."
eh, easy mistake, anybody could have made it.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
When you sign a contract with someone, both parties keep a copy of the contract. How is it valid to have only one party to a contract keep a copy of it? The customer should also have a copy of the recording.
If the recordings of phone conversations were stored as mp3 files, the customers could sign their conversations with their private crypto keys, validating the recording as authentic. I know some call centers record calls digitally. It shoudn't be too hard to send me an email with the file so i can generate an MD5 hash/message digest, sign it and return the signed message digest. Then there's no question, and I have a copy of the conversation for my files too.
Or I guess the low-tech solution is to just record the calls ourselves. Any software that can record a conversation off the DSP modem?
The worst was a local newspaper calling around for new subscriptions. He starts out saying what paper he's calling about and asks whether I receive their paper. I say no. Then he starts off on a sales pitch, which I interrupt to say that the reason I don't receive the paper already is that I don't WANT it, since I get my news from the net. The guy actually tries to continue on reading the script or whatever he's got in front of him... took a couple tries to be polite about not wanting what he's selling before I just flat out said "Listen to the words coming out of my mouth. Not interested." and hung up on the guy. In retrospect that should have been my first response.
I'm amazed people still sit on the phone with these bottom-feeders and answer their questions, unwillingly signing themselves up for a ton of crap. It's not hard to tell them to piss off instead of falling for their tactics.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I'm sure they also had them against the wall, on the photocopier. Well that what I saw in the office christmas party photos last year :P
Sex - The basis of all humour
rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I'm just waiting for a cramming call... I'm all prepared now:
..."
Telemarketer: "At this time we will begin your no obligation 30-day free trial. Should you decide to continue after 30 days your company's Web and Internet service is only $29.95 monthly and will be included in your local phone bill appearing under the heading online services
Me: "No means yes and yes means no, does your company personally wish to pay for my entire phone bill, including the $30 a month charges, and additionally all long distance charges, once your 30 day free trial expires?"
I think you should try this
The companies' cramming tactics become "legal" by altering those taped recordings to include a quick statement about the $30 charge.
That's not what the article says. It hints that the tape was cut off immediately after the person responded "Yes" to a group of questions asked quickly all at once, removing the rest of their response. Which is still bad but not nearly as bad as inserting bits into the conversation that never took place. I'm sure that's not far off, if it's not already happening in some cases, but it didn't happen here according to the MSNBC article.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It'd be more wise to lay the caffeine...
NEVER BUY ANYTHING.
/. are all aware of how that works. (Free Kevin, oh wait, nevermind) But these guys are just plain arrogant about it. Did you hear the womans voice when she was asked to repeat something? She got a real nasty tone. The social response to that is to not ask for anything to be repeated. And voila, he gets nailed with some services and charges he never really even heard, or realized he was buying.
Never confirm more than your name, and ask for theirs first.
A person/company calling you has you at a great advantage. It could be an inmate of a prison just trying to get your credit card, and all he/she started with was probably a phone book or Internet connection... I mean come on, they almost always BLOCK their source phone number. How can you even remotely trust someone who is hiding behind an unidentified phone number, wanting to sell you something???
It is like social engineering, surely we here on
Now what I have always wanted to do, but never have, is when the call starts and they say it may be recorded, I would say "Good, for my records and quality assurances I AM RECORDING THE CALL TOO." How do you think the would respond to that? most likely "Click."
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
I live in the UK, and as I've opted to be 'ex-directory' or not listed in the public phonebook, I've never had a single telemarketer call. I don't know if this means it's foolproof or I'm just lucky, but it seems this cold-calling problem is particularly rife in the USA.
Hmmm.
Telemarketer: "Hello I'm calling from ......."
Me: "Wait a moment while I get my tape recorder."
*click*
Acaila
Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional.
JERRY: Uh, sorry, Excuse me one second. Hello.
TEL: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service.
JERRY: Oh, gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later.
TEL: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that.
