Suing Telemarketers Made Simple

Lord of the Distinctive Rings writes "Telemarketer calls victim in wee hours. Victim is lawyer. Victim sues telemarketer. Hilarity ensues, as recounted in narrative replete with links and information on how you too can sue up the wazoo." Well, one's certainly not ever going to get rich or anything going after telemarketers on a one-off basis, but every bit helps, I think.

Comments

Re:I can't wait...

[Neophytus]

Previously covered when it was signed into law on March 11.

This is cool

[rf0]

This gives a nice HOWTO on suing people who abuse the system. Here in the UK there is a opt-out system in the form of the TPS (Telecomunication Protection System) to stop people doing this sort of thing. Failure to comply get at £10,000 fine. Haven't had one call since signing up :)

Rus

Re:Andy Rooney sez...

[ergonal]

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.

I don't know how the system works where you live, but here a lot of "Reply Paid" stuff is barcoded and they could (theoretically) find out who you are by scanning that barcode.

Re:Andy Rooney sez...

[tmark]

"Hold On, Please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately)

Actually, the *people* (as opposed to the companies) who make the telemarketing calls often *love* when people do this. It gets their talk time up; it shows their superiors that they're can keep someone on the phone for a long time, presumably talking about their product. I'd even bet the telemarketing companies (assuming they're hired by whoever is selling the product) like it too. The only party who doesn't like this is the company paying for telemarketing, but the telemarketers themselves often love it.

Useful resources for suing telemarketers.

[Seth Finklestein]

As a crusader for freedom on the internet, I believe strongly that unwanted calls are an avoidable nuisance. To help my fellow freedom fighters, I offer these links:

Suing Telemarketers without those sneaky lawyers taking your money!
Suing Telemarketers by Ben Livingston - they say he's crazy, but I say he's a hero!
Remove.org - you can add yourself to the global do not contact list to opt out of all advertisements!
SueTelemarketers.com - because they take away minutes of my free time when I'm trying to eat food, I invest hours of my free time trying to track down and sue telemarketers one by one.

That's all. Good night, and good luck!

Re:Andy Rooney sez...

[Schnapple]

start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system

This sounds a lot like the TeleZapper, the $30 brick that plays the little "doo-dah-dee" sound that means the line is disconnected. Of course, from what I've heard, the telemarketing computer systems are getting wise to this sort of thing and before long (if not already) the TeleZapper will be useless. As a result, I can't help but think this technique Rooney mentioned is obselete already.

More specifically, my information says that when you don't hear anyone on the other line what has happened is that the system they use which automatically calls people based on the average call time of their employees, has misestimated when to call (or all the employees are unavailable), so there's a silent pause. If the pause is long enough, the computer simply hangs up. Consequently, anyone who calls me from an unlisted number and gives me silence for three seconds or so I hang up on. If it's someone important, they'll call right back.

Formatting.

[Andy Dodd]

I believe that back in the day when WP and MSOffice were approximately even, WP had some formatting features that made it slightly better for legal documents.

Apparently, over the years, MS has made Word more and more generic and LESS suited to legal use than it was in the past. Meanwhile, Corel realized that they have a good hold on the niche market of law firms, and began specifically catering to law firms.

As a result, WP evolved into a vastly superior application for law firms. It's a niche market for Corel, but a VERY solid niche.

"OUT OF AREA" Explained

[p.rican]

The telco is not blocking the caller ID information. Caller ID is not guaranteed to work out of what is called your 'LATA' (Local Access Transport Area) If you live in NY, your LATA number is 132 which covers all 5 boros of NYC, Westchester County(?), Long Island and a little piece of Greenwich CT. The caller ID information is stored in a database that's part of a separate packet network called SS7. Your telco provider makes a 'dip' or databse query into a CNAM database to get caller ID info based on the number that is calling/called. This SS7 network is used in setting up calls and tearing them down as well as a myriad of other features it can provide. If Caller ID was guaranteed to work across the country between every carrier in the US, the length of time it would take to setup a phone call would be prohibitively long...That's just the basic jist of it. You don't realize how much goes on from the time you pick up your handset, dial some digits and get audible ringing.. Hope that clarifies the situation for you. Please don't mod me down as GEEK

Re:Keep em on the phone.

[sehryan]

That's a little incorrect.

The dialer is dialing a certain number of calls based upon how quickly the agents are coming available. If you keep an agent on the phone for longer than a few seconds, the dialer recognizes this and drops them from the number of agents that will be available.

After all, they are trying to sell you something. The dialer has to be able to compensate for long calls, because I doubt any agent can sell you something in the time it takes someone else to hang up.

And just so you know I am not talking out of my ass, I used to be an admin on a dialer, so I do have some experience with this.

Re:I can't wait...

[ccnull]

Just a reminder: Californians can pre-register for the Do Not Call list at http://caag.state.ca.us/donotcall/ (effective October 2003). Other states can simple Google "statename do not call" for the relevant linkage. YMMV.

Re:Keep em on the phone.

[coke_dite]

Unlisted phone numbers mean nothing. Some companies print out large sheets that start with just the exchange and the first digit of the rest of the phone number, and work their way up by hundreds from there (for example, the TM's first sheet of the evening would start with 555-1000 and work its way up to 555-1099, second sheet would start with 555-1100 and wor its way up to 555-1199) That way, regardless of whether the number is out of service, a business, or even unlisted, the TM will get through. Sad to say, but that's how some of the smaller companies do it.

Some other small companies just rip pages out of a phone book, distribute photocopies of the pages to their staff, and their "DO NOT CALL" list consists of a black line through that name and number on the phone book page.

Only larger companies which contract out to several clients use automated dialers... Our local newspaper's contracter has four large ADs with twenty lines each, and then in the back, they have a room for manual dialers who handle rural accounts.

Of course, here in Canada, use of AD's is not as common as in the US. You can't just pick one up at the corner store. I'm not sure if it's regulated, but the larger telemarketing companies are VERY careful to follow the rules (Do Not Call lists are updated daily, no calling before 9am or after 9pm, no calling on Sundays, etc.)

It's a sad business tho - most of the employees quit after a month or two - they can't take the constant rejection. It takes a very special breed of person to stay in telemarketing over the long term. Hopefully that breed will become extinct soon :)