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.
I have oftened wished that I could do what Dave Barry has done. Particularly annoying are the recorded messages that I continue to get on m business line. On occasion I have called the 800 numbers to express my displeasure. Simply calling in ones and twos isn't going to work. What we really need is for someone to organize a web site where people can report these incidents. If we all band together and call these companies 800 numbers simply to express our viewpoint then maybe this activity will become too expensive for companies to exploit anymore. Anyone up for it?
Why are the telemarketing companies worried? This list of people who do not wish to be called, are probably people who wouldn't buy anything from them in the first place. This list should be welcomed as it prevent them from making 30 million calls on which they will not make any money on.
In most every state, dialing machines are illegal except when used by non-profits -- this might even be federal law now. This is why the occasional commercial message you get from a dialing machine is usually "[Sleazy company who does this and offers this] is calling to be sure you know about some charity event! [Sleazy company continues pitch about their products]"
Good luck even finding a dialing machine, by the way. I don't think they're even being produced anymore, but rather being traded and sold second-hand. You'll see them go for upward of $10k on ebay now and again.
For those of you too lazy to read the articles, here's the phone number to call: /. their phone system!
1-877-779-3974
Let's
--Quentin
Interfered with somebody's ability to make a living? Since when is that a right? If I've got a business model of strangling small children (or something legal thats equally offensive), other people have a right hinder me in anyway they legally can.
Profit is not its own justification. Thats the sort of thinking that arms dealers and the RIAA use (like how I tied those together?).
Mod point free since 2001
grinning, ducking and running...
We're sorry you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is not in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check your number and try your call again.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
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...).
but in the end you're just sinking to the telemarketers' level.
;-)
Although I agree with you in principle, I think you missed the bigger issue...
The Telemarketers insist that they have a constitutionally protected right to harass us, even after we have added our names to a federally-maintained list saying that we would really rather not have them call us.
This mass calling, while superficially petulant, demonstrates that a right to call and harass people works both ways, if they want to play that game.
Think of this as no different than signing Ralsky up for every junkmail catalog in the world... While childish, it does get the message across - "We hate you and everything you do, so please shrivel up and die, preferably in some painful manner that involves your loathesome occupation". Well, perhaps not quite that verbose, but they get the idea.
Is this really something that needs to be worsened by giving ideas to the industrious - but idle-minded masses on slashdot? The damage can only be worsened here!
Oh, Pshaw! I expect we'll reach 70 or 80 comments before someone thinks to post the home phone numbers of various telemarketing company's CEOs (hint, hint, c'mon, someone out there has those suckers, post em!).
Do the ends justify the means? No.
Hey, the telemarketers already presented a number of points describing why we have a right to call and harass them. We all just want to congratulate them for their hard work. And hey, since the DNC registry would cost them two million jobs, if enough of us keep calling, perhaps they can re-hire those two million to field the inbound calls. So you see, we have simply found a way, by all pulling together, to save two million jobs in an otherwise bad economy.
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.
PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION
Due to the outstandingly positive response to recent media events, the American Teleworking Association has taken steps to protect its constitutional right to protection from unsolicited calls by registering with the National Do Not Call List.
"We were shocked by the intrusiveness of these unsolicited calls", commented Tim Searcy, ATA Executive Director. "None of us could get any work done! Our heartfelt thanks to the Federal Government for their foresight in creating such a resource to protect people like us!"
Returning to work today, ATA employees are looking forward to a day of uninterrupted work now that they are protected from such intrusive unsolicated calls.
Don't think that the telemarketters don't know their own business.
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.
But in a guy sort of way.... and "The National Do Not Call List" sounds like a great name for a Rock & Roll Band.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Not to be left out should be the fact that you should call the telemarketers and talk like a pirate next Friday as Mr. Barry suggests!
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
I can tell you I'm a counterexample. If someone knocks on my door in spite of the "NO SOLICITING" sign, they get the door in their face, and a followup from the local gendarmes asking about their permit (which they almost never have) to solicit.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
On their site, they list a new contact number:
(866) 500-4272
As others have pointed out, their old number has been disconnected.
