Slashdot Mirror
Dave Barry Strikes Back Against Telemarketers
ikkonoishi writes "The Miami humor columnist Dave Barry in his column
here encouraged his readers to exercise their constitutional rights to call a telemarketing firm which had declared the National Do Not Call List unconstitutional. Well it seems to have worked." Needless to say, the targets of the prank were none so keen on being called themselves.
This is cool, and beautifully ironic, but...
Telemarketers don't make money answering phones, they make money calling people. They don't have to answer phones to make money. So this probably didn't actually put a dent in thier operation.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
But what do you do when they call you using the terminally broken "predictive dialing hardware"
You answer and there's nobody in the call centre available so you get a silent call. I've had 5 of these in one day. As the caller id is blocked I can't even discover which set of brain dead idiots it is calling.
or rather a new stability where everyone is happier. telemarketers don't have to put up with crap because they lost their jobs; instead they go save the rain forests. and i don't have to get 3 calls per day from the same company trying to sell me the same thing every day that I am home telecommuting. (my guess is that they call on the days I'm not there, too, but I can't hear the phone on those days...).
My, what a crafty troll. I think I'll bite.
I can see the immediate appeal of this kind of puerile action, but in the end you're just sinking to the telemarketers' level.
Ok, so here your basicly saying that what the people who called the telemarketing group did basicly the same thing that the telemarketing group did, pick up a phone and call someone. Because thats what the telemarketers say, we are just calling you.
Dave has interfered with these people's ability to make a living.
You I could come back with something on this but Dave allready did it so well, I'll just quote him: "Of course, you could use pretty much the same reasoning to argue that laws against mugging cause unemployment among muggers," he wrote. "But that would be unfair. Muggers rarely intrude into your home."
Do the ends justify the means? No. This is the kind of dangerous thinking that brings abortion clinic bombings, the ongoing fighting between northern and southern Ireland, the danger in the Middle East, and countless other bloodbaths.
You go from talking about ends justfying means, and your argument there is weak at best, to bloodbaths? Unless someone was beaten over the head with a phone I don't think any blood has been spilled here.
Dave's had his fun and done his damage.
Ahhh, the "damage". Well again back to the orignal point we basicly now have a law that says that if you sign up for the National Do-Not-Call list that these people can't call you. Such as it is you could then argue that that law is doing "damage" to them. I mean it will, hopefully, reduce the number of calls that a "business" like this one can make and thus force it to lay off or close up shop totally. But, we as a people have decided that we want to be able to control who calls our phones that *we pay for*. And on top of all that, this company has said that it's unconstutional for such a law to exist! Now IANAL, much less a consitintuonal scholar but if any of these lowlifes could please point out to me where the right to protect a buissness model exists I'll be glad to take my words back. Such as it is however that is simply not the case.
Laugh if you must, but sit back and don't make this any worse than it already is!
I did laugh, thank you. How my "sitting back" when I did it made it worse I'm still a little confused about.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Now, I assume you were trying to be funny, but clearly some tool on here took you seriously and modded your post interesting instead of funny, so I'll reply.
Good. Let people lose their jobs. Interfere with their attempt at making a living. If they inconvenience me one iota, I couldn't care less in the slightest if every last person there lost their job. Its a job. They can get other ones. If they can't, well our government has shown we'll bend over backwards to support people with no ability or desire to support themselves.
They choose to call me, they choose to inconvenience me and you or they claim their ability to make a living should matter? Thats funny beyond words. What if these were ignorant asshats sending 50 million spam messages a day? Would shutting them down be bad because its going to put some people out of work?
Well, it was surely just as easy for them to say "Sorry I'm not interested" when people called to voice their opinions. Answering the phone is not always convenient. It's impolite to call people and then try to sell them something. I'm quite happy with a tit for tat retaliation.
Even if you only get a recorded message, they pay toll fees for every incoming call. Once you start hearing a busy signal, their cost is zero.
