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Oops, Dave Barry Does It Again
agdv writes "After the success of his first article providing the phone number of the American Teleservices Association, and the ensuing reaction by said organization, columnist Dave Barry attacks again, providing the ATA's new phone number. Read all about it! (the number is 317-816-9336, long distance charges may apply)."
I like the idea of calling the association, but I am more enthusiastic about contacting the heads of the association at home, during dinner. It would be a real shame if someone were to dig up those folks numbers....
...I can't get a hold of the national do not call list too see if Dave's on it or not.
don't wanna get hit with that 2K fine ya know...
Way to go Dave! This is hilarious, a pity we can't do the same thing with the RIAA or MPAA numbers!
I'd call and say,
"Please hold for an important message..."
He serves a valid point... They call you, and it is extremely rude to call someone who doesn't want to be called.. So they sit there and say that what he did was rude.. hes just doing what they are doing to prove a point.. And he should keep doing it till Telemarketing is destroyed, and the agency comes up with a BETTER idea, like say perhaps getting permission to call?
Just me
It seems they don't just need a new phone number (again!) but soon they'll also need a new (additional!) web server ;-)
I love telemarketers. I can be as amazingly offensive to them as I like because they're being fucking irritating and interrupting me; and if they reply in the same manner they could get fired. It's the most stress relieving activity I've ever encountered. Probably pisses them off though.
Shame.
From the article:
And I am, frankly, tempted to reveal to you here that the American Teleservices Association (www.ataconnect.org/) seems to have a phone line working (at least for now) at 317-816-9336.
Whew! That was close. We wouldn't want Mr. Barry to sully his relationship with the ATA by posting such scandalous info. Kudos to you, sir, for your strenuous efforts to maintain some level of decorum!
However, I have no such relationship...
American Teleservices Association 317-816-9336
American Teleservices Association 317-816-9336
American Teleservices Association 317-816-9336
American Teleservices Association 317-816-9336
American Teleservices Association 317-816-9336
Have a nice day!
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
http://www.ataconnect.org/boardofdirectors.htm http://www.ataconnect.org/staff.htm Someone get the white pages for the US and find out address and phone numbers please!
Oy, my html skillz are pitiful... www.ataconnect.org/
Sorry for the bad formatting. Here again:
ATA Board of Directors (Google Cache)
ATA Staff (Google Cache)
- Get a 1-900 number
- Anonymously tip off Dave Barry, telling him my number is an ATA number
- Wait for Dave Barry to post my number on the innurnet
- profit
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That's why they took down the 800-number. The new one is temporary, to keep them from getting charged.
GL
Must be the phone equivalent of Slashdotted.
(For those of you who don't see the pun, "Berry'ed" = "buried" -- ah, never mind.)
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
This "idea" is really not that great second time around.
Firstly, it's Sunday in US. Chances are no one is there. By tomorrow, it'll drop off the first page (although I realize Barry has his followers)
Secondly, it's not a toll-free number. You have to pay long-distance charges, hence there is no actual damage done to the association people might want to annoy.
Can we let it go? The laws are fucked up. How about publishing the numbers of those congressmen who voted against DNC list? I don't see what this campaign is going to accomplish. Go after the gatekeeper.
I would say that it is slashdotted, But I suspect that it is more like "americaed".
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Instead of having a opt-out list there should be an Opt-in list. The people who want to be called will enlist giving their explicit permission to telemarketers. It would clear the confusion and make it easy for everyone. Most of the people do not want to be called but they may not enlist in opt-out list and may end up getting calls. The opt-in list will solve the problem. To be fair, the telemarketers will be given one chance to call everyone and ask their permission to call in the future. They will get their answer right then and there from the horse's mouth ;-)
Btw, Kudos to Dave!!!
- Jalil Vaidya
If you call collect they still get a call. They'll probably reject the charges, but the phone will still ring.
Do you accept the charges from "An Angry Phone Customer"?
Wow, /. a phone number in the early morning hours of a sunday. Nice work guys! Let's see if we can keep it that way for a while.
Using "free speech" rights to quash the list in America is, in my opinion, an abuse of the constitution. Mind you, it's not the first time it's been mangled and abused for the benefit of some interested party.
I saw a few minutes on telemarketers on CNN a few days ago and they rolled out the same excuses Dave Barry ridicules. They said they were hardworking people, just like the rest of us. They actually argued that it was bad because it would put people out of work.
:)
In a later discussion on the same show someone pulled out the lame-sounding but apt question - should stealing cars be legal just because it puts people out of work if it's illegal?. Some dufus responded, saying it was an invalid argument since stealing cars is illegal. Finish the thought and you've got "...stealing cars is illegal and calling people who don't want to be called is legal". So the dufus had a rather circular argument - it should be legal because it's legal. I was rather annoyed that nobody called him on it.
Anyway, it's fun to watch this one from the sidelines. I haven't had a landline in 3 years.
Google Phone Book
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this information!
Someone please doublecheck!
Thomas Rocca, Kennesaw, GA
Andrew Miller, Omaha, NE
Mark WIlliams, Wilmington, DE
The telemarketers are trying, no matter what the consequences are to others, to defend their right to make calls.
The politicians are trying, no matter what the consequences are to others, to react to popular demand (not a terrible thing) but to defend their right to make calls. (The "unconstitutional" argument is that charities, churches, and politicians can still call, but businesses can't.)
But we can be part of the problem, too. Not in demanding to eat dinner, or work from home, uninterrupted; that's fair. On the other hand, when we take out our frustration on the underpaid guys on the other end of the line -- instead of politely saying, "please put me on your company's do-not-call list, have a nice day" -- then we, too, are pursuing our agendas no matter what the consequences are to others.