--Quentin
If the numbers that the telemarketing industry is throwing about are even half right, this could end our current economic recovery. Telemarketers alledge that they create several billion dollars in sales every year, several billion dollars that will go up in smoke in October. That plus a huge boost in unemployed (and otherwise unemployable) persons is a very bad thing. Be careful what you wish for.
Sigh, okay if they spend their time answering the phone that can't spend it calling/making money. If they answer the phone for an outraged citizen they can't take a sales call. When there lines are getting inbound traffic they cannot do outbound traffic.
So this did hurt them. How much depends on what profit margins these companies have. I know there are plenty of business were one lost day of work can make the difference between a loss and a profit. So keep it up.
Oh and the claim about lost jobs doesn't work. These telephone sales people are taking the jobs of shop sales people.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't know about this. I get many calls from advertising vacations and time shares. I am sure that these get some of thier income from people calling back.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Why not do like I do ... when a telesales person calls you just put the phone on speaker with volume down and put the handset down ... they can talk as much as they like, to themselves. The call is costing them money, not you. Its actually more enjoyable to leave the volume up a little, and you can hear them as they realise that you aren't listening :-)
It's pretty hard to screen your calls when they block caller ID.
no big sig
So, for every time a telemarketer calls, we are "allowed" to call back once. Publishing this phone number just allows us to extract this punishment.
:-)
Following your "logic", if telemarketers make 30 million calls a day (to individual people), they should expect to receive 30 million return calls. I think that should be sufficient to overwhelm their phonelines
demon
-----
Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example.
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?
Since those guys have turneed off the 877 number here is updated contact info: Administrative Office: 3815 River Crossing Parkway, Suite 20 Indianapolis, IN 46240 Toll Free: (866)) 500-4272 info@ataconnect.org Legislative Office: 1666 K Street, NW, Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20006 Toll Free: (866) 500-4272 info@ataconnect.org give em a jingle.. i am
And their address is published at the bottom of their web site.
Perhaps they'd like some junk mail too.
American Teleservices Association
1666 K Street NW Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
877-779-3974
info@ataconnect.org
Call the Chairman of the ATA at home!!!!!!!
Chairman:
Thomas Rocca, (770) 429-1956, 3840 Jiles Rd NW, Kennesaw, GA 30144
(provided by Google)
Easy enough to do if you still have an old dialup modem hanging around, though, and the time to write a little script...
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.
You're upset because you see Barry making a moral equivalence between the two, but he's talking only about the "right to a living" argument. He's not saying telemarketers are as bad as muggers -- or if he is, it's irrelevant to this particular argument -- only that their position is as untenable as a mugger's would be.
My only quibble is that the analogy would have been even better had he used, not mugging, but house burgulary. In both cases someone comes uninvited into your house -- even when you take steps to keep them out -- and take something precious (in the telemarketers' case, your time).
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
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.
AT&T local service used to bombard me with three and four phone calls per day. I repeatedly informed them that I had DSL, and was thus ineligible, and asked to not be called again, and was told repeatedly that I'd be added to their do-not-call list, only to find myself getting more calls than before.
Here's how I solved the problem:
First, I called my long distance customer service number and informed them that I would cancel my long distance coverage unless they stopped calling. They told me that they couldn't help, and that I needed to call another number.
That number turned out to be the AT&T local service sales number. I tried to find out if they did their own calling or paid someone else to do it,but the guy wouldn't answer. The guy then began asking for lots of personal information. I finally asked why they needed that information to file a complaint, whereupon they said that this, too, was the wrong number to call. (What part of "I want to file a complaint" didn't the guy understand? How exactly did he get "I want your local service" from that?) Anyway, they gave me yet another number, but that the number was basically only open on weekdays,
I ignored the guy's warning about it being only open on weekdays, figuring that anybody who interpreted an "I'm not eligible, so stop calling me" complaint as an "I want to get your service" request was so clueless that he probably didn't know what was going on. Unsurprisingly, I was right.
