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Successful Do-Not-Call Complaints?
bcrowell writes "After some legal delays, today is supposed to be the first day that the Do Not Call registry will be enforced. Got my first illegal call just now, and strangely enough, when I said I was on the list and started asking for information, the telemarketer said my signal was breaking up (particularly strange since I wasn't on a cell phone.) Has anyone successfully gotten the necessary info from a telemarketer and then managed to file a complaint? You're supposed to be able to file a complaint at 888-382-1222, but their touch-tone system doesn't give you any way to do it. You're also supposed to be able to do it via
the web, but there doesn't seem to be any form, although they say "You can file your complaint on this Web site using the File a Complaint page, which will be available starting October 1, 2003." Remember, it may take up to 3 months after you register until they're required to stop calling you." Tales of success? Tales of failure?
Ask the telemarketer what company is calling and what company they are calling on behalf of BEFORE you tell them you're on the DNC list.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Sunday is usually a good day for the many "financial" calls I receive. People who want to help me refinance with a second mortgage and get the value out of my home. Funny enough, I don't have a first mortgage, and I don't need the money anywho. No calls at all today or pretty much this week. This is from a high tide of 10-15 calls PER DAY on a single phone line.
The Do Not Call site does have a form that you can fill out to file a complaint the address is https://www.donotcall.gov/Complain/ComplainCheck.a spx
I hunted around for a while. From the "Do Not Call" page, click on "File A Complaint". At the bottom of that page, click on their privacy policy (yes, really).
At the bottom of *that* page are three links to click on to file a complaint. I used to first of these.
I'm still not sure if that was correct... The same suggested an email address, so I just used that instead.
i got a call one time from a telemarketer and went along with it and said i was really interested. i told her that i was busy and asked if i could write down her information and call her back. she agreed. busted. i only did that once to see if it would work and it did. now i don't even answer the phone. caller ID is a wonderful thing.
You are going to need some very good social engineering skills to try and get that information. Most telemarketers only want YOUR information. When you start asking them for thiers they will get suspicious and hang up.
I forsee a large increase in caller ID being purchased.
You can file a complaint here.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
We have a local do-not-call for our state. Whenever I've gotten calls of this nature, I'd just petend I am interested so they start telling me who they are and such, and then I kindly inform them that my number is on the list and they are about to get fined.
Its so much fun, too!
Tales of a government program.
I work at my county IS department and everything I do is proceeded by a phone book of paperwork. Expect the DNC list to not work for about a year, after which no one will want to file a complaint due to the 73-page form describing the callers information, company's information, their past credit history, and a ransom note for their 3-month old border collie.
This past week I've gotten three phone calls, all from Spanish speaking telemarketers. In the three years I've been here, I have never received any calls from any Spanish speakers, a few Jamaicans, but then with the GF being Jamaican, that's expected. I could hear the "boilerroom" in the background, so I'm sure it was telemarketers. I give them my stock reply, this is not a home telephone number, it is a business, and they hang up. I've always found telling telemarketers your number is a business number cuts down on the repeat calls.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Have you tried to complain at https://www.donotcall.gov/Complain/ComplainCheck.a spx ?
NOTE: Seems like only Mozilla will work when submitting a complaint. At least, that was my experience.
If you blog it...
This link doesn't seem to be working, so here's the
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
I haven't heard from them about the federal list, so I doubt that they are compliant yet. They have voiced an interest in getting out of telemarketing altogether because of the growth/success of the Missouri no-call list; with any luck the federal list will be the last straw that makes them jump.
As an aside, I was surprised by how much money some companies are charging to subtract a list of numbers from a call list; I charged my regular hourly fee, which isn't too much for DELETE FROM call_list WHERE phone IN (SELECT phone FROM AGList)! I later found out that some companies were charging thousands for 'safe' call lists on CD!
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
You may file a complaint at this address
the front page has a link to file a complaint. follow that, you'll get your web form.
Got my first illegal call just now, and strangely enough, when I said I was on the list and started asking for information, the telemarketer said my signal was breaking up ... Has anyone successfully gotten the necessary info from a telemarketer and then managed to file a complaint?
As far as I know you just need a few details like the company name and maybe a phone number or something. I've had two telemarkers call since the DNC list went into effect, and both times it was relatively siple to get a website out of them simply by role-playing a "naive but cautious" person, saying something like "Hmm, the offer sounds good, but I'm not sure. Do you have a website where I can find out more infomation, just so I can see that you folks are legitimate?" Telemarketers are usually happy to do whatever it takes to make you trust them. If they don't have a website, you should at least be able to get a phone number out of them by letting them give their pitch for a minute or two, then saying you're in the middle of something really important, but what they're selling sounds very interesting, so if you could just get a number where you can call them back... "And what was the name of the company again? Oh, ok. Where are you guys located?"
Of course, if you start off the conversation with "Hey buddy, I'm on the Do Not Call List", you can't expect to get very far...
But if you're polite and play your cards right, you can easily get all the information you need out of them. (If you really feel the need to dig at them, just save the "Hey buddy, guess what" bit until the end of the call, after you have played the nice and interested consumer and gotten all the necessary information out of them.)
That said, both times I've gotten all the information I could possibly want about the telemarketer, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to submit a complaint...
I work in the telemarketing industry... and let me tell you guys, it's been a bitch to try and get a copy of the DNC. It wasn't even available online until a few days ago and the cost is staggering.
I know... I know... not a lot of sympathy, but still, I work for a business who would like to do nothing more than play by the rules, but all kinds of barriers have been put up in our way.
Does the do-not-call law cover companies based overseas, like Bermuda?
Can the do-not-call law be enforced if, when you ask what company they represent, they suddenly don't speak-ee the Eeeenglish? (or "My supervisor is not here, sorry " is the other one I get a lot)
What are you supposed to do when the call is an automated recording?
What about when half the calls you DO get are from exempt organizations, like police fundraisers?
This law is a good start, but don't for a minute think that it's gonna make more than a small difference by itself. Neither does CallerID, at least in my case - between my Mom's number being unlisted, my wife working at a place which shows up as "Anonymous", and her family calling from overseas ("Unavailable"), I'm just lucky my number is new and I only get a couple bad calls a week, 'cos I have to answer them all...
Perfectly Normal Industries
And YOU?! ... er...
I registered on the PA Do Not Call list last September.
Since then, I have not recieved ONE telemarketing call.
Telemarketers show up as "Unknown Name, Unknown Number".
And almost nobody else does.
You can't get any useful info from CID.
Other than "I don't need to pick up the phone," as Shastao suggested above?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I got another automated call today from "Jeffrey Caldwell at the National Consumer Council" today. You probably know the message. The FTC has heard of them. They're a "nonprofit" front for a couple of commercial companies.
I filed a complaint, though that "nonprofit" bit might shield the bastards. Other than those folks, I don't think I've received a telemarketing call in the past few days. Good riddance!
Didn't look like an anti-government rant to me. I thought it was more like fortune-telling.