And the next time you get a call, be as angry as you want at the caller's employer, but remember: you're only one layoff and twelve months of unemployment away from the person calling you.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
I usually just hang up on them. I have a friend that listens intently, maybe asks some questions, then says 'Hold on while I get my credit card.' Then he puts the phone down and doesn't check back for at least a half hour. One telemarketer he did this to called him back later from his home to bitch about all the time wasted from making a quota or some BS like that.
I actually work in a call center (service ONLY, no telemarketing) and I've heard of some unusual things happening. People calling from their car and getting into a wreck because they're trying to read an account number from their checkbook; some guy even had a heart-attack right when he called, the phone rep (who luckily already had his account info) called the paramedics for him. That's not a time when you want to hear 'Your call is very important to us....'
-Steve
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
Chairmain
Thomas Rocca
1014 Ector Dr Nw
Kennesaw, GA 30152
(770) 429 - 1956
Vice-Chairman
Lisa Defalco (Business Number)
TPG Telemanagement Inc
301 Oxford Valley Road, Morrisville, PA 19067
(215) 369-0979
I'll leave the lookups of the rest as an exercise for the reader:
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
It appears that the www.ataconnect.org machine is still on the Internet but not responding properly to http requests.
It's still responding to pings (although not very well) and also gives back some SYN/ACK packets. If it's a bandwidth problem, they've probably taken it down on purpose until the traffic stops. Why they didn't just unplug the machine though is beyond me.
----www.ataconnect.org PING Statistics----
17 packets transmitted, 17 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip (ms) min/avg/max = 108/801/4445
Dave: Quit calling me!
Horde Against Lawmaker: I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.
Remote shocking device to allow the victim of telemarketing to send a 4000amp charge down the line to the person at the call centre.
;-)
Another would be for the US to declare war on Telemarketing. Why? well, when ever GWB has a speech, guess what happens? the phone rings. When the phone rings, GWB loses his "connection with the American public". If you get rid of the telemarketers, you get a loyal listening audience
Could you imagine the speech?
"My fellow Americans, our country is under attack by spam, telemarketing and faxes. This group constitutes a Triangle of Trash. We must unit as a people to purge this scourge from this great nation of ours. Countries who current allow these communication terrorists to operate in their country have to make a decision, they are either with us or against us."
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
Dial *67 before you dial the number, and your number will show up as 'blocked ID' (or similar) on the display on the other end.
However, IIRC this does not work when you're calling a 1-800 or other toll-free number. I guess the idea is that if you are footing the bill you should be allowed to block your number, and if you are paying for the toll-free line you should be able to see who is calling you - which makes sense.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Betsy Devine's blog has this quote:
"The number Dave Barry printed is now disconnected. And of course it is illegal as well as wrong to make prank phone calls. The law stands firm against the kinds of jokes played by 9 year-old kids!
But surely it's a fair use of free speech to call the ATA's legislative branch, whose toll-free number is listed on their contact page as (866) 500-4272, and urge them to lobby for better Do Not Call laws."
Surely.
Thank you Cingular!
"Free" long distance.
3000+ weekend min.
"Disable Outgoing Caller ID" in prefrences for all calls.
One touch redial. (I wonder if I can program that into the Handspring?)
Priceless!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
If they could catch you at your most inconvenient time, they would. In fact, if they could tell without having to call that you were not interested, they would not make the call.
Isn't that what the do-not-call list is made for? They could tell beforehand that you don't want them to call. But they insist they want to call you despite that and rule the list illegal. So, you're plainly wrong here.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I predict the ATA uses Caller-ID to harvest the phone numbers of everyone who calls them, then states that they have a "prior business relationship" with them, and starts calling them back.
Could there be a new business model in opt-in calling? Essentially marketers could cut down on the number of people they call, reducing their costs and increasing their success rate. With a higher success rate they get higher profit margins, that would allow them to either pass on discounts to those who do opt in, or even to pay people who are willing to be called and listen to the sales pitch.
Of course not, that's why they call between 5pm and 7pm on weekdays and Saturday instead of say.. between 9am and 5pm during "normal" business hours.
If they could catch you at your most inconvenient time, they would.
Don't you mean convenient time? They already catch us at our most inconvenient time. For me that's between the hours of 9:01am and 9am.
In fact, if they could tell without having to call that you were not interested, they would not make the call.
I have an idea: What if we setup a national do-not-call list and everyone that doesn't want to receive telemarketing would put their phone number on it. What? They didn't like that idea? It doesn't sound like they're interested in my convenience anymore, just their profits.
American Teleservices Association, Inc.
+1 (818) 766 5324
+1 (800) 441 3335
http://www.ataconnect.org/
When you pick up the phone to call ATA, what you are doing is harassment. You have nothing to sell them.
So you feel that the only Constitutionally protected form of speech should be commercial speech where the caller is trying to sell something? God forbid that a huge number of people call one of the telemarketing organizations and voice their opinion.
While my father was dying of cancer and I was awaiting "the call", I got a call from some jackass wanting to sell me vinyl replacement windows. When I was working night-shift testing satellites, I got multiple calls during the day from telemarketers who woke me up and kept me from getting adequate sleep. You think that these calls are valid forms of free speech which should exist unregulated but that me calling a business to tell them what I think of their lobbying efforts does not deserve those same protections?