So the number I ended up talking to was AT&T Local Services customer support. I had "the talk", as it is now infamously known, with the service rep, and he apologized profusely and agreed to put me on the do-not-call list.
To date, I have not received any more calls. I guess tying up AT&T's 1-800 numbers for almost two hours and threatening to drop my long distance service if they didn't stop harassing me was enough to convince them that maybe I really didn't want their local service....
That having been said, I think they're only excluded from the DNC law if they are your current long distance provider, so if they annoy you too much, tell them that from now on, "You're not dealing with AT&T" and see what they say. :-)
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Here's a telemarketing situation where I'm just waiting for the payoff. Our office has several blocks of 100 numbers each, most of which aren't in use and are forwarded to the front desk (because a client may have an old number). Some months ago a mortgage company started autodialing our blocks. Our receptionist went from calm to frothing at the mouth in 60 seconds flat, and eveyone else was getting either a hangup call or a voicemail left for them.
I called the 800 number in the voicemail I personally received, got a manager on the line in record time (it helps if you sound like you want to confirm your satellite recon for the imminent airstrike) and explained that we had a block of numbers, that they were calling ALL of them and to please stop right-fucking-now. I then did the usual bit about do not call lists and a copy of the policy (which I never got). The do not call list was tough, since numbnuts didn't grok the "I have several hundred consecutive numbers" part very well.
The next day they did it again. I got another manager on the line, who was significantly less than understanding about the whole affair. In point of fact, he seemed dismissive of the whole fact that I had complained the day before and tha the was perhaps a bit offended that I was trying to interfere with his attempt to rescue a failing mortgage business. I reminded him about the FCC's $500 per call regulation and he got offended. Go figure. Apaprently the fact that the Federal government might put him out of business wasn't a factor in his worldview. I rang off.
And called the local police department and reported a couple hundred harassing phone calls. I leaned heavily on the second manager's attitude toward my request of the previous day and on his utter disregard for Federal codes covering his business. I named both managers in the complaint. These guys are less than fifty miles from us and in the same state, so it could happen.
We have a case number. Some day they'll screw up, and then a telemarketing manager will do the Perp Walk. I'll be sure to put whatever details I can on a website so we can all share the joy.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
What does it mean to have 2 million telemarketers out of work? Well, if those 2 million people are not putting in their 40 hours a week, then they won't be taking up a total of 40 hours of time each week from a few hundred other people. Imagine what might happen with 80,000,000 more hours of time become available to other people at work, at home, and at the dinner table. Imagine the increased productivity happening at work. Imagine the opportunity to get the home and garden chores done. Imagine being able to actually talk and bond with your family at dinner time. Oh the horror!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
you can hear them as they realise that you aren't listening
Uh...but then wouldn't you be, well, listening?
--RJ
You're missing a few key points.
One, it wasn't the telemarketing companies that were getting the calls, it was the association that represents them. While industries are huge, the associations behind them often employ less than a dozen people, and rarely more than fifty. So if thousands of people start calling, it's a hell of a telecom slashdot effect.
Two, whether they normall make money answering the phones or not is immaterial. We don't make money answering the phone when at home, but we still find it disruptive and annoying to get calls from telemarketers; this is the same concept. The goal wasn't to keep them from getting profitable calls, but rather to turn the tables on them, using their proposed "First Amendement" model of justified harrassment.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
"when a telesales person calls you just put the phone on speaker with volume down and put the handset down ... they can talk as much as they like, to themselves."
To extend the fun, you should try the magical phrase before putting the phone down:
"Jester? Yes, I'll just get him for you..."
Hey! Salshdot gets more effective every day! The number has been disconnected.
/. effect!
Hurray for the
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
I work for the IT department of a small, rural hospital near New Orleans. Which means people call me about problems with everything from their PC to their fax machine. It may not be part of my job description, but I'll try to help them with their problem if I can...
One day a couple of weeks ago, I had a very frustrated message on my voice mail from the director of our Radiology department. It seems that the phone in one of the diagnostic imaging rooms would ring, and when someone would pick it up it was a recorded message from a telemarketing company.