I agree, don't expect it to work. Best case, some telemarketers will decide not to call people on the DNC list. This law is difficult to enforce.
One of the most useful resources I have found is the Anti-Telemarketing Script from Junkbusters.com. Apart from this, they also have tons of information on how to stop snail-mail junk, etc. Check them out.
Like spammers I dont think it will stop.
I too am on this list, and while the donotcall.gov legality was being discussed I tried to gather telemarketer info as the site suggested, name of company, phone number, and address (if possible) to see how effective I could be when it became legal. What resulted is telemarketers just hanging up when they realized the direction I was taking and trying again later in the day or the next day. A game of cat and mouse it turned into as I masqueraded my interest and used that to extract the necessary info, still no dice.
One upside is I am glad its now enforceable since if it wasnt, that list could have just become a big telemarketers dream turning from a donotcall list to a here is a free list 50 million potential calls courtesy of the govt.
The do not call regestry's enforcement has been delayed by a preliminary injuncion issued in response to some telemarketer's law suit. Thus, it is not in effect yet.
Luckily for me, I have privacy manager, and the only way that calls come through is if they're identified on caller ID in the first place. So I pulled the name and number and had exactly the same problems trying to find a place to file my complaint. Ultimately, linking from my state do-not-call page (which is really only a front for the federal stuff), I got to a generic FTC complaint page here. So that's where I filed my complaint. Good luck.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
well... if you put your name on the DNC list... and all the companies have the DNC list... and no one enforces the DNC list... then hey... look at that! you just told all the companies your phone number!
The rules apply to telemarketing calls into the US regardless of where they originate. The FCC has already hit a foreign junk faxer for over a million dollars. Matter of 21st Century Fax(es) Ltd., -- FCC Rcd. --, 2002 WL 27541 (F.C.C.) (Jan. 9, 2002). They tried the "we are not in the US" defense and it was rejected.
.... a subpoena to the phone company aond voilla - ID of caller.
Keep a log (I have a printing callerID box, and even if there is no callerID transmitted, it still logs the exact date and time)
The local phone companies don't like it known, but they all can produce what is calls a "call detail report" or verbatum, that shows all incomming and outgoing calls INCLUDING LOCAL calls for any number... but those records are not kept indefinately and you have to get them ASAP.
And don't call BS on me... I get them all the time, and I have collected over $100,000 from telemarketers and junk faxers, suing them in small claims court under the TCPA. Soon I'll start going after do-not-call list violators too.
As for automated recordings, they are ALREADY ILLEGAL - they have to pay you $500 for each violation... more if they don't properly identify themselves. Play along, and leave a "fake" name with your real phone number... when someone calls you asking for that fake name, bingo, you got them.
We got a recorded call from a company telling us we were blocked by the DNC list so they couldn't call us. Talk about wasting time, energy and money. Luckily, my machine got it.
I registered with the Direct Marketing Association's "Do Not Call" list *years* ago. Surprisingly, it worked fairly well; we went from one telemarketing call per day to one every two weeks. Actually, the only commercial telemarketing outfit that seemed to completely ignore the DMA list ... to the point where I had to have an attorney send a letter threatening them ... was the San Francisco Chronicle.
Recently, though AT&T has become the most egregious offender, calling me at work from what appears to be 6 seperate telemarketing outfits, since none of them seem to know about the others. Unsurprising that they've put a web bug on the Do Not Call registry.
Still these are the exceptions; in the last 4 years, I have received calls from other for-profit telemarketing no more than once per month at home. So it seems that telemarkers already do honor Do Not Call lists when they have access to them, with two exceptions:
1) Charities, because checking the DMA list, or the new DMC list, costs $1000+ per campaign;
2) Political campaigns, because the legislators of course made themselves exempt from regulation.
I suspect that the DMC list will be a failure until they start offering the screening list for free, or screening services at very low cost (e.g. $250 per campaign) with rapid turnaround. Otherwise, some telemarketer will challenge the law in court as "exceptionally burdensome" and they will win.
-Josh in San Francisco
Overall IMHO listening to the comments in the joint news conference I think that they will go for the easy targets that get the most complaints first although they refuse to specify methods it is clear that they have the will to enforce.
Our Government in action! Who whould have thunk?
Then again...
The phone company is partly responsible. We buy phone service not to be bothered every minute.
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The phone companies are partly the problem in this whole telemarketing mess. They have used legislative clout to block all means of trying to stop 'do not call lists'.
Sprint in this area blocked one law because they PROFIT(There's that word again!) from telemarketing.
Sue your phone company or try to get them to log all long distance calls to your house
If they don't then tell them you will cancel and find a another company that cares.
Similar problem in the UK with people 'cold calling' we call it. If I'm feeling pissed off I act very interested and then ask if they would hold a second whilst I turn the TV off. I put the phone down in the bathroom and just leave it off the hook. It can take some companies over 10 minutes of wasted employee time before they give up. They rarely call back. It also has the added bonus of preventing my dad from calling me to ask my silly questions about why his Windows machine isn't working.
What if the phone companies added a * number to dial after you hang up with the telemarketer? Kind of like a *69 to call back the last caller, after you hang up on them you just dial *xx to report a telemarketer.
I had actually started picking up 'Out of area' calls on my phone about a year ago telling the telemarketers to stop calling, and i have actually noted a huge decrease in the number of calls i get.
An interesting tidbit i've heard from a friend (can anyone verify?) whose crummy summer job was being a telemarketer is that you need to say exactly the phrase 'please put me on your do not call list' or they dont actually have to.
Caller ID helps, to a point.
However, I keep getting this automated dialer thing which when I pick up the phone waits about 30 seconds and then gives me the 'hang up, try again'.. because iof the out of area-ness, my telco can't track it down either, i called their abuse line. How are you supposed to track those guys down when you can't talk to anyone?
For our html-challenged posters, that should be a link to the Do Not Call Registry complaint form.
By the way, what's wrong with their SSL certificate? It looks like it's supposed to be a Verisign-issued certificate, but it's coming up as "issued by an unknown entity".
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
christ, there's a link on the left to "file a complaint" and it steps you through a process. are you fucking blind?
I sat down today and had one of those moments where it just seemed too quiet. I thought about it for a bit and then realized that I haven't gotten any telemarketing calls in at least the past week. Very pleasent feeling considering I was getting 4-5 a day before.
I have not had to deal with annoying telemarketers after I did one thing. I got myself a second phone number and made it unlisted. The only number I ever give out it the published number, except to family and friends. I never answer that number. The machine gets it. Sometimes (say once every month or two) I get a telemarketing call on my second line. Usually I know it is before I even answer. That's because the numbers are one after the other and I just heard the first line pick up. Sure it costs me an extra 25 bucks a month but it sure is worth it.
I signed up, and the number of free vacation to Disneyland, offers of gutter cleaning services, and debt consolidation calls on my answering machine has been greatly reduced.