JERRY: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home.
TEL: No.
JERRY: Well now you know how I feel. [Hangs up]
Seinfeld Episode Transcript
"Morality is a luxury many people can not afford."
If that's true? Then the rich are very moral people.
I want to know what the guy from the recording's problem is. At several points there, I would have said something to the effect of "BITCH SLOW DOWN!". While this crap is immoral, and as yet to-be-determined, probably illegal.. this guy didn't exactly do all he could have.
I switched from NSI to a different registrar sometime ago for obvious reasons. NSI, of course, tried to stop that from happening but I'd done my homework and everything went smoothly since everything was in order. Several months later I recieve a bill from NSI. I am prepared to get all angry when I notice it's NOT actually a bill, it just looks like bill. It's really a form to transfer my domain back and charge me for it.
I told the FTC about it and they told me that I was not the only one to complain and they were looking in to it. Dunno what ever came of it, NSI has left me alone since.
And the magic phrase: Put me on your Do Not Call List.
Don't argue with someone, and dont think you're being rude by just hanging up.
. . . is to hand the phone to a child. This works best when said son or daughter is four or five years old. Six-year-olds are generally bright enough to figure out that the telemarketer isn't worth talking to.
Of course, this only works if you have a child of an appropriate age handy.
EXACTLY. Having been forced into telemarketing for a short period of time myself (due to financial reasons) I can attest that very few people that are able to continue telemarketing work full time have no souls. I didn't last 40 hours, and the only reason I lasted that long was because i had my fiancee providing emotional support, and I couldn't afford to quit.
In my mind, telemarketing is about as self-damaging as prostitution. I'd probably put it up there on the moral scale, too. Its time we see religoius groups going into telemarketing offices and trying to save their souls.
Actually, I think that a prostiute is lest morally detestable than a telemarketer - at least prostitutes can feasably enjoy their job, and it pays better.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The overall situation is worse than the article leads you to believe. This is something that I wouldn't expect to see fully explained on any major news site like MSNBC. The situation is thus: You don't need any proof -- or real proof -- in order to steal money from people via their phone bills.
... but by 1997 I could only change my own behavior in response to the groundswell of all the legalized fraud that was going on.
By that year, I knew that I had to hangup immediately to avoid entanglement with a calling telemarketer, and that my phone bills had to be carefully scrutinized every month. *
... you issue about 10 thousand blatantly false charges to 10 thousand homes and small businesses via your "Internet service company" and collect from the percentage that don't bother to (effectively) fight your fraud.
The next month, you go after another 10 thousand addresses.
After a year, you'll have to close down the business to stay ahead of the cops, but by then you've accumulated over half a mill.
You pay yourself well, your mafioso helpers okay, and then invest in the next scammer slammer business.
... much of it is organized crime, and it should be treated as such.
They should be arrested, charged and prosecuted for what they do.
Hopefully when arrested they try to resist and are shot dead on the spot.
Back in the 1990s I began to realize that a phone bill became viewed as a charge account that organized crime could tack charges onto. This accusation includes organizations like AOL. Charges for goods and services -- delivered or not, worthwhile or not -- could be tacked onto the billing statement, which would be automatically sent and almost automatically paid for. It was simply too good to believe for mafiosi large and small
This new environment has encouraged sociopathic wariness to contact with businesses. Congratulations, Corporate America!
By 1998, I could clearly see a workable but fraudulent business model arising. It's relatively simple
You don't need vox proof of anything, but such things can be falsified when necessary. One anecdote (names altered) springs to mind of what happened within my circle of friends. I know a small, used bookstore named Smather's Books, run by Ms. Smith. One month she noticed a $29.95 item tacked onto her small-business phone bill for "Internet Yellow Pages service" (or something like that). She called to investigate, and when she finally got to the right person at at the IYP service company, they played a recording for her from "Mister Smather". On the tape she clearly heard Mr. Smather authorizing the IYP service.