I personally know an individual (a dentist) who has successfully used telemarketing. He employs one woman who works from home cold-calling people to get their teeth cleaned. Telemarketing has been the most successful method of getting new patients that he has ever tried. Additionally, the woman doing the job benefits from well paying at-home employment.
How is that any different than saying you know a successful penis enlargement pill salesman who employs people to send spam? I don't give a rat's ass about how successful he's been. It's like arguing that laws against embezzling are wrong because you know a successful embezzler.
I am not opposed to a Do Not Call list. I am, however, very much opposed to the legislation of said list.
So you think it's fine for people to register for the list but you don't think that telemarketers should be legally obliged to refrain from calling people on the list. Then, by extension, you believe that some handicapped or elderly person who has trouble and/or pain getting to the phone should be forced to receive telemarketing calls from any firm that wants to ignore the list. You think that people working night shift should have telemarketing calls wake them up in the middle of their sleep cycles. You believe that parents should have their toddlers woken up by telemarketing calls. You think that people should have to choose between taking the phone off of the hook and maybe missing an emergency telephone call or leaving it on the hook and being woken up, interrupted, or inconvenienced by some telemarketer.
You've got a screwed up set of priorities.
Sorry, but having a commercial agenda does not magically legitimize this practice. Yes, it is legal to make an unsolicited call to try to sell your products, just as it is EQUALLY legal to make an unsolicited call about, well, nothing. Only when an unwanted call is repeatedly made does this behavior fall into the realm of harassment.
So what if I just want to call them with the intention of inconveniencing them? Does the fact that they unintentionally inconvenience me set us apart? No.
The number of assholes calling had dropped off in that last while leading up to the Oct 1st date. Now since Oct 1st we've recieved more calls than we have in the previous month. It seems that with things in a state of limbo the telemarketers are figuring on getting as many calls in as they can.
I used to tell them simply that i'm not interested and hang up. Now i tell them i'm on the list, call them names and generally abuse them. I can't understand what would make a telemarketer think that they would have a successfull call to someone who has actively taken measures that indicate that they explicitely don't want to receive them.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
When I dialed *67, then Thomas Rocca's #, this is what I hear...
:)
"This number has Privacy Director and does not accept caller ID blocked calls."
I wonder why.
.... is that there's nothing in it for me. Obvious Barry struck a deep nerve when he published the telemarketing firm's number. I think its the "something for nothing" nerve.
Why should I give you five minutes of my time on the telephone when you have nothing to offer me? I watch TV ads because I am being served "free" television shows. I look at pop-up ads (well, not really) because I have to get through them to get to the web content / porn that I am looking for. Billboards at least try and entertain or titillate me.
Telemarketing does nothing for me. Maybe if when they called I got 50 cents off my my phone bill each month I wouldn't get so ticked. In Europe, when you buy some sim cards for your cell phone, you can call a special code that will give you free local minutes on your cell, but first you have to listen to a 45 second commercial. I'm happy to listen to their little ad for the free minutes.
Surely these companies can come up with incentives for people to listen to their damn spiels. Every other form of advertising does.
Someone I once knew got cold called by a firm selling conservatories. Instead of getting angry, he was very enthusiastic and asked them to send round a surveyor. When the guy arrived, he was a bit narked to find that the prospective customer lived on the eighth floor of a tower block.
When I moved down to Northern VA and first got my phone, I was getting tons of telemarketing calls. But then I did something simple. The second I realized a call was a telemarketer, I said: "I'm sorry, but I'm not interested. Please take my number off your list." Click. That's it. I went from getting an average of 2 calls a day down to zero. Really. I hardly ever got called after I started doing that.
They've been calling me for years, therefore I'd like to think that we have a business relationship.
That's good enough for me to call them and say hi and sell them some of my programming services.
One call per person to voice an opinion shouldn't be illegal. If you call over and over, then that *IS* harassment.
When you pick up the phone to call ATA, what you are doing is harassment. You have nothing to sell them. In fact, you would almost certainly (with few exceptions) not be calling them unless you knew that thousands of your peers would also be calling. You hope that your actions will cause problems for the ATA. You are participating in mob behavior.
This isn't harassment. This is the American People(tm) making a democratic choice to call and offer their First Amendment right to make their voice heard, much like the ATA states that the First Amendment allows them to call us whenever, whereever. Harassment would be if we, oh, set up an autodialer and called them repeatedly with the intent to break the law/perform illegal activities. Again, it would be harassment if we started swearing, threatening, or performing other acts that the law would discriminate as "offensive". Simply calling a business to voice an opinion about something unpopular is by no means harassment.
By contrast, when a telemarketer calls you, they hope to sell you something. They have had success in this activity in the past, otherwise they would not try; the phone call costs money, as does the equipment, space, human resources staff, benefits, management, etc, not to mention the wages of those making the calls. They are not doing this to make you mad. They don't want to interrupt your dinner. If they could catch you at your most inconvenient time, they would. In fact, if they could tell without having to call that you were not interested, they would not make the call.
I don't know about you, but for every telemarkerter that has called me I have always told them (right noff the bat, before their little spiel) that I do not buy anything over the phone and to please remove my name from the list. I then hang up. (BTW, these are the actions one should take to, in theory, be removed from a list. It doesn't always work, however). Has this eliminated calls from telemerketers? Not in the least. As for the dinner comment, if these guys want to invest so much money into equipment and staffing, why not buy a map of the US marked off by area codes? This, with a little research saying that Americans typically eat dinner from, oh, 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM, would allow them to perhaps avoid those area codes during that time. It still gives them three other time zones to mess with at pretty much any given point.