They are supposed to fully identify themselfs at the begininng of the call.
Fight Spammers!
Also, jackass, stupid comments like yours aren't modded down by moderators, but by the editors. You didn't cost anybody their mod points. You fail it on so many levels it's just pathetic. Shut up and die now. Thank you for your cooperation.
that I can't tell them I don't want calls from politicians either. I mean, what if I don't want the Democratic National Committee bugging me? I need a DNC for the DNC.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Has anybody tried getting the list of phone numbers? Telemarketers have to pay for the list, but exempt organizations can get the list for free. I personally did not sign up for the list since it gives your number out to these "exempt organizations" which then can call you as often as they want to.
I submitted a spammer to the FTC UCE page. A month later, blammo - no more spam from that source.
;)
Of course, I'm jaded, and believe that what really happened was that someone at CNN didn't quite care for a spammer sending crap using forged headers of 'From: garbagename@cnn.com'.
But hey, there's always hope.
So, you're asking to be moderated down as overrated or redundant?
Classy.
Get an answering machine and screen your calls. I haven't talked to a telemarketer in 10 years (at least).
I am a telemarketer and all i have to say is that this "do-not-call list" is ILLEGAL! i have my right to free speech
I had a problem last year with SBC constantly calling me trying to offer me DSL service when I already had Cable. Every time I told them to put me on the do-not-call list and I'd get a call back a week later. So I filed a complaint with the BBB and state attorney general and got a letter back from SBC claiming that SBC was not calling me but some third party marketing company who sells service. They said they'd make sure I was on their do not call list and I haven't gotten a call since. The numbers always came with a New York area code but were Unavailble.
I used to get 2-3 a week, but since the list went into effect, I've only gotten one call. When I told the caller I was on the list, they apologized profusely and claimed they were still working bugs out of their system. I didn't think it was worth filing a complaint.
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
If the DNC list is so difficult to get, why not convert your telemarketing business into one that calls up other tlemarketers, preferably after 5 pm, and sells them the DNC list? Two birds with one stone: one less telemarketing company pestering me, and a valuable service to your fellow telemarketers. High fives!
Are lots of people getting calls today and going to the web site? Perhaps they need a "do not slashdot our website" law... or better server sizing.
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely. E. Tufte
I had an interesting one Friday. My normal strategy, which works reasonably well goes: "I would like your facility to never call this number again" which normally leads into "We're sorry to bother you, we'll put your number on our block list which usually takes 6-8 weeks" (bs, but ok whatever). I get maybe 1-2 calls per week this way.
Friday, the response was "I'm sorry sir, your phone number was randomly generated, and we don't have the capability to block it." "Yes you do. Write this number down and punch it into your random number generator/caller, and tell it to never dial it again" "I'm sorry sir I can't do that."
Aaaaaarrrrgggh!
"This is a cell phone"
"This is a business"
Do those really work? I signed up for the national DNC but I have no faith in it. Gonna have to write a letter.
That's right. I never get any direct sales calls. Ever.
It works for us - I hope it can work for you too.
before an outside the USA company buys a copy of the nicely compiled 50 million phone numbers on the DNC list to start telemarketing to?
The phone company is partly responsible. We buy phone service not to be bothered every minute.
.
The phone companies are partly the problem in this whole telemarketing mess. They have used legislative clout to block all means of trying to stop 'do not call lists'.
Sprint in this area blocked one law because they PROFIT(There's that word again!) from telemarketing.
Sue your phone company or try to get them to log all long distance calls to your house
If they don't then tell them you will cancel and find a another company that cares.
Here's my telemarketer horror story...as a quick bit of background, we already have a do-not-call list here in Minnesota, and have had one since sometime last year.
:-)
My girlfriend was home and I was at work. She got a call from a telemarketer. Said telemarketer (a woman) asked for me, and my girlfriend informed her that I was not home and that we were on Minnesota's do-not-call list before hanging up.
Where it gets really frightening is that the telemarketer called my girlfriend back and started an ill-advised bout of verbal beration directed at my girlfriend for hanging up on her. My girlfriend is not someone you trifle with, and she promptly said, "Why don't you get up off your Twinkie-inhaling fat ass and go find a real job, you dumb cunt?" And then hung up again.
(Note: I love my girlfriend. She kicks ass and it's fun to watch/overhear.)
So anyway, said telemarketer called back about thirty minutes later and my girlfriend didn't answer the phone. Said telemarketer didn't do a very good job of trying to disguise her voice, but left a message on the machine that said, "Hi Dan, this is Carla. Last night was great. Call me."
Well, "Carla", I have some bad news for you -- one, we could hear all your retarded co-workers giggling in the background before you hung up to the phone; two, you still sound like the dumb cunt that called my girlfriend thirty minutes prior.
With a large bug up my ass, I went home from work, and immediately called Qwest. Explained the situation to them, they were pretty shocked that a telemarketer would do something like that, but didn't dispute the story. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell me who the call had come from, and most telemarketers, including this one, block their called ID data. So my campaign to get the uppity bitch fired was right out the window. The good news is, for about an extra $2 a month on the phone bill, I was able to get a call-screening feature that won't let people without caller ID data dial straight through. They must enter their phone number...and if they try to put in a bogus #, it ends the call. It works like a champ. We've gotten *1* telemarketing call since, and only because I was dumb enough to answer without looking at the display, when I was expecting a buddy of mine to call.
FWIW, you don't need a DNC list. You can pay $2, or just get one of those portable air horns and blast it into the mouthpiece whenever someone starts wasting your time...telemarketer or not.
blog |
This is, as everyone says, about profit. So for what reason would any potential seller view this list as anything but what it is: a list of people unlikely to deliver any profit, and thus should be avoided as they wish?
--- Ban humanity.
Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. I'm having serious trouble seeing how this protects telemarketers. The way I see it, the First Amendment doesn't even APPLY to non-government persons, because unlike the government, the civilians this Amendment protects *DO* have the right to deny you the right to entry to their homes, or charge you under applicable harassment laws. That's sad that people will lose their jobs and all, but THE PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS! *WE* are in charge of this country, not the DMA. Of the people, by the people, for the people... Why should it be our responsibility to remove ourselves from call lists that we never signed up for to begin with? We don't want to be bothered, and we never wanted to be bothered. If telemarketers had stuck to simply calling people who had expressed interest in their products explicitly, this would never have been out of control in the first place. But no, you just had to put every phone number you could find on your lists. Call a hundred people and make one sale, and the ninety-nine that were annoyed with you will get over it. I am so sick and tired of you people bitching about unemployment and freedom of speech. YOU ARE NOT A MAJORITY! 50 million Americans signed up for the Do-Not-Call list. There is not a chance in hell that there are 50 million telemarketers to oppose that. Majority rules, and the majority wants the list. Period. End of story. [Gets off soap box] Man, that felt good. ~Knautilus 316
If it's a guy I pull a Jim Florentine and start talking about how lonely and depressed I am, or I act retarded (just like in real life!) and confused just to waste their time. They bail olut, but I never had anyone call back angry because I'm a decent voice actor. I think they feel bad sometimes.