If it had happened once, she probably would have wrote it off to a mistake. Instead, it kept calling the number. Continuously. For a half hour, by the time she'd left me that message. Now, as you can imagine, having the telephone in a MEDICAL PROCEDURE AREA continuously ringing is a bad thing. Not to mention that line now being tied up so that in an emergency the techs can't call for help.
I ran (literally) down to the department, picked up the phone the next time it rang, and recorded the call. After about two minutes, a real human picked up the line.
Said human began reading her script when I asked her if she knew what phone number this was. I then told her that at that moment, I was standing in an x-ray room, in a hospital, with a patient who was supposed to be getting tested right now but because we kept having to pick up the EMERGENCY PHONE they were just kind of lying there moaning (at which point the director standing next to me made the most pitiful moaning noises, heh, heh) and we would like to GET HER OFF THE TABLE IF YOU PEOPLE HAD NO OBJECTIONS...
There was a moment of silence, then prolific appologies, a promise to stop the calls, more appologies...After leaving her flopping on the end of the hook for a moment, I accepted her appology, took her name and number, then hung up.
The phone never rang again.
Telemarketers alledge that they create several billion dollars in sales every year, several billion dollars that will go up in smoke in October.
Yeah, and the Russians said that they had several thousand nukes pointed at the US in the Cold War, well, technically they did.
Many, many, many of the silos had water in them up to the missile in the bottom, thus, when launching, would have killed all of the people launching them and left a missile with a nuke on top in burning in a hole in the ground and thirty minutes of rocket fuel burning there with it.
Lighting those suckers would have caused ecological disaster for the USSR.
The lesson here?
Never, ever, ever, trust the information given to you by your enemies. Do you expect North Korea to tell you the truth when threatening you? Expect enemy information to be overinflated. Or downright bogus.
If you bothered to follow the link from the comment above you would have seen that that page is on ATA's own site.
Being too lazy to read an article is one thing, I succumb to that all the time, but being too lazy to even roll your mouse over the link, that's pathetic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's a bit underhanded, I know, and some people might actually LIKE getting called by telemarketers - but it struck me that it would be rather easy to automate adding every phone number listed in the United States to the DNC registry.
:D
Write a script that hits the page, enters in 3 phone numbers, waits for the mail to be sent to an address it generates on the fly, 'clicks' the link, rinse, repeat.
No telemarketing!
Ok, Bad Idea. I should remember where I'm writing this. Someone is likely to go off and do it.
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.'"
Come on man, it's called a 486 and a war dialer.
Now that I think about it, I bet I pissed a lot of people off in the early 90s. It's the middle of dinner and the phone rings "Oh damn a telemarketer" except when they pick up the phone they're greeted by my ever-so-desperate-for-love 486sx.
-----
jonathan barket
- Get a Caller ID Box. Your telco probably will charge you a fee for sending the information, since as they see it, you might decide not to answer the phone based on who is calling and therefore they will not earn the connection charge on the call.
- Block Withheld Numbers if you live in a jurisdiction where withholding your number is still legal. Your telco probably will charge you for this, but it's worth it. {before I had mine blocked, I used to say to Number Withheld: "Are you a paedophile? Because your number is withheld." That saw them off. On my mobile, where there is no such service available, I have to resort to doing an impression of a recorded announcement: "Anonymous calls are not welcome on this line. If your business is important you may ring back without withholding your number. Goodbye."
- Don't say anything if you don't recognise the caller's number. This spins them out, because they think it could be an answering machine. A legitimate caller will ask for you by name. A sleazeball telemarketer will just hang up.
- Ask them how they got your number. This distracts them from the purpose of the call and maybe gets them into an infinite loop.
- If all else fails, remember that it is your line, and you are under no obligation to be polite with unwanted callers. Any obligation of politeness would fall on the originator, not the recipient.