I am not opposed to a Do Not Call list. I am, however, very much opposed to the legislation of said list. And I am opposed to the kind of mob behavior that caused the ATA to disconnect their phone line.
Again, you say mob behavior. This is not mob behavior, again it is the American People making their voice heard. What if 10,000 telemarketers calling tens of thousands of people called? Business? So it's business if you are paid to call people if they don't want to be called, but it is 'mob behavior' for us to call that company and complain?
And don't bother comparing this to calling your congressperson, they are supposed to hear from you and have budgets and staff explicitely for this purpose. Be honest now. If you called the ATA you weren't really trying to give them any information or state an opinion, you just wanted to inconvenience them. You were just happy for an opportunity to retaliate.
Perhaps you are confused. The ATA has a staff dedicated to answering calls such as these. It is called 'Customer Support', and many, if not most, companies have such a department. Their #1 priority is to handle complaints, comments, etc. from customers. And before you say we aren't customers, just remember that the phone ringing with "Unknown" or "Blocked" is due to some company trying to sell you something whether you like it or not. I am a customer, I never buy anything from them, they continue to call me, and I am fed up. It isn't mob behavior. It's me making my voice heard, and until someone abolishes the First Amendment we are more than welcome to do things such as this.
"This food is problematic."
Dinner time? whats that in the us? eh... who cares i just had dinner and i guess my dinner time is good enough. (norway calling) Hallo. Jeg vil bare klage pa at dere ringer meg privat nar jeg ikke er interessert... etc... etc... throw in some english to keep the attention up for a while and see how long i can keep it up. With free long distance (at work) keep the numbers cuming, i really need something to do while compiling Norw Blue
Hang on, put some perspective here.
Nazi war criminals shoot people, torture people, rape people, and do so with no regard for human dignity.
Telemarketers just call you on the phone.
Get some sense into you
Here's an even smarter way of going about it than last time:
PRETEND TO BE INTERESTED IN THEIR SERVICES
when you call them This time. Anyone who does this will leave a much longer message for them, tie up their line longer, and tie up the person(s) filtering through all the 'potential' customers. Last time they got called to death... this time they'll get called to death, slashdotted (hopefully for a Long time), and Long after they take their new number down... their staff will be busy having to listen to you if you pretend to be interested.
-Rich
There are ways to attack, and there are ways kill.
Just drop acid, already, and invent something better... or quit your whining.
The mail box on this number is full... but the system let's you jump to all other mailboxes!
Listen to the message, go through the menu, hit 1 to access other mailboxes or you can use the company directory (Hint Hint) to leave messages for all your favorite ATA associates!
I believe the mailboxes are all 3 digit numbers, the number Dave Berry Posted is mailbox #104.
On the angle of selling them something, I can think of lots of worthless things I have that I might want to sell them. But where is it written that I can only phone them to sell them something? Hmmmm, you sure seem to think like a telemarketer, i.e. the phone is only for selling something.
I have news for you. There are many perfectly valid reasons to call someone. Merely knowing that others have a similar complaint does not take away my right to call.
In fact, if they could tell without having to call that you were not interested, they would not make the call.
Talk about twisted. You must be a telemarketer troll.
We have just given them the greatest tool in the history of mankind for them to be able to tell in advance that we are not interested. It is called the DO NOT CALL LIST.
I am opposed to the kind of mob behavior that caused the ATA to disconnect their phone line.
So are you opposed to the mob behavior of the telemarketers that would cause me to have to disconnect my phone line? Hypocrit.
Be honest now. If you called the ATA you weren't really trying to give them any information or state an opinion, you just wanted to inconvenience them. You were just happy for an opportunity to retaliate.
You nailed it in one. Absolutely right. The ATA has stated that I have an absolute right to do so. And no matter what the ATA says, I do have an absolute right to call them and complain and state opinions. Until MY calls become an issue by themselves, I am doing nothing wrong. By them or their members calling me, and them stating public opinions on the matter of their members calling me, I have the right to call them back.
If I called you, and then you gave me a return phone call, I would have a pretty hard time arguing that your one return call constituted harassment.
I personally know an individual (a dentist) who has successfully used telemarketing. He employs one woman who works from home cold-calling people to get their teeth cleaned. Telemarketing has been the most successful method of getting new patients that he has ever tried. Additionally, the woman doing the job benefits from well paying at-home employment.
And if they have the right to call me. Then I have the right to call them. It works both ways. The telephone is for communication. Not just for sales. And I have something I want to communicate. They are required under US Law (I used it once against a local newspaper, sorry I don't know the exact chapter and verse offhand) to
- Maintain their own do not call list.
- Have a written policy on maintaining the list.
- Add me to the list upon request.
- Give me WRITTEN CONFIRMATION that I am on the list.
- Provide me a written copy of their policy on maintaining their list.
If a local business calls me and does not do the above, then I will see them in court.I would suggest to anyone who is called by a local business such as this dentist to agressively pursue the above action. Start by sending them a registered mail, signature required, return receipt. In your letter, state the exact laws that entitles you to written confirmation that you are on their own list, and written copy of their policy for maintaining the list. If they fail to respond, you have a direct cause of action against them. (I have forgotten the amount.) You can find this at any good anti-telemarketing web site. That's how I did it.
With my local newspaper experience, it is only too bad that I did not get $500. Instead, they opted to never EVER call me EVER again. If they call me again before 2007, I can and will sue them.
