Slashdot Mirror
Telemarketers to Target Cell Phones
sik puppy writes "According to this article on msnbc, telemarketers may soon be targeting cell phones." The article discusses how some of these will be accidental, but others will be in response to things like the do-not-call registry.
...for the squandering of my incoming minutes?
anyways, it's a good thing I listed my cell phone number in the do not call registry too then....
In the UK we've been getting SMS spam messages for years already.
Of course, the cost of sending these messages means that you don't get many, and they won't come with a 150KB attachment for no good reason.
Call me on a cellphone so that *I* have to pay to be hassled by them? Fuck that. I'd have them in small claims court the next day.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Nokia? Motorola? Anyone listening?
(Pardon My referencing of the US code, i'm not a lawyer and thus don't know the proper way to cite things)
8 &mode=thread&tid=126&tid=111&tid=99&tid=12 3
Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Section 227, Article b, Item 1, Subitem B, Instance iii
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice 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;
Thus anyone using an auto-dialer (i.e. 99% of telemarketers) are inviolation of the law and subject to a $500 fine in small claims court.
See these for more info:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/227.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/05/11623
http://www.panix.com/~eck/telemarket.html
In related news: I won't be answering my cellphone when a number I don't know calls. Good luck wasting your time.
IANAL, but I thought it was illegal to cold-call a cell phone, because the owner often gets charged for incoming and outgoing calls.
What are the telemarketers going to do, send SMS messages?
press 2 if you like boobs
I already took the precaution of also registering my cell phone numbers, despite the laws already in place protecting them from these vultures.
I already scared the hell out of some local company that was making calls (low-scale, probably just a couple secretaries doing it). When I mentioned the fines, they apologized profusely and got off the phone as quickly as possible.
i thought telemarkets calling cell phones was already banned? or is this one of those "they can call you if you've done previous business with them in the last year?"
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Mixaloti equitis
Two Questions:
-why do companies use frustratingly annoying marketing techniques?
-why do people continue to fall for them?
There has been a drastic increase in reported incidents of physical assault by mobile phone. Victims, a group made up entirely of telemarketers, were quoted as saying:
"OW, OW, OW!"
for telemarketers to target cell phones, as then the recipient of the advertising would be forced to pay for it without being asked permission.
My retarded friend wrote his cell phone number down on everything so places wouldn't call his house... So now he gets harassed by places on his cell phone...
Well, this kind of thing will happen when you have a system where you have to pay for the airtime to receive calls. In the UK, we pay nothing to receive calls on mobile (excepting ongoing costs of the line rental of course), it costs more for a caller to call a mobile number than it does to call a land line, which is how it should be. If someone wants to call me on my mobile, I expect them to pay for it, especially if they're trying to sell something.
The system in the UK also relies on mobile numbers being easily identifiable, and they all start with 07... so you know when you're calling a normal line (starts with 01... or 02...) or a mobile, otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the caller.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Wow, with all the anti-cellphone propaganda concerning driving and such, its amazing that the telemarketers would stoop so low... no it's not... telemarketing itself is an evil institution, I wouldn't put it past them to harass us during meetings and in our cars.
Esoteric reference.
this will only bring lawsuits to telemarketers from cell phone companies after massive out cry of complaints from customers. Although a few evil compaies could be selling numbers.
If not from the cell phone companies, class action ones from customers.
-Seriv
How will this make a difference in light of the DNC list? It's just as easy to put your cell phone number on the list...
Ban telemartketing unless people explicitely opt-in.
This was not a good time to implement a nationwide do-not-call list. Although maybe I don't care about this so much because I don't have a cell phone and don't intend to get one (they may or may not give you brain cancer, but everybody I know that has one has no attention span anymore.)