Fun, but I still signed up for the DNC list.
--- Ban humanity.
Explain that you've received a call which violates your state's (or the federal) telemarketing regulations and you would like the number of the originating party. As long as you can provide a date and reasonable timeframe, you'll have no problem, and the process will probably take less than a minute once you give the information.
As a bonus - and especially if the originating party is also a customer of theirs - they may take action against whomever placed the call. Typically the first 1 or 2 verified complaints against someone will result in written warnings included with the subsequent bill. Often times, they'll also initiate a block which prevents the originating number from ever calling you again. Any more complaints and they're liable to cut the offender's service.
Telco security folks don't like being fucked with, don't like people fucking with their network, and don't like people fucking with their company's customers. They're pretty much like information security types, they'd rather sit around reading Slashdot all day, and anyone who creates work for them - like a moron generating a bunch of complaints - goes on their shit-list
I got a call from a debt consolidation outfit on Friday. I screen all my calls, and they were kind enough to leave their name and number. Saturday morning the DNC site did not have a complaint page. The site became unavailable in the afternoon (you could see I was really looking forward to this) and it came up in late afternoon. They ask for your phone number, and the name and phone number of the marketer (either one is good, both is better), as well as the date and time of the call. They also give you the option of leaving your name and address and tying that to the complaint.
Dreamers, shapers, singers, makers... Elric, the Techno-Mage
I've had my Vonage (www.vonage.com) VoIP number for over a year... never received a single sales call on it. I don't even plug a regular phone in anymore, just use the VoIP for everything.
Your right to talk ends where my ears begin. .....
"Where am I going, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
When I was growing up, I lived an a very friendly neighborhood in the Midwest. Everyone used to sit out on their front porches in the evenings both for the social contact and because air-conditioning was pretty rare at the time. (in our neighborhood at least)
The neighborhood kids and I had tons of fun each summer listening for a call "coming down the block". You could actually hear a sales call working its way from house to house, and amazingly they usually went by street address (accending).
So, when we heard a call we'd all take off "racing the call". The idea was to get to a each house right before the call got there. If you were successful (and the house was someone willing to play along) you picked up the phone and instead of saying "hello" or something, you'd say something along the lines of "we don't want any!" *click*. And then off to the next house we'd race.
It was great fun to listen to the telemarketer getting more and more confused as to what was going on. I have no idea if it cut down the calls, but it was great fun.
I want a VoIP feature that records every call to my archive, related to CallerID and my address directory. Repeat telemarketers can be identified as harassers, and meta/data can be forwarded to the cops, even if I only decide to do so later.
In states which would require it, every caller would be greeted with "this call may be recorded for quality purposes".
--
make install -not war
Where does it say in the Constitution, or anywhere for that fact, that just because you have the right to speak, that other people have to listen? Consider that maybe these people (myself included) simply do not wish to hear the speech of a telemarketer. You are certainly free to speak. Talk your heart out, if you so desire. However those who do not wish to hear you, are not required to listen. The DNC is simply a list of such people.
You all are a bunch of ignorant tech dildo-heads. Commerce is key to maintaining our standard of living. Marketing is key to commerce. Shutting down tele-marketing means less commerce and less tax dollars and 2 million out of work. Idiots.
The yahoo provided no factual information, only excuses.
I too was looking forward to the day the complaint process was online. Saturday was the day. I came home and checked my machine.
Two calls, both telemarketing. I eagerly got my pen and paper out and awaited the contact information. There was none. Instead, the messages, after chewing up three or four minutes of digital memory, ended with "If you would like more information, press 1. If you would like to remove yourself from future calls, press 8."
Those f'ing creeps. Knowing that if they had left any kind of information I would have reported them, they are hiding it. Seriously, what can I do? The first call was about interest rates. The second call was about legal protections. I'm almost positive that the first call was a credit card or loan. And I'm virtually certain that the second one was those damn PrePaid Legal spammers. But how can I prove it? Both calls showed up "Out of Area" on my caller ID.
F the entire telemarketting industry. No pity. After we kill all the spammers, let's keep the fires nice and hot for their landline brethren.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Just a quick note from a former credit union examiner: you're incorrect.
First, second, third, etc. refer to the priority of the liens on the property. So it isn't possible to have a second mortgage without a first mortgage. Nor is is possible to have multiple second mortgages.
Home equity loans are usually second mortgages, and it is, of course, possible to take out a home equity loan on a property that is not otherwise mortgaged. In this case the home equity loan would be the first mortgage, which should be reflected in a lower interest rate.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
...because every time this question comes up, an answer is posted.
In short:
Telemarketers get the bulk of their sales from people they can pressure into a sale: elderly, mentally infirm, emotionally insecure, whatever reason, some people can't say "no" over the phone. If those people are on the Do Not Call list, then telemarketers will not get those high-pressure sales, and they will lose money.
Jay (=
Run for dogcatcher. Then go and ask for the list for your political campaign. Set up your computer to automatically call everyone on the list at least 12 times with the same message -- then get to the real work of updating your telemarketing list.
Worst comes to worst, all those people will hate you enough to make you dogcatcher, in which case you don't need the telemarketing job any more.
If the Do Not Call list works, how do we get a Do Not Spam list? It would work even better, as live queries it can be integrated into email software, like SMTP servers.
--
make install -not war
Those telemarketers who call you are taking your time and annoying you.
None of us has the time to go through the legal process and then waiting to collect.
Nothing satisfies as much as causing physical harm to your opressor.
Get one of those compressed gas air horns people use at baseball games and the next time you get a call, talk to them and then blast the horn in the mouthpiece and see if you can make them deaf in one ear.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
If you lived in the desert, and it haddn't rained for months, and you planned a big rain-dancing celebration, but it got cancled because of a rain. That would be ironic. There's no reason not to expect rain on your wedding day.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Problem is, I can't get it to load in my Mozilla, only in IE.
Someone want to look into this?
Get off my launchpad!
Actually, I had a rather interesting experience with the caller ID and telemarketing.
.PDF document off their web site, print it out, fill it out and sign it, and mail it in.)
I live in Missouri, so I was already on our state-wide "no call list". A firm called, trying to sell me something. (I can't even recall what it was anymore, but one of the typical things like life insurance....) Anyway, they called with an automated recording (which I believe is illegal to begin with?), and I noticed my caller ID actually did pick up a phone number and company name. At that point, I heard enough of the recording droning on with their sales pitch, so I hung up on it and filled out a complaint form, mailed to the attorney general's department for handling the no-call list complaints. (In Missouri, you have to download a
I then discovered that the caller ID number displayed was a disconnected number. (I tried to call it back, when I realized the complaint form asked for a lot of additional information I didn't have, such as the company's mailing address.)