There is something else here. If this dentist does not already have in place (1) a do not call list that people can request to be added to and (2) a written policy on maintaining the list, then they are already breaking US law. If anyone can identify this dentist and whether he is in compliance with all telemarketing laws, this would be useful to know.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The bad thing about toll-free numbers, and special-toll numbers (1-800, 1-888, 1-900, etc. in the U.S.) is that the dialing number is always passed to the terminating equipment. Nothing[1] you can do can block this number from being delivered.
But with a normal number (1-317-ppp-nnnn), it is possible to block your number. Use calling ID suppression (*67 or whatever your CLASS activation code is) before dialing this number, so they can't claim "prior business relationship".
the AC
[1] Its possible to make calls without a traceable ID, but its difficult and requires an SS7 connection
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
and I dunno that I want to harass someone who just works there
Then don't call to harass. Call for a legitimate purpose. One legitimate purpose would be to sell them something that you own. Clearly since they work at a telemarketing organization, they must believe deeply in your right to call them.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
A comprehensive list of phone numbers to telemarketing call centers
I am sure they want to talk to people, as lonely as they must be.
Let's start from the top? I'll start from the top myself, and I'll have my fax machine start from the bottom.
You have fallen into the same logical falsehood as so many people do. An analogy is an argumentative tool to draw parallels for one specific aspect, not a complete comparison at all levels. The analogy was that "I was just doing my job" is not an excuse for doing something bad. That the level of "badness" is different is irrelevant to the argument. The analogy is valid for the purpose it was used.
When you pick up the phone to call ATA, what you are doing is harassment.
Only if you're harassing them. If you call them up and give them perfectly valid feedback, what are they going to do? "Uhhh.. yes, your honor. The defendant called us to let us know how much he hates it when he gets calls from us that he didn't ask for and has asked to have stopped on several occasions. He's a criminal!".
In fact, if they could tell without having to call that you were not interested, they would not make the call.
THAT is probably one of the biggest loads of horseshit I've seen posted on Slashdot in awhile. Part of selling cold is overcoming people's objections to something they hadn't actively sought before. They know that the overwhelming majority of people want nothing to do with the product - it's why they didn't seek it out to begin with. If they knew ahead of time who did and who didn't want the product, the only thing they would do is start ranking people by the likelihood of a purchase so they could target the victims better.
Don't give me shit about them just doing their jobs. My grandmother is 86 years old and she's always yelling at these bastards because they keep calling and trying to sell her shit and she keeps telling them to leave her alone. She just wants to be left alone, she doesn't need her windows replaced because she doesn't own a house. She doesn't need a new vaccuum cleaner. I don't care if they're "just doing their jobs" - they're doing it at her and my great inconvenience, and that's NOT acceptable.
I don't CARE if 2 million telemarketers get booted to the street. They almost all get paid shit anyway and are shoveled pretty much the same benefits as McDonalds' burger-flippers. They'll just fill other service positions that pay the same paltry amount but don't irritate people. If 2 million telemarketers lose their jobs, it's BECAUSE THE INDUSTRY DOESN'T HAVE A CUSTOMER BASE. Imagine that... an industry being allowed to die off because nobody wants to patronize it. What a novel idea in this country - fair competition. The only reason telemarketers have been allowed to survive this long is because they don't NEED to establish a customer base by providing a quality product or service, they just need to keep beating random people over the head and forcing almost everyone to be the customer base.
Long live the DNC list! The only complaints I have are that I can't sign up to avoid slimy politicians, guilt-inducing "charities", and religious nutjobs.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
My brother, who is in sales himself, made a recording to answer the phone. It's a long recording that starts out, "Hello?" then a 5-second pause, "Hi," then every ten seconds it just said "Uh huh." It would continue that for 20 minutes. By then, even the densest telemarketer would get the idea.
When he gets door-to-door salesmen, he invites them in and says, "Man, I'm glad you dropped by! I've had a tough time lately. I got laid off, my wife left me, and, you know, I just need someone to talk to." He says that it takes about 30 seconds and they're eager to leave.
Yeah, and speaking as someone who understands business at an instinctive level (being the son of people who owned a small business), I fully appreciate why the airlines do it, and I also understand (as a statistician) exactly how they can pull it off and most of the time don't have a problem.
:) I can imagine having problems if I need to get to a meeting or something, but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.
I've never been bumped or even threatened, so I really don't know what it's like.
I didn't mean to say that overbooking was inherently evil or anything; I was just commenting that it's an unpleasant experience, because it sometimes causes headaches for the "bumpee".
--RJ
Thomas Rocca, Kennesaw, GA
Remember, folks, in Kennesaw, Georgia, you're legally required to own and maintain a gun. So be careful. Rocca might bust a cap on yo' ass.
I want to use one of those automated answering machines for routing calls, and proclaim it to be a digital protection scheme against telemarketers.
Options provided are:
1 - for all callers who are not telemarketers, solicitors, etc and the call is then allowed to ring my phone, and
2- for all telemarketers, solicitors, etc. who are disconnected without allowing a ring to be sent to my phone.
If a telemarketer selects 1, they are then in violation of the DMCA for circumventing my protection scheme, and I can start subpoenaing their records without a judge's siganture, right! Damn, I think I just screwed up my chances on this patent.
MM
Forward your home phone to that number during dinner. Your friends will know to call you back later and the telemarketers will be calling themselves! :)
I called Rocca and asked him to hold for an important message. But its his home phone where his family lives so I felt like I sunk to his level.
I've got ne word for you.
:)
"Collect"
The real purpose of calling the number is to annoy the telemarketers. Calling collect makes it even more annoying and it saves you from getting charged for the call.
