Slashdot Mirror
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'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 ;-)
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.
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
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
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.
I don't ever abuse telemarketers, but I do screw with them. I'll answer the phone in German, or pig latin, or whatever I can remember. I'll pretend to be paranoid and think they're the CIA or that my phone is bugged.
I don't see any harm- they probably enjoy it as much as I do. At least, the AT&T rep thought it was pretty funny when I asked if I could get massages included in my long-distance plan...
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
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.
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.
No, the reason why is because people with 800 numbers usually also make use of ANI, or Automatic Number Identification. This takes place at a lower level than CID and so cannot be blocked.
Get off my launchpad!
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.
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.
Sure you can, I suggest everyone give the RIAA a ring at 202-775-0101 (found at http://www.riaaamnesty.com/contact_the_riaa.htm).
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 --
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
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.
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.
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.
They never came back to my street.