I think the best solution would be for the do-not-call list to be in the phone directory, by placing a symbol next to the numbers of people who did not wish to receive unsolictited sales calls. I'm not so anti-social that I'd consider going ex-directory, because that would jeopardise things for people who might have a legitimate reason to call me {and because I like looking up my name in the new phone book every 18 months or so, it gives me a kick without harming anyone else}. Having the "do not call" list in the phone book itself would be almost foolproof. Everyone with a phone line gets the phone book, so there would be no shortage of witnesses to the fact that your number was on the list. The only downside is that you might have to wait till the new directory was published in order to get your name properly DNC'd. But the telemarketing companies could be made to subscribe to an update list as a condition of their operating licence.Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Guys, telemarketing can be a lot of fun if you add some positive atmosphere to it. Just think of it, since the chances of meeting your friend on the other end of the line are pretty slim, you can get away with almost anything: dirty jokes, humiliation, etc. Whenever a telemarketer calls me, especially if the person has a thick foreign (Indian, most of the time) accent, I have fun. Here is how to do it:
:)
a. Pretend to be somebody else, like an old person with a hearing problem or a recent immigrant who speaks poor English. Make the telemarketer re-read the offer and ask stupid questions: start with product related stuff and then move onto personal issues. For example, in the middle of conversation say "Wow, you know, you have a really sexy voice!" Works like a charm
b. If you have roommates, set up a plot. I remember when my roommate pretended to be an abusive husband and I played a role of a wife for unwanted calls. Whenever a telemarketer called us, we would be 'in the middle of a physical conflict.' "The husband" would swear at his wife and beat her (just slap your naked leg for the sound effect); the wife on the other turn would say things like "Stop beating me! I've had enough already" and then she would continue to talk about her personal problems to the telemarketer in between the beatings. Basically, use your imagination; most of the time the other party will hang up.
c. Put them on hold. This is by far the easiest one, unless you're expecting some other call. When you receive an unwanted call, tell them that you're in the middle of something that you must finish asap; therefore, offer them to stay on the line for a minute or so. Then go read a newspaper, drink a cup of tea. This may sound stupid, but this brings positive results: you keep telemarketers from calling other people through your personal sacrifice.
There is more stuff and it usually depends on who is calling and when. Sometimes when I have a bad day, I find telemarketers to be my stress relievers: I bitch and swear at them for several minutes. After hanging up I start feeling better right away.
Toll-free calls cost the recipient money. Every time that anwering machine picks up, its money down the tubes.
Don't forget to return (empty or containing a nice message to the poor guy that is paid to process the replies) all prepaid business reply envelopes that get sent to you in junk mail.
your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through
For sure. Replying keeps the Postal Services busy.
If you have two reply envelopes, swap the contents or include some local flyers maybe along with a nice note - "Here, have some of mine".
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
"Greetings, friends. Do you wish to look as happy as me? Well, you've got the power inside you right now. So use it and send one dollar to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Don't delay. Eternal happiness is just a dollar away."
Which, after a court order, will be changed to:
"Hello, this is Homer Simpson, AKA Happy Dude. The court has ordered me to call every person in town to apologize for my telemarketing scam. I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to: Sad Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power." -Homer
You know, the first amendment doesn't guarantee you an audience...
I got a call from a TM one time. They started into their rubbish so I set the phone down and walked away without a word. I came back about 5 or 6 minutes later to hang it up and realized they were just wrapping up the speil, so I listened to the last 10 seconds or so.
At the end, she said "So, which credit card can I put that on" to which I immediately replied:
"Put what on?"
SHE hung up on ME!
There's also the Discover card guy who said to me "You currently have an introductory APR of 0% on balance transfers. Do you have any cards that have better than 0% APR?" to which I calmly replied "Yes."
Boy did that screw up his pitch.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Seems as good a word as any.
There's also the Discover card guy who said to me "You currently have an introductory APR of 0% on balance transfers. Do you have any cards that have better than 0% APR?" to which I calmly replied "Yes."
Boy did that screw up his pitch.
Depends on the telemarketing firm...one thing I have learned from the news stories and "Action News" investigations is never to answer anything in the positive when a telemarketer calls.
