Slashdot Mirror
Telemarketers Plan Counterattack
Chris Hoofnagle writes "CNN reports that companies who heavily use telemarketing are planning to counterattack consumers with a barrage of spam and junk mail in October, when the new do-not-call registry goes into effect. Slashdotters should be aware that, as well as anti-spam email software, there are tools to avoid junk snail-mail, such as Junkbusters' free Declare, Private Citizen's excellent service and the Postal Service's Prohibitory Order service, which is described at the EPIC privacy page."
"We'll be giving the dog what the dog wants to eat," James F. Lyons, president of direct-marketing consultancy Optima Direct told the paper.
...Raah.,
The paper said that in addition to seeing more e-mail or junk mail, consumers who call companies on other business may now have to listen to sales pitches while negotiating voice mail messages.
Yeah, that's what I wanna hear- I'm a dog, and I get to listen to kibbles and bits and bits and bits next time I call to get my dog neutered. Tell ya what boys, you pull a voice spam on me while I try to give you business and I'll just be letting my dog hose down whatever he feels like instead. As I close my CNN Money Pop up. I fell for something pretty bad tonight too- got my first land line in three years (cell only since) and it rang for the first time tonight. I hadnt given the number to anyone. I picked it up... listened for about 10 seconds of silence. I go, "hello?" CLICK. Looks like another fake hotmail address for the Do Not Call registry. Crimony. Doesn't it just make you livid? Gah.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I didn't think it was possible, but clicking on the unsubscribe links on the SPAM that I get, has actually stopped most of it, and I have a fairly clean inbox. Now, whenever I check my email, I get disappointed to see no new messages. Maybe it was nice to have SPAM keeping me company.
Those sleazebags will simply move to Canada, where there is already an overabundance of call centers and phone scammers.
These idiots just don't get it, do they. We don't want the crap their schlepping.
Perhpas we'll need a "do not mail, and do not e-mail" list now as well.
Seriously, I think spammers should go to jail if they are requrested to stop and DON'T. I'm not even convinced that the death penalty would be considered "cruel and unusual" for these idiots who JUST WON'T LEAVE US ALONE!!!!!
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
because this will vastly improve the popularity of their products, putting them in the company of Nigerian scams and penis enlargement systems. Very popular indeed.
It's a lot harder to have a throw-away phone number than an email address. Thank you Hotmail!
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
I love it, the article has a popunder : )
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Stop buying stuff from the companies that do this. Bottom line. Spam and telemarketing works because of idiots. No one will pay cold callers who can't sell 1 out of 1000 sales. Put an end to the insanity, slashdot.
They want to play dirty??
They better have some heavy duty security in place. And they better have armed escorts to and from the parking lots. Someone is going to get a belly full someday very soon and they will go looking for a pound of flesh..
The odds are against them because they so viscously and relentlessly hound and harrass such large numbers of people so endlessly.
Sooner or later, the numbers say that a certain percentage of their victims will snap..
And you know what? I won't shed a single tear for one of them. Not one....
Here's the relevant section of the page from EPIC. I only included one link, the one to the most important form.
=== snip ===
Stopping Junk Mail with Post Office Prohibitory Orders
Individuals may obtain a prohibitory order to stop junk mail from being sent to a residence. This order can be obtained through a law that prohibits the mailing of advertising materials "which the addressee in his sole discretion believes to be erotically arousing or sexually provocative." Practically, this means that individuals can obtain a prohibitory order against any junk mail sender.
Individuals wishing to obtain a prohibitory order should visit their local post office for "Form 1500" or click on the link provided below.
The Attorney General's office no longer sues under this statute to obtain damages. However, individuals should still obtain prohibitory orders against junk mailers. By doing so, marketers who engage in saturation mailings (heavily-discounted mailings delivered to every residence in the area that are usually addressed with "Postal Customer" or "Resident") must adjust their address lists so that the materials are no longer sent to the address with the prohibitory order. This results in higher costs to junk mailers.
* Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order (Form 1500), United States Postal Inspection Service.
* 39 U.S.C. Sect. 3008, Prohibition of pandering advertisements.
* Rowan v. U.S. Post Office, 397 U.S. 728 (1970). "In today's complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail...Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive."
* Unsolicited Sexually Oriented Advertising, United States Postal Inspection Service.
* Stop Unsolicited Sexually Oriented Advertising in Your Mail, United State Postal Inspection Service.
* Postal Bulletin PB 21977, United State Postal Inspection Service, July 30, 1998. "The prohibitory order. This order aids in protecting customers from receiving pandering advertisements through the mail. An addressee may obtain a prohibitory order against the mailer of an advertisement that the addressee determines, in his or her sole discretion, to be offering matter for sale that is erotically arousing or sexually provocative, as defined in title 39, United States Code, 3008. Postmasters may not refuse to accept a Form 1500 because the advertisement in question does not appear to be sexually oriented. Only the addressee may make that determination. The order prohibits the mailer from sending any further mail to the applicant (and his or her eligible minor children included in the application), effective on the 30th calendar day after the mailer receives the order."
* U.S. Laws on Direct Mail, Junkbusters.
=== snip ===
"We'll be giving the dog what the dog wants to eat," James F. Lyons, president of direct-marketing consultancy Optima Direct told the paper.
I usually flush shit down the toilet, not feed it to my dog. What goes around, comes around. I predict there will be a backlash against the sleaziest of these direct marketing firms and the slime that hire them. I already refuse to deal with companies that make me play touch-tone tag on their badly designed voice systems.
"telemarketing are planning to counterattack consumers with a barrage of spam and junk mail in October"
That's not what the story says. Sheesh, don't the submitters even read the articles? This story isn't about counterattacking anyone.
Here's a quote that summarizes the story: ''"We plan to shift into other communication mediums, and rely more heavily on traditional TV advertising and e-mail marketing," Allstate acting Chief Marketing Officer Todd DeYoung told the paper.''
In other words, they will stop using telemarketing and shift over to snail mail and email. Will that email be spam? Maybe, maybe not, but a spam from Allstate is a heck of a lot better than a phone call from Allstate every time I sit down to a meal.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
We all hate this shit, but going off at the Telemarketers and Spammers doesn't work - they've proven time and again that they have no respect for the "consumer".
Better is a) Don't buy the stuff, and b) Lodge formal complaints with the CEO of the company's using their services. Most of the top-dogs have little idea their marketing departments are doing this shit so let them know, and let them know you don't like it and won't buy their stuff as long as they do it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The problem with spam and direct mail and telemarketing is simple: it works. There are people that buy stuff from them. The people that actually buy stuff are the ones that are ruining things for the rest of us.
So, I propose that we set up a fake telemarketing/spam centre that pretends to be your typical telemarketer. But instead of sending you a long distance plan or penis enlarger, it actually just sends out a pyromaniac to burn your house down if you buy something.
The best part is it only has to be done once or twice to have a strong dampening effect; it may not actually need to be done at all, since the people that buy stuff from spam/telemarketers are probably the same people that believe urban legends and those 'pass this to your friends' e-mails.
It's a foolproof plan. Quick, someone start the chain e-mail!
Another slashdotter said it best:
"The best way to avoid spam is to never give out your e-mail address to anyone."
It's good advice. I've been using that method ever since I read that, and it's working beautifully.
Well, ok. First we have RIAA going all out sueing people left and right. Then we have SCO going all out crazy on the OSS and Linux community. Now we have the infamous telemarketing companies "counterattacking" their customers. Next up, grocery stores throwing tomatoes at shoppers.
Businesses are supposed to provide products and services, not shove them down our throats. It is our choice what we buy anyway, isn't it?
Question everything.
Nah, it's fantastic news. Just think of all the paper recycling that will be going on!