This would all be fine and dandy, except for the fact that there is no Mr. Smather.
"Smather's Books" is just a name she made up that was close to her own name. The tape was falsified. Even after she pointed this out to the IYP company, she didn't get very far with them, and only after complaining to the telco did the charge get dropped from her bill.
The use of threat and deception to acquire money is morally criminal. Make no mistake at all on this telemarketing and other boiler-room matters
* By 2001, I no longer answered my phone, preferring to screen all calls.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
How can someone phoning *you* put a charge on your phone bill?
Unfortunately people who do nothing wrong have to fight back. I had AOL before they had unlimited access for $20 or so. When asked if I wanted to switch to unlimited billing, I said yes. Come bill time my bill was $120. I refused to pay on the grounds that I agreed to an unlimited access plan. I never had to pay the money. I was also about 12 at the time and didnt want to pay money I didnt have. The point is: FIGHT BACK, even twelve year olds can win.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
What scares me is businesses are arranging with banks on direct account withdrawals, and checking account numbers are pretty easy to come by. I mean, if you have ever paid something by check, they have it. And now, they do not even need a signed check to get withdrawal. So you could see charges showing up on your checking account that you have no idea what is.
And dealing with a business is kinda scary, because they have links to Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. They can mess up your credit and then you have to straighten that out too. You might as well pay them their money just not to have to argue about it. I mean, like me - if I get my credit all screwed up over some business that slipped a charge on me for some "professional services listing" and I refused to pay, I might be denied a job because of that stain. And they know this.
So, I try to keep any monthly billing I have to as few of entities as possible. Once a company has legitimate billing access, they have a foot in the door that a telemarketer can use to fool me into thinking I am doing business with somebody I am already doing business with... like the way they bamboozled the guy with the trick 4-in-one question that if he said "yes" ( which was the obvious answer to three of the questions - if the name, address, and number was correct ), he implies acceptance of the quickly stated fourth question - that he is authorized to modify his billing.
With a business model out now that depends on signing up monthly billing, I see the opportunity for scamming artists soaring, as the number of open accounts, ripe for modification, soars.
I continue all attempts to make purchases on a per-instance basis, meaning I pay full price for the product and close the sale, leaving no loose ends. None of this "support", "warranty", "revolving charge account", etc. I walk out the door with the product, and the vendor has been paid in full. That way things don't change after the agreement has been made.
I have done way too much business already with businesses ( especially insurance companies, and any company having anything to do with investments ) that love to send me tons of paper describing changes after I have agreed to something.
Damm, I just don't have time to read it all. I really *hate* to do business under that business model.
This is the thing that had me so worked up over the Lexmark Printer thing ( where Static Control Concepts tried to make an aftermarket replacement toner cartridge but ran afoul of DMCA because Lexmark put a chip in the toner cartridge, and SCC could not legally duplicate the chip. ). Once this paradigm catches on in the business community, I fear we will see the end of going to WalMart to get replacement aftermarket goods for our day-to-day expendables. Companies could demand and get agreements for monthly billings, and once that's in place, the door is wide open for rampant trickery to modify those agreements.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Searched for the number on that taped conversation on google and found out that this is the shitty online directory that they purportedly add you to.
Now liberty online - that must be another name these guys do business under
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
1. Connect phone cable to ISDN card in PC.
2. Via answerphone program or otherwise, record the voice of telemarketer and play it backwards.
'Course, must be done coherently, and no long gaps of silence! Guaranteed to freak 'em out.
I'm concerned that other people whom aren't...
..." etc. But never ask "whom shall I say is calling?"
My grammar is certainly never perfect but always remember a reader forgives 'who' instead of 'whom' but never 'whom' instead of 'who.' Object pronouns are only followed by verbs on rare occasions; this is not one of those cases. You could say "I'm concerned that other people, for whom I worry,
for $foo in $bar_association; dodone
exit 0
# NOTE: This is a quick and dirty script and lacks proper error trapping, such as
# dealing with potential weapon jams or misfires.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I use to work in telemarketting, and this is nothing new. It was always implied by management that we make sure the tapes were legal, but they never came out and said that we alter them, even though they had the equipment to do it without it being detected.