Can someone show me just where in the Bill of Rights it talks about Corporations?
In all the law and criminal justice classes I have been taking these past 2 years, I always got the impression that the Constitution and, more specifically, the Bill of Rights defined:
the limits that the Government can infringe on the Pre-existing rights of Human Beings
Corporations are entities created by governments, and therefore have only the rights granted to them by those governments.
Now point me to a link that proves me wrong --
And if you're amusing and polite, most of the operators will likely enjoy the call. The woman who I dealt with when I called the number for Anne Murray's greatest hits to complain that Anne Murray has never had any hits, let alone anything great, said that I was her favorite call in several years of working there.
Of course, I also got legal threats when I had my computer autodial a collection firm after my ex-roommate. They called me for weeks, every hour or two. Their claim was "it's the computer, and I can't do anything about it". So I set my computer to dial them every 10 minutes (I worked at home at the time), and I'd kick open a speakerphone connection. The manager just refused to see that there was a parallel between our call tactics and said I was "harassing" them, since I didn't have business with them. The point that my ex-roommate had since moved, and the number they were calling was in my name was okay however. Heh. Every ten minutes most of the day for three days: "Hi, have you taken my number off your call list?"
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Now that we have "taken out" the telemarketers via the slashdot effect I have often thought we should have a link on the main page for the fraud/spammer of the day that we can click to let them know we do not approve of their methods. For example, I have been getting hundreds of "bounced" emails to my domain from this site's advancedprescription.info attempt to spam people and forge my domains return address. Their ISP says they have "warned them" to stop but the ISP is not shutting down the domain... Can we?
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
1. The ethics of this:
Hmmm. The golden rule . . . do unto others. I don't think that applies much to a marketing association, but I guess I'd apply it to the notion of calling individuals at home.
2. It's who you do business with:
Interestingly enough, I have two phone companies.
One is Cox Communications. Within a couple of days of getting that phone number, I was beseiged with telemarketers and it has never let up.
I've also got a number from Sprint. I've had that number for a couple of years. Not a single telemarketing call.
3. A rant
So I call Qwest to get a home phone number. They generously offer to charge me only $3 or $4 per month to NOT publish my phone number.
Okay.
Can you say ex-tor-tion?
I come to your store and generously offer to charge you only $500 per month to NOT set your store on fire.
It's a great business plan: pay me to not do something. Sort of like a SCO license, I guess.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
This happened about two years ago:
You may have seen a gizmo called a "TeleZapper" advertised on late-night TV, which purports to scare telemarketers away. Understanding its operation requires just a little familiarity with telemarketing technology, which I'll attempt to distill here: the telemarketing firm has a system called an "autodialer" which works sequentially through a list of phone numbers in a marketing database. After dialing a number, the system listens for one of three things: a person's voice, in which case the system then either plays a prerecorded sales pitch or connects an unfortunate person working as an automaton to deliver an "interactive" sales pitch (this is why sometimes you answer your phone and get a pause followed by a telemarketer asking "Hello?" even though you're the one answering the phone); a fax tone, in which case the system might either deliver a fax advertisement, or remove the phone number from the database and move on to the next in the list; or it might hear what's called a "SIT tone," which is that series of three ascending beeps you hear when you've dialed a disconnected number...such numbers are of course of no value to the telemarketing firm, so upon hearing this, the system will delete the number from the database and move on. What the TeleZapper does is intercept incoming calls, play a SIT tone, then (if they don't disconnect, as an autodialer would) put the call through to your actual telephone. I've heard one can achieve much of the same effect simply by putting the SIT tone at the start of their answering machine message...I had a WAV file of the tone on my computer somewhere, and just never got around to doing that.
Anyway, with the bulk of the techno-babble out of the way...
It was around noon on a Saturday that I received one of those delightful prerecorded sales calls. But this one was different. Normally, telemarketers block their phone number from Caller ID, so if one subscribes to that service they'll only see "Unknown" when such a call arrives. For some reason, this one didn't...my phone displayed the number from which the autodialer was working. That's odd.
Normally I'd shrug and go back to whatever I was doing. But I was just getting over the flu, stuck at home on a rainy Saturday, bored to tears. I just had to try something. Something evil.
I selected the "Call Log" option on my phone, which brought up the last incoming number...the autodialer...then pressed "Dial." Of course, the number was busy...the autodialer was inflicting its annoying sales pitch on someone else at the moment, and would be doing that all day. And even if it wasn't, the autodialer isn't programmed to answer an incoming call. But...but...if I could time my call just right, I'd finish dialing just as the autodialer is picking up to make its next call. As I said, I'm stuck at home, nothing to do...so...hang up, redial, busy. Hang up, redial, busy. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then, after only about a minute of this...hang up, redial, sound of autodialer trying to dial the next number in its database! I managed to intercept it!
Like a dog that finally catches up with the rabbit, I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it now. I cleared my throat. Since this wasn't a SIT tone, nor a fax beep, the autodialer interpreted this as a voice "answering" the phone and delivered its prerecorded sales pitch. Feh.
When it got to the end of the recording, it then attempted to drop the line and dial the next number. However, in another one of those phone technicalities, this won't work because I had initiated the call; only I can drop the line. Due to the chance timing, the autodialer had answered my call. So I'm still connected to the autodialer, and hear it try to dial the next number, blissfully unaware that it doesn't even have a dial tone.
So I try another experiment. Though I'm still a bit scratchy with a sore throat, I whistle my best approximation of the ascending SIT tone. And immediately, the autodialer tries to drop the line and proceed with an
It's no good - these guys are on the do not call list.