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
"companies who heavily use telemarketing are planning to counterattack consumers with a barrage of spam and junk mail"
Not a problem, as I'm reasonably certain that such tactics will lead them to the promised land of lawsuits, Chapter 11, and finally, Cellblock 6A, which houses Bubba's Fudge-Packing Factory. Spam on dear telemarketers. Spam your way to an 8x10 cell where you can push your wares on a 300lbs man who hasn't seen a woman in 15 years.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I can understand the logic behind a company who's business model relies on calling customers switching to spam and direct mail when the DNC registry is implemented but why can they not see that the reason it is being put in place is because of them and if they persist they will merely succeed in getting do not spam and do not mail lists created.
If your business model requires hassling your customers then when they prevent you doing it via the phone it's time to change business models not the method you use to hassle.
It's self defeating and why business's think that customers want you to cold-contact them I do not know. Find a market, advertise on mass media or in media that your customers read and then sell to them. Don't bother everyone else with your crap.
I am a bomb technician, if you see me running - try to keep up.
I hope I live long enough to see the day when all advertising is banned. All commercial speech. Banned. Then after that comes banning of all speech. Let's just give up all rights just because of some annoying companies. Well I hope most people realize that to them we are nothing more than consumers. We live in a consumer society and they want to shove their junk down our throats so they can get rich. The real question is when will we as citizens and people realize how this consumerism is destroying or society and cultures and stop putting up with it. Believe me it will be better if people did it instead of "big brother"
Just had a thought... Forget lodging formal complaints - just find the CEO's phone number and call him at dinner time to tell him how you feel about it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Personally, I don't care much about snail-mail spam. I figure if they're paying for it, the more the merrier. Gives me the chance to use that big, shiny dumpster right by the mailbox.
Telemarketers and spammers alike don't deserve respect.
If you get mail, try to always reply... on their dime. E.g. when they have business reply stuff.
Otherwise, if there is a return address mark "dead" on the mail and send it back.
If you're getting calls always try to find out things about the caller. Ask where they go to school [most are students]. Ask what political party they voted for, etc.
The bottom line is instead of trying to run and hide from them why not have fun instead? Answer the phone, just don't give them useful information. Lie through your teeth while learning things about them.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Advertising keeps Slashdot free. It keeps TV free, it keeps the radio free. Admittedly, the last two I can live without, but you'll have to pay a LOT more to access all of your favorite web sites if commercial speech is banned. Not to mention that advertising sells whatever product YOU are working on. What happens when your product doesn't sell 'cause nobody's heard of it? And don't tell me it can get by just on word of mouth.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Instead of pranking a telemarketer next time they call, get the phone number of the company on whose behalf they're calling. Get in touch with that companies marketing department and explain to them exactly why you will now NEVER consider their services. Make sure you tell them that you will tell other people. If there's a big enough backlash, believe me, they WILL listen, because eventually the backlash will be costing them more than they'd make by doing this shit.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The tragedy being that after eliminating all legitimate email, that method may still leave you receiving spam.
One sleazy spammer tactic is to target a domain and autogenerate a zillion possible email addresses, in what's called a Rumpelstiltskin attack. If you have an email alias common or simple enough that you couldn't use it as a password, then it's vulnerable. If it's on some high-profile provider like Hotmail, it will be attacked.
It appears that consumers are getting overexcited by the hype, and not paying any attention to the details regarding the national DO Not Call list. What it boils down to is that there is no infrastructure in place to deal with any complaints. And there will be complaints. When you sign up for a credit card, or subscribe to a magazine, you become a customer of that particular company, giving them the right to call you. You also give that company the right to share your information with their "affiliates". On October 1st, when everyone and their brother is calling the FTC's as yet non-existent call center to file their complaints, they will discover that they have no legitimate complaint. For the few people who actively send the required opt-out letters to their credit card companies telling them that they do not wish to have their information shared with the "affiliate" companies, when they call to make a legitimate complaint, what are the chances that they will get the required information to make a complaint. According to the National DNC website, "You must provide either the NAME or the PHONE NUMBER of the COMPANY that called you, as well as the DATE OF THE CALL and YOUR PHONE NUMBER. I don't think that there are many telemarketing companies out there that will be very forthcoming with their Name or Phone Number for angry victims, especially when each violation will cost them $11,000. And please note that the FTC does not yet have any specifics on how to file a complaint, or who to file it with. Let's face it; 46 states have had do not call lists for years, and it hasn't stopped the telemarketers yet.