Me: Hello?
Telemarketer: Would you like to sign up for our cell phone plan?
Me: I'm sorry, I don't use the phone.
TM: You mean, you don't use cellphones?
M: No, I don't use the phone. Sorry.
TM: Aren't we using the phone now to communicate?
M: No, I don't think so. I think you're just another voice in my head.
(without missing a beat) TM: Well, this voice in your head is telling you to sign up for our cellphone plan...
--
$tar -xvf
(My original subject line was "no, no, no, no, no, no, no." It tripped Slashdot's "lameness filter.")
or what it's worth... I once attended some kind of business seminar in which the speaker, who seemed knowledgeable, claimed that it is an explicit part of many salespeoples' training to count the number of "No's" they hear and not to give up on the sale until they hear seven "No's." He suggested that when you get a--well, it was a long time ago, door-to-door salesman--you should open the conversation with "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." Calmly and unemotionally deliver the seven no's and he'll break off and go away.
I don't know whether literally counting the "no's" is the straight dope but I've used this at least a dozen times and it has worked every time.
When I don't feel like being quite that rude, I use a variant, which is to start every sentence with the word "no." "Hi, you've won a free vacation to our famous resort." "No, I don't think I want to do that." "There's nothing to buy." "No, I'm not interested, etc." Takes slightly longer but, indeed, after about seven no's they break off.
It seems that the "no" habit might be a wise one.
I realize that a truly tricky telemarketer could ask a clever reverse question ("I already have you pre-enrolled for our $29.95 a month service. Do you want me to take you off?"). However that would require independent thought and I believe most of them work strictly to a script...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Master Card tried to sign me up multiple times for their direct debiting scam, which I always refuse on the following grounds:
The local Master Card customer "service" department sucks! I know that from various small billing errors. Now assume the following scenario:
I have an item, say gems bought in Bangkok for 6'000$ taged to my MC bill. Pop quiz: When will their customer "service" department be more responsive:
When they collected the 6'000$ already or if their is no way in hell that they will ever collect the money for an obviously fraudulent line item on my bill?
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
After the telemarketing got too bad, I dumped my landline for a cel-only lifestyle. Eventually, telemarketers got the cel number. But then I found out that NY State, among others, has a free "Do not call" registry, which really works:
https://www.nynocall.com/index.html
The tech contracting company I work for had a small outsource development section. We host a few websites and we've been getting these ICLS 'bills' for a while.
Even more disturbing are the numerous pieces of mail we receive that look JUST LIKE Network Solutions' renewal notices except that they refer you to some website that's not affiliated with them.
Several of our clients have received these misleading 'bills' or 'warnings' and have contacted us out of concern that they were about to lose their service or whatever.
-V
... "I read part of it all the way through." -- Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn (and some slashdot readers)
First, either switch to cell phone (suggested elsewhere) or pay to have the standard "go away" message from your phone company added. It'll cost you a few bucks a month, but it's worth it.
Second, for that handful running automated tape scams, hang up in the first few seconds.
Just doing this reduced phone interruptions from 5-10 a day to maybe 5 quick hangups a week.
A lot of scams could be nipped in the bud by
one simple right. I should have the RIGHT to
request that only my phone company put charges
on my phone bill.
My cable company does not put charges on my
electric bill.
My electric company does not put charges on
my gas bill.
My gas company does not put charges on my
water bill.
But my phone company tells me that by law they
must put charges on my bill from carriers, even
if I don't have a business relationship with
them.
Of course you have the right to remand a charge
and have the company bill you for it. But you
have to notice the charge first. I'll tell you,
the phone bill is the one bill I scrutinize every
month. I have had several fraudulent charges on
my bill in the last 5 years.