Consider this: The telemarketer now has a recording of you saying "yes"...a unscrupled firm could now start billing you for all sorts of stuff, even for products and services that you never heard of, or they called about. You take them to court. They come to court armed with faux recordings of you saying "yes" to all sorts of bogus purchases.
Can you afford an expensive analyst who can prove the recordings to be fake?
OK, it may take more than a simple "yes" to start the ball rolling, but I'm not one to take a chance. I just hang up.
Thankfully it is illegal (so I've heard) to telemarket to a cellphone. I haven't gotten a telemarket call in years.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
You heard it here first:
When the do not call list takes effect, I predict the reincarnation of the door to door salesman.
(Besides, haven't you always wanted to know what that telemarketer type person on the other end of the line looks like?)
-Sean
Ummm you do understand that the ATA is the telemrketing trade association. They don't make the actual calls, right?
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
You can send them an email stating your point of view.
NOTE: A well reasoned, polite email will probably have a greater effect than an angry rant (if it has any effect at all).
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!
The other day I got a call from a telemarketer who wanted me to change my phone service (for the low, low monthly price of $49.90/month). For some reason I felt compassion for this bloke who called, and I didn't tell him to go fuck himself outright (although it would have been well within my right, since my ass-cheeks had just landed on the toilet seat, and I was ready to unload.) Anyway, so I was nice, and feigned interest, and asked if they had DSL, and yada yada yada. And then asked all the questions that they're supposed to be legally bound to answer (their name, company's name, address, phone number, etc). Around this time, the guy starts to get annoyed, since it's been almost 60 seconds that we've been talking. He gives me his name and address, when I (honestly) realize I don't have a pen, so I ask him to hold on a second. Ten seconds later, I've got a pen and paper, and I copy down his name as well as the company's. When I ask for the address and his employee ID number, he gets all snotty, and taunts me with, "What are you going to do, come up here and arrest me? I'm in Vancouver." I explain, still politely, that he is the one that called me, and that as I understand the law, he is required to give me certain, specific information about himself and his company. When I start to ask for his address again, he get's all pissy, and abruptly hangs up.
Now, normally, I'd say fuck it, and go on with my day, but he taunted me with that "what are you going to do" attitude, so I say fuck him. A few googles for his company (RSVP Customer Care Centre) later, I find the website (after getting arond their silly spelling of "center"), and the name of his boss, the VP of Sales and Marketing. She was very kind and apologetic, and she seemed honestly surprised by Joe's reaction to me on the line; for four year he had been a model employee. And for Joe, fair enough, his job probably does suck with people giving him shit all the time; still, at the same time, there's a certain amount of professionalism that I expect from these guys. Maybe he was just rude because he knew he'd be out of a job when the DNC list goes into effect.
Anyway, my (elusive) point, call their bosses and bitch, especially if they're rude or unprofessional.
ATA officials have said about 2 million of the 6.5 million people working at telemarketing call centers across the nation will lose their jobs because of the rules that established the nationwide "Do Not Call" list.
so 5% of the USA's 140 million labor force work as telemarketers? Why did the journalist let them get away with those numbers?
Ummm... yea. Not that I'm saying it hasn't happened to .0001% of all the people on Earth... but really. "Action News" translates almost directly into "WATCH ME NOW OR YOU'RE GONNA DIE SOME HORRIBLE HALF-IMAGINED DEATH AS A RESULT OF THIS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PEN CAP THAT EXPLODES WHEN PLACED IN A COFFEE CAN, IS COVERED WITH 40 POUNDS OF GUNPOWDER AND CAPS AND IS LIT ON FIRE!!!!!! OHMYGODNOTHEHUMANITY!!!!"
I'll take my chances. Besides, if they start billing me for shit I didn't buy I'll invoke the "$50 rule", or, if I'm billed, I'll meticulously document the fact that it all somehow wound up in the bottom of a ravine on the other side of town rather than at my doorstep.