(offtopic) Additionally, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that this is the best idea that the government ever had for creating a database of names and numbers and email addresses. Peole are entering their data for the FTC as fast as they possibly can. And with nothing to show for it in the end.(/offtopic)
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
Sadly I, like many others, do not have the privs to install Mozilla on my work box. : (
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
.. it will save me having to buy all those equally useless newspapers to start the fire with in the cold winters evenings.
From the article:
Rough translation: "we will advertise at you by any and all legal means available, no matter how annoying we have to be." I do sometimes wonder if there isn't a viable place for, "just concentrate on giving the customer good service," in this world. Nobody seems to believe in that quaint old idea anymore.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Don't think so? I'll show you the receipt for the money I send to the phone company to rent the number. As such, calling me to sell me something is nothing short of trespassing--it is using my property without my permission.
Howizzit telemarketers don't grasp this concept? Howizzit the lawmakers fail to? Whyizzit we have to finely craft laws such as the don't-call-list to leave loopholes so I still have to hang up on the statetroopers whoopee fund. It is so demonstrably clear that my phone number is mine and using it is not free speech. Leaving the loophole is like leaving a loophole that says it is okay for the local repugnican party to put "elect tusch" signs in my yard.
And same argument goes for my email address. It's mine, I pay good money to my cable company to have it.
Oddly, snail mail doesn't trespass in the same way. The marketer has to pay to for their soon-to-be-trash to be brought to my house. Then again, I do have to pay to have it hauled away.
To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
I think the front of the Wall Steet Journal today had a graphic on the right side of the front page showing the amount of money spent by industries on telemarketing.
If I remember correctly, the bar graphs summed up to something around $10 billion (yes, $10,000,000,000) dollars anually.
So, if $10 billion is being spent on telemarketing, how much are people buying to make that expenditure worth while?
Somewhere, oh somewhere, there are those idiots spending ATLEAST $10 fucking-billion dollars a year to keep these dickheads calling us at dinnertime!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do libertarians believe that government should protect citizens from other citizens infringing on our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?
We have laws against people playing loud music for hours at night (aka Disturbing The Peace).
We have laws against murder and rape, I dont think any reasonable libertarianw would argue that the govermnent has no right to protect us from each other in that regard, so I dont see why this concept can't be extended to highly annoying telemarketers (or spammers) without encroaching on our rights.
If they give you a postage-paid envelope (and a lot of them do), mail it back to them. Make 'em pay postage both ways.
Just make sure it doesn't have your name on it. Duh.
>The real question is when will we as citizens and people realize how this consumerism is destroying or society and cultures and stop putting up with it.
When we decide we want to live in caves again?
Without people selling you stuff, you'd only have available to you what your skills can produce. Can you build good furniture? Can you build a stereo? Can you build a phone? Can you build (as in, from the transistors up) a computer? A fan? A heater? Hell, with your current skills can you even be sure that you'd have running water?
Giving up consumerism means every man must learn everything. If it takes 7 years to get a PhD in something, and a year to become expert at building it, the average man will only accomplish 8 things in their lifetime (well, actually about 3 unless you learn to operate on yourself).
And, before I hear we could become communists/socialists, consider this: ANY time you take ANYTHING from someone else, in exchange for anything (in the case of communism, in exchange for your labour, indirectly), you are consuming (in the economic sense).