If scam artists had to bill you direct like any
other business, that would not eliminate fraud,
but it would keep people from going 8 months
without even noticing.
"You don't want to miss out on this wonderful opportunity, do you?"
By your method I get to charge you $30 now. Thanks.
Sad thing is, most baby bells are no longer including long distance bills in the regular phone statement. What used to be one combined bill for local and long distance is now two separate bills. If you want the bills combined, there's an extra surcharge.
We used to receive a fair number of calls. Everything from surveys, to charities, to businesses wanting to sell us free stuff (?!?).
I have yet to see any product offered in such a cheap way that was worth the effort in the long run, so I have been giving the same pat response to every generic caller who calls.
"I'm sorry. I do not respond to sales or surveys by phone. If you have my name and address you may mail me your information, otherwise this conversation is over. Thank you. - pause to allow them to say goodbye - Goodbye" and hangup.
BTW, I always say goodbye and hang up after a curtious pause. Regardless of what they respond with. Usually, they have no response. They have a response for every excuse in the book, except a flat refusal to do business over the phone.
It has taken a few months of persistance, but the call rate has dropped off significantly. Down to maybe one or two calls a month.
Experience has shown me that there must be some form of 'sucker-list' out there. Everyone I've talked to who's being hassled by telemarketers / telesurveyers has agreed to buy something or give something or listen to something in the recent past.
One other technique that can be effective for those companies that are extremely persistant is too flag the calls as harrassing. *57 in Manitoba issues a call trace of the last call. After a number of calls from the business have been logged with the local telco, file a police report. A resident in Edmonton managed to get a companies phones suspended for a month because they wouldn't take no for an answer.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
I'm sitting at lunch, someone with no caller ID calls my cell, and I get "Hi, this is lawrence, calling you from hampton VA...Can you hear me okay?"
Naturally, I respond with "NO", and then waited to hear what he said next.
Oddly enough, he hung up.
Being a contractor sucks - outsource help desk vendors suck even worse.
We get more and more and more duties & responsibilities piled upon us, we get ridiculous deadlines piled on us, but day after day we just sit here because we're told that we're lucky to have jobs at all.
And companies are getting away with this crap. The gap between management and the workers has widened way too much.
Our "manager" is so out of touch with what actually happens here it's amazing he can remember our names.
I think there is a code for this.
Check this page: star codes for some info...
[snip] *77 Anonymous Call Rejection
*87 Cancel Anonymous Call Rejection [/snip]
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
I used to work for a company that installs the servers/software for predictive dialing/telemarketing applications. The dialogic based equipment often listens for operator intercept tones, or TRI tones before sending calls to agents.
If you put these tri tones at the beginning of your answering machine message, you will most probably be removed from a majority of the dialing lists. Calls categorized as OptInt are usually flagged as not redialable.
This is the principle that the telezapper works on, but at the time we tested it it only played the first tone of the tri tone sequence. The dialogic hardware ignored the telezapper for the most part
Also be sure to sign up for your states never call list, Kentucky, Missouri, Oregon and a few others have these
I hear that the national bill is moving along well
And always, say "Please add me to your master do not call list"
Simply remove all air from your environment... OR go for liquid cooling... OR get one of these: http://www.siliconacoustics.com/silpc.html (silentmaxx.de) and ditch your fans. be sure to underclock if shes too hot. Dump the drives too.
Certainly $500 in both cases, though liquid is more effective. Cheers
Basically, never use the words "YES" or "NO" in a conversation with a telemarketer or pushy salesman. Answer the question fully by rephrasing it as using it in your answer. I think german people will find this more natural, as this seems to be the standard mode of operation in more formal interactions.
> After all this shit HR will force you to sign a self incriminating document as part of your pink slip to receive severance pay.
The details vary from state to state, but in Colorado all back pay (including things like unused vacation time) must be given to the employee immediately. If they want you to sign something to get the check, the answer is to walk out and call the state - let them explain to the state why they failed to hand you your termination check.