What the telemarketers count on is the ability to sell things to people who have a hard time saying "no." These people do not want to be called, but they also lack the willpower to tell someone to go away. Those folks *love* the idea of a do-not-call list, because it keeps them from having to deal with the confrontation of saying "no." But, it's exactly those people that the telemarketers make the most money off of, so the telemarketers desperately want to keep access to them.
Exactly what I was thinking.
A "logical" business model would be not to waste time on a customer who won't be interested so go elsewhere where there is money to be made. However, the tactics of some telemarketers/ing firms involve coersion or a play on the emotions of the telemarketee.
That, my follow readers, is the true evil behind telemarketing and IMO justifies having Do-Not-Call lists.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Oh, so we're interferring with poor people's livehoods. And why would we care about the livehood of people that live at our cost? Seriously, I don't care at all about how many people live from spamming, telemarketing, or selling heroine. If they all go bankrupt I will be very happy.
Your mixxing laws and terminology here.
There is a dramatic diffrence between a Slashdotting and a DDOS. A Slashdotting is when many people are directed to visit a website and do so. The resulting load of lagit visiters causes the server to overload.
A DDOS is when a bunch of people send garbage packets to the target server. The resulting load clogs the network and keeps lagit users from visiting the website.
When a bunch of people call a 1-800 number to complain they are making lagit phone calls. This is Slashdotting it's perfictly legal.
When a bunch of people call and hang up or call and ask "If your fridge running?" or similar prank calls then your DDOSing. This isn't legal.
And let's be clear on this. DDOS is hacking is applicable to the Internet and the laws binding to computer networks.
The applicable law for calling a voice line and hanging up is not hacking but harrasment.
So it all depends on what you say when you call. If your calling in protest you need to state your opposed to the companys possition that "cold calling" is protected speach.
But if you just call and say something goofy and hang up that's harrasment.
Yep they have your name and number but more importantly if your violating the law they can get your name and number from the records no matter what with a simple cort order. Caller ID blocking won't work here eather. The phone company has your records and will give them up with a cort order in a phone harrasment case.
I don't actually exist.
It's pretty hard to screen your calls when they block caller ID.
no big sig
It is too bad Slashdot doesn't have a -1, Shill moderation... I would use it on you.
I mean, to compare a grass-roots protest of an organizations business tactics to the senseless slaughter of thousands of civillians is the sort of logical leap that only a maniac (or a shill) could make. Dude, get a clue. Telemarketers are leeches on society. The list of people that telemarketing benefits is very short, and consumers are most definitely not on it. I get the feeling, though, that if I could check the payroll/stockholder's list of all the telemarketing firms everywhere that I would eventually stumble across your name.
The function of a telemarketer is to sell products at inflated prices to impulse buyers. If you ever find yourself listening to a telemarketer spiel and thinking "This sounds useful" hang up immediately, and Google for the same product. Odds are pretty good you will find something better, cheaper, or both without looking too hard.
That is the whole purpose of telemarketing: To push overpriced products onto people who are dumb/suggestible enough to buy something from a stranger who called them randomly on the phone. How do you know it isn't somebody playing a prank? Or collecting CC#'s for fraud purposes?
While I understand this doesn't mean ALL telemarketers are evil lawbreakers, I do know that all telemarketers are ANNOYING and are selling things that a careful shopper could get much more cheaply by doing a tiny amount of research.
Who did what now?
Sure telemarketing is "evil", but don't compare criminals with people actually doing a *legal* job. Sure, it's annoying for the customer(maybe even more..), but they're not breaking any laws, so the "pretty much" is pretty much a troll.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
between the Slashdot effect and a DDOS attack. This looks like a willful attempt to crash their computer and drive their help around the bend; it's a DDOS.
They choose to call me, they choose to inconvenience me
Just make sure you establish that bit you're taking as a fact before you jump on board and dial the toll-free number like the rest of the slashbots. THINK before acting, man.
Of course it's ok. This is a group that does business with the public. The number being called was listed as a public contact number. It was made available so people could get in touch with the ATA and register their comments. That's what people were doing.