Now, that all being said, people selling you stuff doesn't ALWAYS mean people advertising to you. It's just a byproduct of the process, and it's your job to decide where the limit is with your wallet.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I got a call from a company many days in a row, and it played the nice DTMF tones that cause the phone companies computer to ignore your switch hook, so when you hang up, it doesn't recognize that you have done so. after about 3 days in a row of this, I stayed on the line until I got to a real live person. I asked that I be taken off their list, and was told it would be done, but could take a few days. I Politely asked for the companies name, phone number and address, which was given to me. (it is a violation of federal law not to). I then called the phone company and after getting ahold of a person there with some real power, (this is the hardest part) explained that company A was twiddling with their computers using aforementioned DTMF tones. This is a violation of almost all phone companies TOS. The engineer type said he would look into it.
The next day, I did not receive a phone call from company A, so I decided to call them, and darn it, there phones had been disconnected.
True story, it really works. If you are persistent, you can get their phones turned off.
In the wild there are no dumb lions tigers or bears. Only humanity subsidizes the continued existence of the stupid.
The problem is that there are idiots on both sides of the transaction. P.T. Barnum would be so proud. If said idiot believes he can get rich quick by hiring a spammer to send out 100 million emails for $100 on his behalf, it doesn't matter if there is 0 response. The spams have already gone out, and even if he doesn't try again, there are thousands of other idiots willing to take his place.
Perhaps one could convince those hackers mounting their attack on July 6th to go after these advertising servers. Then we'd see some real progress... and honestly, who could blame them? ^_^
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You know those little cards they include, prepayed postage and all, so you can response to order their wonderful products? How convient! Glue a brick to it, so that the postage/address side shows. Now put it in your mailbox. You know how much it costs to ship a brick?
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I had to call them about 5 times, and send a FED-EX to the president of Knight-Ridder in order to get it to stop.
Can you imagine? To stop a newspaper I never wanted in the first place, I had to spend about an hour on the phone and $12 on FED-EX bills!
The local Police and City Hall (Palo Alto, CA), tell me there's nothing they can do about it. (I guess they're too busy hugging homeless people.)
The paper weighs about 6 oz, on average. For 6 months thats about 90 pounds of paper. WHat I don't understand is if I decided to deliver, say, 90 pounds of manure "free" to the Palo Alto Police chief, he'd have me arrested. WHY CAN THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS get away with this?
Best Buy can have you arrested
a law saying all snail-spam must be printed on at least 30% recycled paper. hell, make it 50% (screw em with 90%!!!)
this will:
1. help the enviroment
2. create more paper recycling jobs
3. cost spam more money.
4. hopefully reduce spam!
Or did anyone else read the subject as "Terrormarketers Plan Counterattack?"
The people spoke amongst themselves and the City Council and it came to be that the zoo would no longer be free. We would have ticket counters and an admission fee. We knew the troublemakers would go somewhere else if they had to pay to get in, and if they were caught misbehaving, they would have to pay again if they wanted back in. It worked. We hated to lose our "free" zoo, but it had to be.
I hate to think of internet mail-server routing services no longer being free, but we may well get pushed into this because it may be less expensive to deal with a payment system than it is to deal with spam.
At least one advantage I can think off right off the bat with a payment system is that someone pays... that means someone is accountable for what got sent, and if fraud is involved, there is a direct monetary theft involved. A shopping mall can haul you into court over a shoplifted candy bar. So even if the payment is not much, it *is* a payment and incurs accountability.
It really bugs me to be forced into this train of thought, as I would much rather consider infrastructures to be public property. But, like the zoo, a pricing strategy may have advantages for controlling unruly pests.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Retirement ages are currently decreasing worldwide!
Bullshit. Here in Japan, the government's been trying for ages to get companies to raise their age of retirement to 65 from 60.
I should also note that Allstate is Sears is the company that back in 1995 was sued by its own middle-level executives, because top-level management sent them to Scientologist "training" that said "cheat the customer", and they quit the training and were fired.
.
You can google for that one... but it's out there, and it was in the newspapers at the time. So if you buy Allstate, expect to be cheated.