Doing a little more research, I found out the company name displayed was the name of a (now defunct) firm that built the auto-dialing machines that play pre-recorded telemarketing messages! The phone number was apparently their company's number too - although I'm just guessing at this, because the area code shown was for the same part of Texas where the firm used to be located.
So all I can guess is that these telemarketers were dialing out via ISDN circuits, and had the ability to tell the phone switch to modify the normal caller ID display info -- and their dialer machine had default info programmed in it showing the manufacturer name/number!
(A guy I knew who worked for Southwestern Bell once told me this was technically quite possible to do if you were on an ISDN line, because you're effectivedly jacked right into the central office computer.)
Now I gotta stay angry at this guy for 3 months so I'll remember to check my complaint?
For me it's more than just to avoid telemarketers. That's just a bonus. You could do it cheaper with a single line and an additional phone number. The first number rings once and the second rings twice.
It would be nice if there was a answering system that could differentiate between the one and two rings. Or you could sign up for voicemail. There are more than a few options.
I have a feeling that the DNC list isn't going to be 100% effective any more than than say SPAM filtering.
Of the few telemarketing calls that I have answered over the years I remeber one where I mentioned my number was on a DNC list and the response was "Yeah, like I care".
Used to be a problem in UK with street 'surveys' that ask opinion questions initially that eventually evolve into a sales pitch. It is called 'sugging', and is now unlawful in UK.
It's quite a clever technique firstly because people are often happy to provide survey data, and secondly when they discover it's a pitch don't want to be rude on the street.
See, this is the best thing about living in Europe, besides the more relaxed way of living, that you don't have to be 21 to buy alcohol legally, that we don't have the NRA, that we have public transportation etc.
No, really. In my whole life (okay, I'm 17, but I can buy alcohol legally...), I've gotten a single nigerian scam letter in the mail. That's all. No telemarketing calls. Nothing. Don't ask me why.
Besides that, I get about 1 spam mail every 2 weeks. I've had this email address for a little more than a year (in fact since we bought the domain), and we don't have a spam filter.
Last year I lived in Minnesota, and holy crap, I really feel sorry for you guys. For those of you who don't have the slightest clue of what this is all about (and I didn't when I came), it's like TV commercials, except you don't have to turn on the TV, they know your name, and just can't just switch to another channel. They're so fucking annoying.
If I lived permanently in the states, I think I'd go without a (hard-wired) phone.
I can't believe that nothing more happens on that area. It seems like all your politicians simply don't give a fuck about their voters. I mean, come on, they should at least try to enforce the laws that are made.
It seems to me that the DNC registry is made just to make money. See, someone is making money on it. The guys working there. So far, I haven't seen any real results.
Okay, that's enough of this. I think I'll start laughing now.
Hahaha.
It's great to be European...
A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
I now get calls at work!
Is it simply they're getting more desparate? or is it because the number pool has been reduced some?
And I want to let you know a couple of things.
First, the DNC list has had zero effect on our business. And yes, we are fully compliant with current laws and regulations.
Caller ID info is going to be required soon, if not already.
When there is no rep to take a call from the dialer (an abandoned call), companies are required to play a message stating who is calling, why, and what phone number you can reach the company at.
The abandonment rate must be no more than 3%. Logs and/or reports must be kept to show this.
It can take up to three months after you've put yourself on the DNC list for it to take affect. Be patient.
FWIW, the company I work for has no interest in harrassing people on the DNC list. It's actually a good thing since we don't waste our time on people that will decline the sale anyways.
*twitch*
I can ship you a copy of the DNC for next to nothing -- just give me your phone number and I'll call and arrange the details.
I registerd at donotcall.gov as soon as it opened, had my home phone added. Checked again a few weeks later and it wasn't on the list. I figured the database server must have dropped a few transactions because of the sheer volume of those first few days. I added myself to the list again, with email confirmation and all. Just checked again a few days ago and AGAIN I'M REMOVED FROM THE LIST! So I added my number for the third time and it seems to have stuck.
I think a LOT of people have ben dropped. I've heard some big differences in the numbers. On the first week of this list I heard 80M people signed up, last week I heard 50M people were in the DB. Sounds like someone's dropping data from this thing.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Yes ISDN and PRI's it's possible to send false called ID data. The telephone systems still has a lot of trust built into it even after the 80's phone phreaking. The reason ofr this is on a PRI you often have more DID's (thats phone numbers in laymens terms) assigned to you then virtual lines. This is what lets offices have a unique inbound number for every office phone. On the incomming the call is tagged with a destination DID so the PBX can route it to the correct extension(s). Outgoing it's supposed to tag the line with once of it's own DID's but thtere are generaly no measures in place to enforce that. Blocking caller ID is as simple as not sending a DID. The phone company's can override the DID they did it for the company I was at duing an area code change automaticaly changing the area code.
No sir I dont like it.
People sign up for a list because they are NOT interested in participating in telephone commerece.
Telemarketers now have a list of millions of customers who don't want to buy from them, leaving them with customers who are more likely to buy their products or services.
When I put a sign on my door that says "No Soliciting", do I become one of those "ignorant tech dildo-heads" ?
I'm so glad there's no US-style telemarketing going on around here, across the Atlantic and a little bit to the North-East. The stories I've been reading about here are like from some horror novel.
But frankly, I don't understand why your government is letting these assholes jump on you? And why aren't the telcos stopping that disturbing crap, proactively? Free speech means to be able to voice ones opinions. It definitely has nothing to do about constantly disturbing somebody via the telephone in order to sell something.
If these kind of things were happening elsewhere in the world, you would see massive demonstrations and various forms of civil disobedience until things would get into check...
I do get telemarketing calls too, something like once a year. I politely listen to what they have to say (often they sell some magazine) and then, when I've wasted their time, I say "no thanks". That's the best thing you can do - since they try to do as many calls as possible, each call should take the minimum time possible. If you can prolong this time with chit-chat and various questions and whatever, then you maximize the time spent on the phone and that way cause them loss of profits.
So, in essence, acting as a tar-pit gets them the kick into the groin!
Here in the UK, since I was old enough to remember, we hardly ever (maybe once a year) get a "telemarketer" phoning up. We did get a lot of people phonging up for the "Plumb Center" once, about 3 or 4 a week, dialing 818 641 instead of 818 614. In the last 6 years I've never recieved a single telemarketer on my mobile phone.
Perhaps the fact that until recently (and always for buisnesses), the call initiator payed for the call - and that can be 30p/minute for landline - mobile numbers - had something to do with it
I got one call the other night, "bad" timing as usual for this breed of creature. As the person on the other end started to rattle on, I stopped them and said" K-Ching! Thank you for contributing $11,000 to the US Gov't for violation of the Do-Not-Call List". He just hung up! Gee, could have some fun with this!!!!
The site donotcall.gov is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
- Ask for the number of the manager, then
for the manager's manager etc.
- Call the highest person you can get hold of
repeatedly and longishly and urge them to
inform each other that you don't want to be
called.