Nobody gave out the home telephone number of a given telemarketer. Nobody sent mailbombs to the company, or tried to break in and cut their phone lines.
People were just trying to make their opinions known to the company in a legitimate manner. The only thing out of the ordinary here is how many tried at once.
And if i were in the middle of performing a surgury, when said telemarkateers started calling me, would not they be "interfering with people's livelihoods[ and or lives]".
Oh please! While I highly doubt that anyone who has trouble spelling "surgery" will actually be performing it, I doubt even more that telemarketing calls are received in operating rooms. Don't make a mockery out of the issue by making up absurd "straw-man" scenarios.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
the reason they are worried is that they make a majority of their money from people who know they don't want whatever the telemarketer is selling, but can't say no. whether because they're too nice, or don't like conflict, there are a lot of people who find it hard to say no to a person talking to them on the phone -- especially since the telemarketers have perfected having an answer for every imaginable excuse.
i was surprised about their objections to the do-not-call list, too, until i saw several articles pointing this out. makes me hate the bastards even more....
-esme
The best part is that some of the same people who currently feel bad saying no will feel much better when the DNC list kicks in (it's not active yet, right? There's still a month to go or something?) and they get a call they didn't want, because they will have a healthy sense of moral outrage at the beginning, since they shouldn't be calling them at all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, I think the moral argument is pretty good too. As discussed above, telemarketers make money by selling people things they wouldn't otherwise buy, using high pressure tactics and abusing people's goodwill.
I don't see a hell of a lot of moral difference between gently mugging granny for $50, and pressure-selling her $3000 of windows she doesn't want or need.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You do have a point. We live in a culture of hypocrisy. It's illegal to kill people, but if you do, we kill you. It's illegal to rape people, but if you do, we put you in prison, where you may get raped. It's illegal to speed, but the police do it, and not just in pursuit of criminals. I have seen cops speed up to make a yellow light and then pull into a parking lot and shut off, so they weren't in pursuit of anyone, but they tell you you're supposed to stop for a yellow if you can do so safely.
On the other hand, this nation (Obviously, I'm a maricon) is built in part on civil disobedience, doing things which are clearly illegal under the current system, in order to change it. Boston Tea Party, anyone? And you are saying just because they annoy you, you can't harass them. Harassing someone who annoys you is walking up to someone on the street who's wearing neon clothes and yelling at them. This may be harassment, but it's harassment of someone who is harassing me, and above that, it is legal. So yes, just because they "annoy" me, I can "harass" them. Their number is published, it's freely available, and I can call it.
As for shooting people who break into my home; I own guns. If someone breaks into my home and feels threatened, I will shoot them, and I will not care if I kill them. Actually, California state law pretty much encourages you to kill people, because if you don't then they can sue the shit out of you. Actually, you're better off killing them than scaring them off and having them break their ankle running down your steps, provided you can live with yourself afterward, and personally I don't think I'd have much trouble with that, although cleaning up the blood and having to think about a dead guy in a certain spot on my floor every time I walked over it would probably cause me a little mental anguish.
The government isn't doing shit. I predict that a very small percentage of do not call list violations will actually result in a fine, but we'll see.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I worked at a call center in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Let me tell you that people like you made my day working there. The way it worked is that as long as the customer kept giving you excuses why they can't buy the product you had to keep giving them reasons around it. Once the customer repeats an objection you can then just end the call.
I've had calls like yours and the whole time I sat there with a grin on my face trying to come up with ways around your insane compaints. These calls were so much fun and most people there would trade these stories with each other and laugh. The rest of the time your job is mind numbing and repeditive.
Added to this I would like to say that annoying telemarkers may seem fun but these people are almost always in a bind and do not want to work there either. Making a single mother's life hell when she's resorted to working for a call center because she can not find anything else is not going to solve the problem.
You know, the first amendment doesn't guarantee you an audience...
Seems as good a word as any.