But for me, what really caught my notice is that they think I'm a dog. Okay. But keep your spam away too.
- . - . -
I should also note, while I'm at it, that Allstate is by no means the only dishonest/evil insurance company. You have to be careful. For example: do not become a partner of Lloyds of London. Lloyds was discovering that all their asbestos insurance was a huge liability, so they suddenly opened their insurance to new "partners", who were relatively new multimillionaire Americans, and then switched the documentation so the asbestos liability went to them. When the Americans sued (there were about 8 of them), they were all mysteriously murdered within a year. The last I heard was that the heirs of one of them continued the suit, but the law offices of their lawyers, one of them in James City County, were all mysteriously burgled, and the documents stolen. So... umm... realize that Lloyds is owned by murderers before you do business with them. [That was from the Daily Press of Newport News, about 1996].
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Last July 16th, the FCC said that telephone companies can now sell/trade your CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) to other companies. This information includes any personally identifiable information such as, what numbers you dial every month, for how long did you talk to them, what services you subscribe too, how much you pay, and ANY other information on your phone bill. If you don't wish this information to be sold call your telephone company and tell them they cannot sell your CPNI. References: Epics page: http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/ fcc gov, check under 2002 headlines, july 16th. http://www.fcc.gov Basically what happened is that the FCC said that instead of being an opt-in thing (they had to ask for your express permission to sell this stuff), its now opt-out (you have to tell them not to, or else they can). Several phone companies actually mailed thier customers about this and said if you dont tell us, we will sell it (see epics page). Basically this is stuff you need a police warrant for, able to be sold to nearly anyone. Bad Bad stuff.
Return the same favor to the telemarketers, like this guy did.
heh heh i can take it like unlik all you whimps can't. i'm real, send me your thoughts at pat_isbell@hotmail.com
Phone: *ring*
Cthulhu: Hello?
JF Lyons: Hi there, Mr. Khooloo, I calling you because I want to give you what you want to eat! Interested?
Cthulhu: Why yes, I am a bit peckish...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
3. An anonymous death threat. Not directed at me personally, but still it was coming to the family phone number. He informed me that he was "sharpening the knives" among other things.
2. Some chick who wanted me to repair a wheelchair, because that was obviously what I do. (It's not.)
1. Some guy calling from Tokyo and wanted to know if I was interested in the stock market and trading. (I live in Sweden, btw.)
And it's the same as for email addresses. Protect it savagely.
My friends and family know my home 'phone number and my primary email address. The only company that knows my phone is my telco, and I made sure to tick the "Don't even think of publishing or sharing it" box. My primary email is postmaster@my.domain.com, which is an address that spammers (demonstrably) avoid (they like sales@ though). Companies that insist on having a home 'phone number for me, e.g. my credit card issuer, get given their own number, just as they get postmaster@their.domain.com or uce@ftc.gov for an email address if they have no legitimate reason for knowing it, or their.company@my.domain.com if I do need to hear from them. Funnily enough, I haven't had a single telemarketing call or piece of spam to my home phone or primary email address in three years since I decided on this policy, switched telcos and bought myself a domain.
It is within your power to protect yourself.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Send back some white powder instead...that should liven up their day.
I had one lady hooked, asking questions about warranty, return procedures, etc. Then I would say "hold on, somebody at the door" and put the phone down for a few minutes, and come back for more questions.
Finally, after about 25 minutes of this, I asked a question the drone did not have a script for, and the supervisor came on the line. Asked her a few questions, finally got tired of it all, and said, "You know what? I changed my mind. I don't want it after all. Thanks, bye."
I did not receive another telemarketer call for over a month. (Usually got them once a day...)