You haven't sunk to his level because you aren't really selling something. What you are doing is expressing your opinion, in an ironic way, that how they conduct business is wrong.
The outrageous behavior you describe seems very similar to the thinking of spammers.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I used to feel bad about giving telemarketers a hard time, but then I came to a realization: if we make their lives a living hell, they won't want to work as telemarketers anymore. If we are nice to them, they will enjoy (or at least tolerate) their jobs, and they will keep doing what they are doing. When their job becomes a source of major stress in their lives, they will hopefully end up quitting and then there will be one less telemarketer in the world.
Sure, it's kinda mean to fuck with them, but it's part of their job and it comes with the territory. It's up to them to determine if they are getting paid enough to deal with shit from angry people all day. And judging by the high turnover rate at call centers and telemarketing companies, my guess is that they definitely don't make enough money to deal with us.
So feel free to abuse telemarketers, they've been doing it to us for years.
Print out a /. comment page?
Sig!
For those of us in the United States may wish to remember that MANY CELL PHONES HAVE FREE LONG DISTANCE. Not that I would suggest we ab^h^huse that little detail.
What's the difference between an orange?
The designated person could print Dave Barry's article as a pdf, and email it to the appropriate ATA employee. This would resolve the concern they announced after the last article.
Just in case they don't have a pdf reader, the designaged person could open it up in the gimp and save it as a .bmp, then email it. Remember to render it at sufficient resolution that it is easily readable.
Take email server rejections on "too large attachment" into account when you render the .pdf as a bmp. An 8.5x11 bmp, at full color will yield the following file sizes at the following resolutions.
24dpi ~.5M
34dpi ~1M
76dpi ~5M
107dpi ~10M
600dpi ~300M
If you are not the designated person, don't send the email. Don't send the email in many different file sizes to see where the ATA's email server borks. Don't send the email to every ATA email address you can find. Don't send the email more than once.
From their previous complaint, I'm sure the ATA would be grateful for such a service.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
"Don't waste my state's resources with your harassment, please."
The money to pay members of Congress, their staff and to run an office in DC and one in your district comes from federal coffers. I'm paying for your member of Cogress just as much as you are.
Also, being a member of the United States Congress means that their actions affect people thoughout the country as a whole (hence the name "United States Congress"), so all citizens have just as much right to contact your member of Congress as you do. Whether your member of Congress actually listens to out-of-state interests is something else, and something you should perhaps keep in mind in Nobember '04.
> It's no good - these guys are on the do not call list.
The news reported last week that 11 telemarketing execs' names were indeed on the do-not-call list. When asked about it one said she just didn't like to get that kind of calls at home...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Or you could use 1-800-Collect.
You probably won't get through, but you'll burn their time nonetheless.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
That sounds like a good idea, until you realize that one of their questions might involve a verbal contract. Example:
TELEMARKETER: So, sir, can I send you the free one month trail of You're A Sucker magazine, with no obligation for 30 days, and after that a cost of only $89.99 a year?
RECORDING: Uh-huh.
TELEMARKETER: That's wonderful! Can I confirm that your address is %%ADDRESSS%%?
RECORDING: Uh-huh.
TELEMARKETER: Thank you. Now would you like to receive a 10% discount by paying for your first year right now over the phone?
RECORDING: (silence)
TELEMARKETER: Or would you like to receive a bill for the full $89.99 after 30 days?
RECORDING: Uh-huh.
Maybe a better option would be a "Hmmm...." every so often. Maybe even better would, with the help of some friends/babies, go something like:
"Hello?....Hi....Hey listen the baby is screaming right now, can you hold on for a second?....Ok now what were you saying?....No, wait, I forgot, who are you calling for again?....Oh there is somebody at the door, can you hold on for another second?...."
and repeat ad nauseum (and remember that the telemarketers would probably have a much stronger stomach for that stuff that you realize...)
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Wouldn't it be a shame if this ended up in a few hundred usenat posts:
Tim Searcy
Executive Director
tim@ataconnect.org
Bill Morris
Finance Director
bill@ataconnect.org
Lynne McCauley
Director of Member Services
lynne@ataconnect.org
Mitchell Roth
Government Affairs Counsel
mitch@ataconnect.org
Brad Rateike
Manager of Member Services
brad@ataconnect.org
Jason Perry
Marketing Manager
jason@ataconnect.org
Karl Jacobs
Manager of Special Projects
kjacobs@ataconnect.org
Robert Fanger
Manager of IT Systems
bobf@ataconnect.org
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
In fact, for any argument involving claims of "I was just doing my job" (or following orders), the Nazis are the most famous and clear demonstration that such a claim is not a valid excuse, and therefore the Nazi analogy is probably the best one regardless of the emotional attachments.
There seems to be two extreme falsehoods when using Nazis, those who use it as an insult without demonstrating any equivalence for analogy, and those who assume that any comparison to Nazis is invalid on its face because it envokes emotions. Both are falsehoods. Legitimate analogies using Nazis do exist, including this one.
Maybe the best way to discourage telemarketers is to create a public registry of their telephone numbers, which the public can then call to voice their opinions about telemarketers in general. (The telemarketers could hardly complain about this; after all, it's "free speech" and political speech to boot.) A continuous campaign might have an effect.
Outgoing callID isn't/can't be blocked on calls to 1800 numbers, nice thought though.
Really now? Thanks for the news flash pal!
My thought process lead me to 317-816-9336, you know, the one listed in the story (in case you still can't find it) and/or the other numbers, peppered throughout the comments, of their managers. BTW, it is not an 800 or equivelant number.