If they try to hold you anyway, calmly say the magic words "false arrest." (And follow up with a criminal complaint for false arrest if they detain you anyway.)
"Severance pay" above and beyond this is another matter, but let's be honest here. Ask your friends about the terms of their last few layoffs - few people get more than two weeks of severance pay (N.B., this is above and beyond the legally required backpay), and many will have gotten nothing. Some wouldn't have gotten their full backpay. How much are you really out if you refuse to sign a document containing self-incriminating statements? How much would you lose in the long run if you did sign it?
They could still claim that you refused to sign it... but since you never signed it they would be opening themselves up to a libel, slander and/or defamation suit.
P.S., the boss in the final example has exposed his company to an unwinnable suit and should have been terminated immediately. Regardless of the merits of his original notice or her threatened suit, he clearly retaliated after HR reinstated her.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
No, dipshit. The rich can AFFORD to be moral. Most of them can't be bothered to do it though. Yay for irony!
My employer got whacked for about $300 from a company called "Dax publications". It's some kind of search engine, except that theirs (according to Google) is referenced from about a dozen or so places on the entire Internet. How's that "value added"?
Instead of sneaking it onto the phone bill, the invoice was (in my opinion) designed to look like an ISP charging a "hosting fee" to host a corporate website. Since our website is internally hosted, it took about three seconds to detect the scam. BBB has a nice writeup.
The sooner that state slides into the Puerto Rico trench, the better off we'll all be.
Correction the Easter festival is the Spring festival, like the Winter Solastic, your religion has stolen yet another cool thing. The truth is that it is about fertility.
.sig anyway. (And I should probably comb my comments and make a JE with the best responses to my sig.)
You're messing up your tense there. Easter is a celebration linked to Passover, which is itself a celebration of God's providing for His people. Your (?) divinity-come-lately gods are both predated by Yawheh (if not Jesus as well), and more than likely what spiritual reality there is to these gods converted to Christianity along with their followers.
The world returns to life not some guy. I will enjoy my chocolate bunny, and think of the real patron (and far better role model) of the Season, BUGS BUNNY.
By all means, enjoy the chocolate bunny. I've been meaning to change the
" The word Easter comes from the name of Ostrae, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn. As with the Easter festival and that of Dionysus, Ostrae's feast was celebrated around the time of the Spring equinox. Although there are no myths which speak of a death and resurrection of Ostrae, her role as goddess of the Spring indicates her connection to those gods who participated in the cycle of the seasons by just such an event, namely Osiris and Dionysus. Ostrae's festival, naturally enough, involved dawn rites - an important feature in the Christian celebration of the Resurrection. Indeed, many aspects of how the death and resurrection of Christ is celebrated by Christians today have their origins in the pagan past."
"Lent, for example, began as a form of sympathetic magic. People fasted as Spring began so that more energy would be available for the growing seeds. Lent takes its name from the Old English for "lengthening", with reference to the change in daylight hours as Spring approaches. At the equinox, when there begins to be more day than night, birds start to lay their eggs. The brightly coloured eggs of forest birds were traditionally collected either in their nests or in baskets made to resemble them. In the Christian tradition the egg is used in the iconography of Easter as a symbol of death and rebirth, a symbolism which existed long before the time of Christ. For the Anglo-Saxons the egg also stood for fertility and the sun. The sun played a large role in the festival of Ostrae and was symbolically rekindled as a bonfire, also a significant part of today's Easter liturgy."
A paper by Mr. John Duffy delivered to the College Theological Society at the Inaugural Meeting of the 168th Session on December 1st 1997.
I am happy to take a nice sip of wine and enjoy the show. Seriously, I look forward to continuing this (and other debates) debate later.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Lent, for example, began as a form of sympathetic magic.
This is where I rant against alternate religions, and the @Q#%ing atheists who think they have a right to impose their religion on science.