- For each new telemarketer that calls, make
a full round of calls to all the old ones,
giving each of them the numbers of all the
others and urging them to call each other
exchanging the information.
After doing this several times, I somehow didn't get called any more.If they don't want to give you the number, tell them you will call their customer and complain.
Fortunately, I'm back in Europe now and we don't have that pest over here.
I'm already getting the loophole telephone calls. There is a loophole in the rules that ALLOWS these slime to call for surveys.
I had a telemarketer who called on behalf of an "organisation dedicated to aid of handicapped Americans". When I asked him for his company's information, he repeated the line about the organisation he was representing. When I iterated that I didn't want the organisation he represented, but the company he was working for, he called me a "punk" and started insulting my manhood. When I politely asked to speak to his manager, he put me on permanent hold. *69 revealed nothing (outside of calling area) I suspect this wasn't an actual telemarketing call, but still, where is the Federal help to prevent abusive telemarketers? I've come across some other isolated abusive telemarketers who've done the same or worse.
My personal anecdote is only told to pose the question: how can one punish a telemarketer if one cannot obtain there contact information. It seems to me with the new Federal DNC list that these types of calls will continue.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
I've found the best way to rid myself of telemarketers is to start reading from the Bible to them. They'll either hang up or get saved!
___
Randal Graves: The jizz-mopper's job is to clean off the glass after each guy shoots a load. I don't know if you noticed, but cum leaves streaks if you don't clean it right away.
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
This seems to be a pretty common idea. I'm surprised anyone thinks it would work. Telephones do not have infinite dynamic range. At best they have 48 dB dynamic range. The telemarketer is probably wearing a headset that meets Bellcore specifications for an operator headset. Those specs include not being able to produce too loud a sound, no matter what the input. Your airhorn will not make a louder sound at the far end than pressing a touch tone key.
No.
However, if the convict was in for, say, having killed a bus driver because the bus was two minutes late, it could be considered such.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
I never really had a problem with annoying telemarker calls, but I've only gotten two in the past five years on my cell phone.
I no longer have a land line because Qwest, my LEC or whatever, is horribly mismanaged and they like to steal my money too. Fortunately cell phone plans have gotten good enough that it only costs me a few bucks more each moneth for my cell phone than my land line.
And I'd have a cell phone anyway, since it's the only phone number that doesn't have to change every time I move. Even if it's just across town, I can never take my old phone number with me. Yet I paid a federal tax each month for "phone number portability." Not that the tax situation is much better on my cell phone bill...
I have a cable modem for internet access, so I don't need the land line for DSL. And hopefully, soon, I'll have (real) cell phone number portability and at least have the option of switching providers.
I believe that telemarketers are just another symptom of the profiteering disease that afflicts the telecommunications industry. Personally I kind of like the idea of a single, nationwide, regulated telephone company. The only reason we don't have this anymore is so some investors and executives can get rich. The value of services offered have not improved.
We have gone from a single regulated monopoly to four less-regulated regional monoplies. That's not really progress.
And the telcos take in SOOO MUCH MONEY (I think Qwest gets $3 billion a quarter or something). When you're dealing with numbers that large, AND you're expected to turn a profit too, some crazy decisions get made, books get cooked to please Wall Street, and so forth. Better to just remove the profit motive and have the industry provide the simple service they're expected to.
I think I almost went to work for that company. They went out of business, huh. Now at least I am not so bummed at not getting the job.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Haha, somebody got owned!
That must be their new tactic - just hang up if you ask questions. I got a phone call soliciting for satellite TV, when I asked for the companies name and telephone number they hung up. I got rid of my caller ID, but maybe I'll get it again to catch these bastards.
I've been thinking about something strange. Maybe it's been addressed before, and maybe not. So everyone's all gung-ho about this do-not-call list, and the hefty $11,000 fines, but... Yeah, the but part. Government run, government enforced, want to take a gander at who gets the $$ from any potential lawsuit? Yep, you guessed it, the Government, or at least so I think.
So Slashdot readers, is there any information on if WE can collect on this, or just the government can?
I tell you, if you put a small PBX/voicemail system in your home, not only is it cool, but loads of fun. First off, if its only a PBX, its not going to slow down the telmarketers, but the hold music is great. If it has a voicemail/autoattendant on it, then simply record a message "To speak with (your name here) press One" In my cases, all telemarketers hang up, I have yet to have one actually press one, and be passed into my internal phone to ring me. The best thing, is putting them on hold with music-on-hold setup with your phone system. There is no greater feeling then when a telemarketer calls, and asks for me, I say, 'yeah, hang on just a second' press the dandy hold button which loops 45 seconds of horrid elevator muzak. It is almost always guaranteed they will hang up within the first minute, although i must admit, I had one caller stay on hold for a whopping 57 minutes. Talk about a waste of time.
You're right. It is ridiculous. We want the telemarketers to honor the list, but the government fixes it so that it's a pain in the ass to obtain and it's horribly expensive for them to obtain. This sort of thing should be available freely so there's no excuse for those companies to not honor the list. As it exists now, it's cheaper to not honor the list and deal with individual complaints as they come than it is to attempt to honor it. A big FU to the FCC for screwing this one up.
Is there something magical about a cellular phone? I used to get a telemarketing call about once or twice each day on my regular phone. Now that I have only a cellular phone; I have not gotten one telemarketing call since the first of May. It's now October. Is there some policy or law that prevents these people
from calling my cell phone? I know someone else who has a cell phone and the same thing happened with him.
Thank you
Cleara
I think a lot of people have a misperception about what is being blocked by the new law.
- Market research, i.e. surveys about what kind of detergent you use, and which health care provider are you a member of...are not covered.
- Pledge hunting by non profits, or charities, like Jerry's Kids and the Cancer Society are also not covered.
- Political campaign polls (already covered in the MR exemption) and political contribution (i guess already covered by the non profits thing) or any other political call are also exempt.
- Calls from a vendor with a pre-existing relationship are also not covered. So... your phone carrier, your credit card company, your car dealership, travel agent, insurance agencie, etc. can still all call you.
- Business calls are exempt right from teh steart, so forget about having to dodge the calls from CDW and ever telco vendor aroung. You'll still have to tell then you're just too damn busy to talk to them.
There are some specific regulations about abandone rates, number of seconds after the customer picks up that a call center agent has to be on the phone with you (2), and playing a recorded message if the call center agent isn't available in those 2 seconds. These apply if the company is calling with a predictive dialer.
The mandate to display your ANI for caller ID got delayed until the end of January...Sooooo, if you don't really want to follow the new system, there are a lot of little ways to get out of the regulations (never fill out any of those raffles at the mall - pre-existing relationship, here we come).
The "legitimate" telemarking industry has gone downhill in the last year or two, with a lot of medium size players moving things offshoar. Sadly, the cultural differences are too great most of the time, and it jsut turns out to be rather rediculous to use.