Great tip though, for folks who know nothing about the phone system.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Telemarketer: Blah blah blah.
Me: Is this an emergency?
Telemarkter: Huh?
Me: I'm sorry, but this number is for emergency calls only.
For a long time, I just answered the phone "Phoenix emergency..." Why have you called 9-1-1 sir?... They don't really have any way of knowing whether their call has been forwarded to 9-1-1 or not, but it absolutely gets you off the list, and the caller disappears FAST. (I don't give a crap that it's fraud, bear in mind that I'm a bit of a punkass on these things).
Another fun one:
Telemarketer: Blah blah blah.
Me: Is this a business call?
Telmarkter: Of course!
Me: I'm sorry but this number is for personal calls only.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
There was an issue a while back regarding whether an automaton can enter you into a binding verbal or written contract without you knowing about it.
We had talked about creating a webpage with an email address. The webpage would discuss a contract for a large amount of money, and say emailing the listed email address would enter you into the binding contract and you'd owe a lot of money. The email address would be nonobvious and not posted anywhere else other than this one webpage. The whole point, of course, is to catch spam email harvesters and sue them for a lot of money. As soon as you started getting spam at that email addy, the spammers would be those who entered into your contract.
Sounds like a great idea, but there is no such thing as a contract without a "meeting of the mind" so to speak. So, for better or for worse, it wouldn't work. Of course, if you make your tape recording in your voice, and they have a recording of the sale (you saying "uh-huh") you'll have a hard time proving that it was your recording and not you who said it. But, if you could prove that by a preponderance of the evidence I'd imagine the contract would not exist.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
One thing that has been driving me nuts lately are the barrage of commercials for the "Free Software" from "Video Professor" - They run these commercials 5-6 times an hour minimum across hundreds of cable channels. It disgusts me when companies use the word "free" over and over with little fine print below like "* some restrictions apply" - I do not believe this type of advertising should be legal, not to mention the fact that this is misleading and I suspect the software they're hawking are obsolete versions of mediocre titles.
Whenever these "free software" commercials come on, I pick up the phone and auto-dial the 800 number until the commercial goes off the air. I get a nice recording for about 30s and then call back over and over.. just like they do to me.
I take great satisfaction in making my "free" call to them to listen to the recorded message about their "free" software. Hopefully they'll get the message. Remember, "It's FREE!" Try it yourself: 1-800-259-1553!
Things we've Slashdotted:
- Web Sites
- Houses (using the good ol' US Postal Service)
- Satellites
hmm... a Phone Exchange? Nope we haven't done that one yet!Get yourself a bible. Make lots of notes; I've found http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
to be an excellent resource. Keep it near the door for religious callers, work through it point by point asking them to justify their answers, until they want to leave, then try and persuade them to stay just a little longer.
I haven't needed to use mine for several years, they just don't seem to stop here any more.
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TTC Marketing Solutions is a member of the ATA and would love to hear from you! I'm sure we can provide some valuable feedback. Pressing 6 connects you directly to the outbound supervisor. Let's show them the slashdot effect. I hear they have great products, like credit cards, insurance, and magizines!
(800) 777-6348
Tell them how you feel!
They never came back to my street.
A couple of weeks ago, I had this unexpected knock on the door. Some chick was going door to door, selling magazine subscriptions.
My GF is a pushover for these people, for IRL and on the phone, and let her in. *duh* So I figured I'd take the opportunity to have some fun.
This girl was telling my GF about all the different magazines and whatever, and how if she sells the most she'll go to Hawaii on vacation as a prize, and send us a thank you postcard (I fail to understand this sales tactic - WTF is in it for ME?).
I offered her a drink, which she accepted. Lucky for her I'm not a Roofie fan. Anyway... I walked over to the front door, and making sure it was noticed, I locked the front door.
Then as she's going through her spiel, I sat across the livingroom from her and my GF, reached behind the couch, took out my katana, and proceeded to sharpen it. Long, steady, methodical strokes, all the while staring at this girl with absolutely no expression on my face.
She tried to ignore me, but after a while it was obvoius that she no longer cared if she went to Hawaii as much as if she would ever leave with all limbs still attached.
My GF managed to keep a straight face, and felt sorry enough for the girl that she actuallt bought a few magazines. Partly out of pity, and partly to keep her there longer, to see how much more of a blabbering idiot she would become.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Answer the door naked.
:)
I had Witnesses show up once while I was shaggin. Funnily enough, they wouldn't come in when I invited them... they didn't even come back later like they promised they would.
Nothing gets rid of door-to-door types like a sticky hard-on
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If you want to get rid of Mormons, just explain that you'd prefer not to be visited. Seriously, the missions (the people that come bug you) are supposed to maintain a list of people/houses that don't want to be visited.
Unlike the Seventh Day Adventists and such, the Mormons actually have manners.
Does this method also work with mormons at the front door?
I remember the days when they would try and try to get you to talk. Now, all you have to do is to tell the Mormons, "No, thanks anyway." and they will thank you for their time, and not bother you again. The Jehova's Witnesses, on the other hand, are a bit more, well, let's say, persistant.
No, I am of neither religion. My personal opinion is like that one old dead feller said a while ago: "Religion is the opiate of the masses." I figure God is pretty disgusted with the whole religion thing anyway. More people are killed, more wars are started, and more greed and avarice are caused by religion than by any other root source.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
Yeah, but can your tape recorder legally enter a contract?
:-)
(I *know* mine can't, it's not 18 years old
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.