I work in direct marketing (programming... not actually involved in any of the PHB-ish decisions, thanks - I'm clean in all aspects except association). The laws are pretty well-stacked in favor of full-disclosure yet sleazy marketing tactics (e.g. "fine print" hidden under 36pt. bold sales pitches), but if you're just sending shit out to people it's pretty hard to collect. We do "negative option" selling where people agree beforehand to get stuff unless they say otherwise. We COULD, legally, hold them responsible for any bills they incur via negative op stuff they didn't refuse beforehand, but it's such a hassle and so hard to do that we don't. Basically, if they claim they didn't get it - we can't bill them unless we can prove otherwise. And unless you send the stuff with receipt confirmation, that's near impossible. If they start sending junk to me reciept confirmation, I'll just turn it away.
It's not as easy to scam that way as you might think...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I have a few. They are used for :
Identifying who is old (remembers using them) and who is young.
Identifying who is really old (can identify connection speed by listening to it connect.)
Holding down papers in a stack.
Keeping books on the shelf from falling over.
The blinkenlights are pretty in a dark room.
Soliciting complaints from a spouse who thinks they need to be thrown away.
Cursing new PC manufacturers for not putting serial ports on new computers.
and less commonly : connecting to another computer at an unGodly slow speed, making it faster to travel across country by Greyhound bus to pick up three DVD's worth of data than to actually transmit them across that data connection.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
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.
The callee speaks very quietly, to try and get the telemarketer to raise the volume of their phone/earpiece. After a few seconds, the callee blows an air horn right into the phone, blasting the telemarketer.
Ever have that happen?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
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
Great. Now they know what it is like to have to change their number after being harrased over the telephone.
Maybe now they have to tell all their friends to let it ring twice, hand up and call again or something like that.
> 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.
They've had the number Dave Berry published disconnected, but here is the current contact information from their website (including toll-free numbers):
Legislative Office:
1666 K Street, NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
Toll Free: (866) 500-4272
info@ataconnect.org
Administrative Office:
3815 River Crossing Parkway, Suite 20
Indianapolis, IN 46240
Toll Free: (866)) 500-4272
info@ataconnect.org
The old one (877-779-3974) seems to be disconnected.
The new numbers at:
http://www.ataconnect.org/contact.htm
Legislative Office:
1666 K Street, NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006
Toll Free: (866) 500-4272
info@ataconnect.org
Administrative Office:
3815 River Crossing Parkway, Suite 20
Indianapolis, IN 46240
Toll Free: (866)) 500-4272
info@ataconnect.org
and so has to alternately ask for a "Mr." followed by a "Mrs." to attempt to find the right person.
I'm not married, so there is no "Mrs." in the house, and my girlfriend, taking advantage of this fact,
chose to torture the telemaketer this way one day when I wasn't home:
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
AFAIK, I've never seen this argument used as a legal basis to end TM: the simple premise that my telephone service is a paid, private service. Commercial solicitation over a private service I pay for should not be legal. I've never heard of a class action suit against TM's on this principle.
I expect some degree of spam and advertising from web-based mail like yahoo- I don't pay for my Yahoo mail account. But if I *did* upgrade to the paid premium level- then I expect not to receive unsolicited emails (if I never posted my email address to any forum, newsgroup or website) nor see any advertising anywhere on the web client.
Similarly, my paid private voice service shouldn't be a conduit for unsolicited commercial interests.
The only legal way TM makes sense is if I choose to appear on a "Commercial Solicitation OK" list. Then, I need to be compensated for every phone ring by a commercial interest calling me- whether I answer or not! TM's are abusing my time in distraction and using a paid resource in my home- the phone ringer and the single phone line, which another personal contact may be trying to use to reach me during the TM's attempt to call. The remuneration from each TM call ought to appear as a credit on my phone statement- again, only if I volunteer to be on a "OK to call" list.
Telemarketing has *nothing* to do with freedom of speech, or the rights of commercial interests in any way shape or form. It is about exploiting (current) holes in the interpretation of personal privacy rights and abusing private communication services.
Another post in this thread mentioned placing an indicator in current phone books next to personal name listings, a flag that means "no solicitors". Why this hasn't been available yet is dumb-founding, as it is no different than the ability to put a "NO Solicitors" sign on your front door (of your physical home).