As an aside to that...we had to order a new motherboard for one of our Dell workstations last week, as the keyboard port went bad. We called tech support (guess what - they're now in India!!) only to have the tech on the other end tell us to plug in our keyboard into the mouse port to make sure it wasn't the keyboard (even though we already told them we had switched out the keyboard). It took 5 minutes of insiting for a manager before we were redirected. That was the first bad experience i've ever had with Dell. Three of my other vendors also have their customer support staff in India.
It sucks.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Well, as I remember date arithmetic 1st October 2003 plus three months equals 1st January 2004. October 12 2003 therefore seems a little premature for success stories, and that's assuming the story comes from someone who actually registered on Oct 1. How about coming back in January?
https://www.donotcall.gov/Complain/ComplainCheck.a spx
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Interestingly, after I put both of my telephone numbers on the 'Do Not Call' list, I started getting telemarketers calling my secondary line, that up until that time had only received the random modem whalesong. Additionally, the calls increased on the mainline (have always had cold calls on that line anyway).
I never use the secondary line for anything - nor do I reference it when applying for credit or whatnot.
Could it be the Federal Government duped us all into giving up our numbers to the telemarketing cosortium?
While I am not ready to put on my tinfoil hat just yet, I can't help but wonder...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
In my experience this past week, there has been absolutely no reduction in telemarketing call volume, and when I mention the DNC list, the callers hang up without telling me what company they represent. Since most of these firms have arranged things with their telephone service providers so that their names and numbers do not show up on my Caller ID, there is no way for me to know who is breaking the law in each case.
As long as telemarketers have such privileged arrangements with the phone companies, this DNC thing won't make much difference. Perhaps this loophole needs to be addressed by further legislation?
Here's the correct link for do not call list complaints..
Yes. Telemarketing a cell phone is a vioation of the FCC's telemarketing rules, which assign $500 in statutory damages to the person being called. (IANAL.)
From 47CFR64.1200:
(a) No person may:
(1) Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for
emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called
party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or
prerecorded voice,
(iii) To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular
telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio
common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is
charged for the call;
1: Create DNC list, with steep penalties for violating it.
2: Make it extremely hard to obtain the list, and prohibit reselling.
3: Problem solved.
No doubt a lot of phones have been silent because of this, even those not on the list. God bless America. Now if we could only figure out how to do the same with spam.
A useful tool that I just discovered recently and woefully few people seem to know about, and one that would have been helpful to the poster, is *57. On most if not all phone systems in the U.S., dialing *57 immediately after you terminate a call with someone will initiate a call trace. The phone company will keep the information for a fixed period of time so that it can be used if you file a complaint against someone. (They won't just give it out without a complaint being filed, though.) Typically, the charge for the service is small (like $1.)
This has been done before. Aren't you old enough to remember Ma Bell? C'mon now, ask your parents if you're a kid. The AT&T company (motto: "We don't care. We're the phone company. We don't have to care.") forced you to lease your "terminal" (phone), didn't allow you to connect a modem on your phone line (remember the accoustic couplers?), took forever to start providing what's regarded today as basic amenities...
And it's not an exclusivity of AT&T either. As a European, I can tell you volumes about the wonders of the State-owned telephone monopolies in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. Up to the late 80s, you enjoyed:
So instead of wishing for things, ask around and check if these things have been tried in other times or places. You might get surprising answers, as well as a richly desserved cluebat whack.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Anyone here wonder about all these politicians that voted for the list using the list... They aren't prohibited from calling the numbers on it.
----I'll remember my username/pw eventually
Sadly it does not like Mozilla
:(
k .a spx
IE Works, now where do we complain if we dont use MS software
https://www.donotcall.gov/Complain/ComplainChec
But who do I turn in? All the telemarketer calls I get these days are from recordings, so there is no opportunity to question a real human at the other end. I also get a lot of calls that are just silence - presumably, these are telemarketers pinging me to see if there is a real live line, since they are usually followed within a day or two by a flury of telemarketer activity. And yes, I've signed up for both the state and national do not call lists.
AC is for people who don't see the point of having a username.
JFYI,
One thing to keep in mind about illicit telemarketing is that, despite all the hoopla about the Do-Not-Call list, the TCPA is still alive and well. The TCPA provides a lot of ground rules by which telemarketers must abide, irrespective of whether or not the person they're calling is on the Do-Not-Call list. They can only call between 8:00 A.M. and 9:00 P.M. local time, they must identify themselves, they have to have a do-not-call list policy in place and must send you a copy upon request, etc.
Unlike the Do-Not-Call list, you're not just reporting a company to a federal agency for them to delegate to a state Attorney General's office when they get around to it, who will in turn maybe file a complaint against the company, when they get around to it. The TCPA provides $500 statutory damages against the person called, which can be tripled by a judge if the caller was knowingly violating it. In most cases, that's a small enough value to go after the company in small claims court, which is a relatively painless process.
For more information, check out the text of the law at 47USC227 and 47CFR12.6400. ObDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.Dave writes:
But it appears that the telemarketers plan to continue their efforts to save the planet by fighting for the right to call people who do not want to be called.
I realize that this makes many of you angry. I realize that many of you would like to, once again, let the telemarketers know who you feel. 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.
But would it be right to reveal this? I mean, yes, you could call the ATA again. But the ATA surely doesn't want you to call again. It's inconvenient.
And to insist on calling somebody who doesn't want to be called, even if you have the legal right to call - well, that's just plain rude.
So I am taking the high road.
Dave Barry is a fucking genius.
anyone else think this might just be a ploy by the government to maybe get some type of information on their citizens. I mean, soon all telemarketers will do is use phone 'proxys'. I'm probably wrong though.
Ironic: Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended.
So it's ironic because we would expect (and it's a fairly safe bet that Microsoft would intend) that .NET pages work better with IE than anything else, and make it easy to do so, while harder to do anything else (yes, I speak from experience). Thus the fact that it doesn't, in the original poster's experience, is contrary to what is expected. One might even say poignantly so.
Does that clear it up for you?
I know... I know... not a lot of sympathy, but still, I work for a business who would like to do nothing more than play by the rules, but all kinds of barriers have been put up in our way.
Can you be more specific? What is the FTC's DNC list annual subscription fee? What barriers besides downloading DNC list numbers and cleaning your damnable call lists of them are there?
Not a lot of sympathy... you got that right. I have put up with thousands of unwanted calls over the past twenty years from you telemarketers. What I want is for telemarketers and anyone who has supported or worked for them to slowly starve to death in cold wet rusty iron boxes. I guess I'll have to live with staggering costs and all kinds of barriers for you guys.
Off topic security note... from the FTC's site: "You are allowed only 3 attempts to log in. If you do not correctly enter your Organization ID and the Representative Password or Download Password after 3 attempts, your access will be disabled. Then you must reset your password before you can access the registry." Hmmm... so if you can guess *any* telemarketing scum's Organization ID, then you can temporarily disable their account any time you want.