Have you ever been to the donotcall website? It just asks for the phone # and then sends a 'click-to-confirm' email. How hard would it be to write a script to submit all possible phone numbers?
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
If I walked down the street and cornered people and asked them to give me money, would that be illegal? Especially if I essentially ignored their refusals and became rude, aggressive and demanding?
I'd wager that at minimum they'd bust you for agressive panhandling, perhaps someone might even stretch it into a form of mugging or robbery.
And this is exactly what telemarketers do. On the street, the more aggressive and strong-willed people would walk away or otherwise rebuke them and walk away, but I'd bet that the same people who are bullied into buying from telemarketers would fork over money to someone just demanding it on the street.
What amazes me is why the media doesn't spend more time and effort exposing this "sales technique" for what it is. Surprisingly most articles on DNC lists focus on the "irritation" of the calls, or worse, the untold damage to be done to our economy through the loss of telemarketing jobs. None of them seem to focus on the decepetion, bullying and probably outright fraud associated with telemarketing.
In my mind is inextricably linked to the same business ethos that fueled Enron, WorldCom and host of other "lying your way to wealth" business models that seem to have prospered.
It seems that everyone in his right mind despises telemarketing. Spam too. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that there are few things they hate more in life. It seems as if there are no exceptions to this rule -- everyone, bar none, hates telemarketing and spam.
But it can't be true. Someone must be responding to this stuff by spending their money. Because for some reason, telemarketers and spammers stay in business. Somehow, it must be worth it for them.
If everyone hated the stuff as much as they say they do, if everyone hung up on the unwanted calls and deleted the unwanted mails in nothing flat, like they say they do, then the problem would fizzle out before long. No one could make money doing it, so there would be no reason to keep trying. And yet, the crap just goes on and on and on.
I've read rumors that a certain small percentage of the people called or mailed actually do respond and end up buying something; usually the figure is put about 10%, or something similarly low. Hard to believe that such a business would be worthwhile if the response rate is so low; but whatever it is, it must be high enough that the incentive for telemarketing and spamming is maintained. Otherwise, there'd be no such thing.
A national no-call list is a nice idea, but I can't see the problem going away altogether as long as the telemarketers and spammer still believe there's a chance to make money. Certainly the spammers are not going to let some trivial thing like a Federal law stop them. (They'll just go on spamming from Antarctica, or wherever.) If we really want the problem solved, once and for all, we have to ensure that there is no future for those businesses, and that would require educating the public, right down to the last man, woman and child, to always follow this rule without exception: If someone calls you or emails you to sell you a product, then whatever you do, don't buy that product!
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
> Have you ever been to the donotcall website? It just asks for the phone # and then sends a 'click-to-confirm' email. How hard would it be to write a script to submit all possible phone numbers?
Don't do that! Some telemarketing scumbag would point it out, and argue for the whole list to be thrown out-- on the grounds that you could no longer tell which numbers on the list were entered by individuals, and which ones were fed in by automated scripts.
Heh! I'm reminded of the exchange:
'Would you sleep with me for a billion dollars?'
'Yes.'
'Would you sleep with me for a dollar?'
'What kind of lady do you think I am?!'
'We've already established what kind of lady you are, we're just negotiating a price.'
Tell me, Anonymous Coward, what kind of unethical job would you do, and for what price? We know you're willing to annoy (Let's estimate three minutes a person.) 20 people for ten dollars, repeatedly. That's a person for 50 cents.
Now, would you murder an infant for a billion dollars? Does the method of murder matter, would you charge more for having to stab it vs. smothering it? Would you steal a pack of chewing gum for a dollar? Does the flavor matter?
Would you punch an old lady in the face for a thousand? An old man? Would you mock a crippled man for a twenty? Does it go up if it's a war veteran?
Would you beat a dog to death for a million? What if it was an annoying dog, like a poodle? Would you key someone's car for a fiver? Is the color relevant?
What, exactly, are your standards, and what is your price?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?