And before you go on about, telemarketers are human too, I used to work as one, etc. Well, I'm human, wish to be left alone, and if polite requests don't work, then this is war. TFB.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
On the other hand, since I've signed up for the no-call list two years ago I haven't had a spam call since (only charity calls). The list works, but it takes several months from the time you sign up to the time you are legally allowed to start taking names because the directory of uncallable phone numbers is only published once every three months. Also, I think there is a 3 or 4 year time-limit on the list before you have to sign up for it again.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
And I can understand why they're switching to spam and direct mail. They've convinced themselves that there are people who want to buy things, and you'd be suprised how easy it is to get people to buy from you, or at least listen to you. There are a lot of idiots out there. I quit because I couldn't stand to be part of that industry. (When I started I really, really needed the money, and I couldn't find another job that fit into my schedule.) Not only do you do something that could get you killed, but the management at these places treat the workers like slaves; scheduled bathroom breaks, no food or drinks or reading materials at the cubicles, tied to the phone for eight hours a day, denied promotions that would take you off of the phones, and forced to be as annoying as possible because there was always someone listening. The management in this industry are the ones to blame, most of the telemarketers there were college kids or single moms trying to make a buck and getting dicked around if they did well. The DNC list is the best thing to happen to this industry, but, like the scum they are, they're fighting the rights of people not to be swindled or bothered. When I was there they told us that the main office, which we give the address and phone number of, is built like a fortress, so don't try to go postal on them, it won't work.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I can't believe how often this topic comes up and I don't see any posts about Privacy Director (a.k.a. Privacy Manager and some other names).
Start with caller ID with name and number. Privacy Director (that's what they call it in my area), takes over when the number is unidentified. It answers the call before your phone even rings, and asks the caller to identify themselves. If they refuse, your phone doesn't even ring.
If they do, p.d. calls you ("privacy director" comes up on your caller ID), and you listen to the recorded identification (sort of like accepting toll calls). Then you can decide, at the press of a button, to accept or reject the call. When you reject the call, p.d. tells the caller something like "this number does not accept those kinds of calls", or somesuch.
The problem is that I was paying over $15/month extra to have caller ID and privacy director, but I've found a new local company (look online for one, they're springing up all over) that includes three features in the basic plan - guess two of the ones I chose.
So now I'm not getting ripped off by the phone company, either - they make out like bandits, charge the telemarketers for phone numbers, and hook them up with all their lines, then charge the residential customers to not have to recieve those calls.
As an annecdotal side note to the guy whose first call was a telemarketer; I signed up for internet service with BellSouth (who I just fired as my local phone company), and while I was making a transition from one provider to BellSouth, before I gave my email to anybody, I was getting spam. I called BellSouth and cancelled before I ever even used the service (I used the web service to check the account had been activated, so I actually got spams before I even knew the account was active!).
They denied giving my email address to anybody.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This gives me an idea. Up here in Canada, we don't have the protection of a national "Do Not Call" registry. But it *is* still illegal to call people on phones for which they are charged to receive calls (eg., cell phones).
I see here an opportunity for the telecom companies in Canada to increase profits, while stamping out annoying telemarketers. What if they offered a "service" whereby customers could opt-in to a model where on top of their monthly local access fee, they pay an additional 1 cent for every call received. This would add up to at most a couple extra dollars a month for the vast majority of customers, but it would now make it illegal for telemarketers to call them on their land lines. People who are stingy and don't want to pay to receive calls could stick with their existing service. The phone companies would increase revenues by a percent or so, and telemarketers would be shut down.
A capitalist solution where everybody wins, instead of a politcal, legal solution. I like it! What do you guys think?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
If you want to cut down on the cruft in your snail mail box try putting a note inside the door that says: No Marriage Mail. Marriage mail is most of the presorted coupons and so on you get. Note: This is working great for me, but it probably depends on your carrier. K
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:0XCFd4wDTcwJ: donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumers.aspx+site:donotcall .gov+insurance&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
If you look in Google's cache, the Do Not call site used to read:
"Exempt business include:
- long-distance phone companies
- airlines
- banks and credit unions; and
- the business of insurance, to the extent that it is regulated by state law."
Oddly enough, this text is no longer on the web site:
http://donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumers.aspx