Proving a casual connection and plausible explanation for cross-polination does not a connection make. Just becuse Jesus Christ seems like a perversion of the myth of the tree of life does not make it so. Dealing with prehistoric religious causality is something rife with conjecture, and it should be afforded no more scientific merit than assumptions about what kind of social structure alien life forms will have.
Easter is a natural thing to celebrate, so it's no surprise that some form of easter celebration happens all over the world. But that doesn't prove anything more than spring being a good time to celebrate.
Now, I'll readilly concede that Christendom adopted wholesale the rituals and additive trappings of the extant religions as it spread through Europe. But, even in an agnostic view, that doesn't invalidate the original celebration of passover, or the marking of Christ's death and alleged ressurection associated with it.
(Of course, if we go from agnostic scientific discussion into a religous debate, I can counter most arguments with "My God beat up your god, and then got high, which explains why we haven't seen him in awhile.")
Oh, one more thing. The site you linked to is woefully unimpressive. No credientials, no certification, and no quotation of the works of others that agree with him.
"The Eucharist is mentioned extensively in the New Testament: everywhere St. Paul writes of thanksgiving (eucharist = thanksgiving in Greek). So what if pagans did similar things? They also sacrificed to their false gods, while Abraham, Moses &c. sacrificed to the True God."
One mans true God is anothers false God. It isn't till we die I suppose, that we will know who is correct.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Maybe a site like this could provide some more useful and referanced links/data.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Like this page?
:)
Yes, it's spot-on. (The site in general is spot-on, aside from the usage of "Pagan" both as the modern religion and as ancient non-Judeo-Christian religions) In particular:
Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one Judeo-Christian and the other Pagan. Both Christians and Pagans have celebrated death and resurrection themes following the Spring Equinox for millennia. Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier Pagan celebrations.
Us Christians borrowed many secondary & decorative parts of Easter from the pagans, who had a holiday at the same time. This does not mean that we stole the holiday from them.
Reminds me about an old Sierra game based on the Camelot/King Arthur myth.
At the start before you go on your quest, you can go into the temple/church and there are alters to the older "pagan" gods/goddesses and also to the "new" Christianity that was starting to displace them.
As I recall for the time period it was set in that was about correct, in how Christianity became more popular then the current religions int he area and displaced them.
Many old religions still have some followers here and there, and some people looking for answers turn to them as well.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Many old religions still have some followers here and there, and some people looking for answers turn to them as well.
A lot of people like to believe this, particularly neo-pagans, but for the most part it isn't true. European pagan religions that existed during the Common Era were essentially completely wiped out. Their clergy was persecuted, shrines destroyed, followers converted or killed, etc. After 1000 years of this, little trace of these religious have survived. (For example, we know almost nothing about the Celtic faith. And it certianly hasn't been practiced by anyone in centuries.)
An analogy can be made to black slaves that crossed the Atlantic to the USA. Very few of them were Christians before they were enslaved, but they were all converted to Christianity and elements of the native faiths were ruthlessly crushed. In other places, such as Haiti, the native faiths survived in a somewhat syncrenistic form, but this isn't what happened in Europe.
Actually I was thinking old eastern religions that have been practiced for a long time and still intact. Most religions change with time, because if you set things in stone, and never examine the way the world and belief changes over time, you will end up out of touch.
I think your scope of view is too narrow.
Just because people are not Christian dosnent mean they are "neo-pagans" (by that I assume you mean wicca). Neo Pagans isnt even a good IMO description because it's way to vague,unless you are trying to group every non christian religion together. It's still not a meaning full description since Shinto is "neo" but Discordian is certainly "neo".
Even if european faiths outside of Christianity cant have possibly survived in any form during the events you describe, nothing is stopping people from researching and following whatever faith system they choose to believe.
As for little traces, maybe in some parts there are no traces left, but other places much more still exists. Look at the Greeks compared to the Celts you cite above.
What means "syncrenistic"? I tried some on-line dictionaries and they didnt have entries.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.