Try this at home. It's enormous fun, and who knows, you might make some money.
As soon as I determine they're about to launch into a sales pitch: "Thank you for calling. I'm an independent marketing consultant. My business is evaluating telemarketing sales technique and content. I would be happy to evaluate your work, and tell you whether or not I think it is effective. My fee is $200 per message evaluated. If you would like to continue, I'll need your billing address, and the address to send my evaluation to."
The inevitable sputtering and stammering is priceless. Often I have to repeat it because they can't fathom what's happening. Sometimes I get forwarded to a supervisor, and waste their time too. I've never been called again by the same marketer.
If I ever do get billing and reporting addresses, they'll get their report (containing my honest professional opinion) and the bill. If that ever happens, either I get $200, or I get to turn them over to a collection agency, which will do a job on their credit rating.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
anyone know if the E911 system has been successfully penetrated by any subversive types? anyone know of an in? -------->elated
-------->elated
Then you need to thank the government for the "do-not call list"! It'll save you lots of time for calling those of us who will just tell you to fuck off and die anyway.
I live in Pennsylvania, and like a number of other states we've had a state-wide DNC list for over a year now. I put my number of the list shortly after it was announced, and unsolicited calls to my apartment since the list went in effect have almost all stopped - one or two a month at most, and even those are from bonafide non profits (Pittsburgh Symphony, etc). Pre-list, I would say we got 2 or 3 calls each morning. Although on the upside I didn't need to remember to set my alarm before...
It looks like our Attorney General has even tried his hand at enforcing the law by suing Liberty One Financial, Inc. The press release states that they are seeking damages of $1000 per violation, $3000 if the violation involves a complainant over 60 years of age, and a ban on the company's right to do business in PA.
Obviously, the laws we have aren't good enough. That implies that we need new legislation passed. And you know what the quickest way to get new legislation passed is? Piss off the legislators! An idea that's probably a bit on the illegal side, but most likely will work--sign up your legislators for all the junk mail/spam/telemarketers you can. When the legislators start getting piles of mail at their doorstep, tons of spam, and nonstop telemarketing calls, I'm sure it'll piss them off enough to actually do something about it in a heartbeat.
What you reap is what you sow
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Every technology that changes society changes the way things work and in a very real sense, changes consciousness.
Telemarketing supported by old mechanized telephone exchange technology and computers have made telemarketing ubiquitous and intrusive to the point that people have learned to find it offensive. This social change is a great one and, as the original poster points out, there is bound to be resistance.
Worse still than the resistance itself, the resistance to the national 'do not call list' is bound to vary in quality reflecting the qualities of the companies that make the calls.
A company that hands the recipient a load of crap about the caller's 'breaking up,' when he asked for information on who was calling is obviously a 'fly-by-night' company--fully equivalent to a low-class spammer--an organization that likes the rights but not the obligations of doing business decently.
The people the original poster talked about shouldn't be too disturbing in the long run, because it shouldn't take too much luck or effort to straighten things out with the bargain-basement companies with 'you're breaking up' cover stories. As anyone who's watched 'law and order' or paid an itemized bill for a cellphone has long known, someone somewhere knows where each phone call on earth comes from and where it goes goes to and when it was placed, and you can bet anatomy that some litigious soul is going to make use of this fact sooner rather than later.
Today's forecast is for transitions.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
To hell with all that. I just keep my phone unplugged unless I want to dial out, or am expecting a legitimate call. Haven't gotten spammed yet.
*meow!*
No! No, that's not irony either. Irony is when something is the opposite of expected. Not the same as something else. That's just a coincidence. And it would be funny.
Are you aware that for the rental price that Ma Bell charged you every quarter, you can now afford a digital wireless phone?
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Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Well, each time you write a law or a rule, you pit an inept, badly slapped-together wording against the best, most scheming minds of the regulated industry. Add the inevitable watering-down and amendments of the law due to political petty-minded coatroom deals, and what you get in the end is a text that is so full of holes that it makes Swiss cheese look watertight in contrast. Is it a surprise that said rule always ends up being distorted and misused? Naive people witness the failure of regulation and ask for more regulation to compensate. Which is doing as much good as the proverbial gazoline on the fire.
The only way to avoid this pitfall is to abstain from overly complex regulation. Put competitors in the arena, make sure they fight instead of colluding, and let the public decide. Of course, established businesses fear this above everything else.
I agree that competition has not been that strong in certain sectors, especially telcos. But again, don't blame lack of regulations. Blame excess. Read the telecom magazines and professional web sites. Complying with FTC rules costs a fortune (paid by consumers) and bars competitors from challenging incumbents.
The telcos don't have the exclusivity of this dirty trick. In the automobile market, manufacturers are happily pushing for new, stricter rules that increase the average price of cars for dubious benefits, while making sure no new manufacturer can join the fray. The latter doesn't really work anymore (witness Korea's KIA successful entry on the market) but the former (keeping prices up) sure works, thanks a lot. As for regulation that might have been effective and helpful (about increasing car mileage for instance), it's generally so full of holes that it's trivial to market your way around it (hence the SUV, which proliferation is a consequence of the well-meaning but ineptly written regulation about improving mileage in cars!).
Ask yourself a simple question; when something is called "deregulation", shouldn't the amount of regulations decrease? If you see that a process results in more and more redtape and rules in an activity sector, isn't it a misnomer to call this process "deregulation"?
You have to questions the wording of these wonderful things that lobbyists throw at us.
Remember that big business does not object to regulation. Big business actually loves it because it keeps competitors away. If you want to fight obnoxious, uncarring pigopolists, bring competition, not regulation.
And the absolute worst hypocrisy of big business is to lobby for more complex, new rules and call it "deregulation". Let's not fall for it.
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Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
I just tried to sign up and I got an error message saying that my phone number was not correct. For some strange reason I am not surprised I could not sign up for the registry. Now I will patiently wait for telemarketers to get my phone number off of that site and call me. This thing is worthless
It is common for businesses to be required to pay at least part of the cost of regulation.
If you think seven thousand and change is expensive, try selling medication. Most small businesses are unlikely to need to pay at all: 5 area codes covers a substantial territory. Companies that need more that that - mail order houses, for example - are probably paying well over that every month in long distance charges.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
It is a well established rule of law that the First Amendment DOES NOT guarantee you an audience. You have the right to speak. You DO NOT have the right to commandeer my resources to do it.
This post made with the Dvorak layout.
"Friends don't let friends use QWERTY"
Ahh... Just like a telemarketer to post in such a way that no one can know who you are ;) I have an idea.. If the telemarketing companies don't like the do not call list, let's just make it fair. When you call, I want to know your first name, last name, address, home phone number, and also a little family and purchase history information.
You'll be hearing from me whenever I want to sell my car or have a yard sale.. Or when I just want to conduct a poll to see what you'd possibly be interested in when I do have a yard sale.
Oh, and I hope you don't mind, but I have 5-10 friends who would like me to sell them that personal information...