So long as they keep away from faxes, and keep the pitches to a minimum, this probably isn't that big of a deal. Maybe they can even cut a deal to make instant messenging between phones free if you're willing to get the occasional ad?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I change a phone number once every 5 years, and haven't changed my cell phone # since I've had it and I get no Telemarketing. Now that I see the problem, I wonder if I ever will (now at least a hair more likely though my phone number started as a mobile phone number and will still remain one). So I may never get a Telemarketing call.
I do honestly have to contemplate the lesser of 2 vices, having to tell everyone my mobile phone number changed, or putting up with Telemarketing on my cell phones. Sometimes I honestly do wish the government would just leave some stuff alone...
aaaah the heck with it, just makes life on Slashdot more interesting.
...in bed
Doesn't this fall under the same category as spam faxes?
Since it costs you something that actually has a dollar value, i.e. your minutes, they can't call you without you volunteering for it.
Well, I get a bonus for incoming calls on my cell phone.
So where do I sign up for these calls?
All I know is those bastards better not call me on my cellphone, especially since I registered it on the DNC list.
Guy: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hello! I am running for Mayor in the City of Ritzville, so this is a political call exempt from the Do Not Call list. I am running for mayor on the platform of keeping our wonderful vacation timeshares as cheap as possible for the good bargain hunters. In fact, you can get this beutiful timeshare right on the beach for less than you might think. Would you like to hear more about these wonderful deals that happen to be in the city I'm running for mayor in? If so, press 1 to talk to a representative now!
What will happen, though, is that cell phones'll start being registered on the "Do Not Call" list, which'll push the total number of phones registered into the hundreds of millions.
Far from profiting by such a tactic, that might well be enough to convince the courts that telemarketers have gone too far. Especially if the tactic interferes with medical staff's paging systems and phone systems.
One death that can be attributed to telemarketers saturating the wireless networks would be enough to get every lawyer of the vampiric ilk to sink their fangs into the industry.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
RIAA, you'll have to work harder if you want to take back the "Incredibly Stupid Commercial Entity Trying to Alienate Their Theoretical Audience" prize!
I already have telemarketers calling my cell phone. Am I allowed to sue them for costing me money when they call me, Whether or not I put my cell phone on a do-not-call list?
These will only start because of the FCC's push for number portability, not the do-not-call list.
What I'd like to know is, what recourse is available to those people who actually switch their landlines to cell. Do the telemarketers *have* to remove your number if you tell them its a cell? Can you sue for reimbursement if they don't?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Why not have the "do not call" list apply to the person and not the number? That way, you can't call a name on the list (my name will be 'home owner').
stuff |
I get a call every single day on my cell phone around 9 or 10 am from a prerecorded message offering me a great business opportunity if I call another number. Of course, with it being prerecorded, you can't ask to be taken off a call list, and I'd bet if I actually called the other number, they'd claim they have no control over which numbers their "contact service" uses.
The MSNBC article quotes an attorney who says that it would be illegal to use an automatic machine to leave a message on a cell phone, but that live calls are acceptable. The attorney missed a key point of the law. Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Sec. 227 restricts the use of automated telephone equipment, including automated dialers. It is illegal to use an automated dialer (equipment that has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator and can dial those numbers) to call a wireless phone. Thus, if telemarketers are going to go after cell phones, they will have to dial the cell phone numbers individually, without the use of a automatic telephone dialing system.
If only. If only...
Unless I missed something, the TCPA is still valid law, and it explicitly prohibits telemarketing of cellular phones, or any service where you have to pay by the minute.
:)
(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;
Violation of this constitutes an automatic $500 in statutory damages, for which you can sue the caller. Plus, a judge can triple the damage award if you show that the caller knowingly violated the law.
Also, if the person in the article was getting prerecorded messages advertising something, that's probably not legit either:
(47CFR64.1200)
(2) Initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line
using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without
the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is
initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by Sec. 64.1200(c) of
this section.
With all the hoopla about the do-not-call list these days, people seem to have forgotten about how powerful the TCPA is. You can actually sue and extract money from the people who pester you, typically in a small claims court, which makes it easy. With the do-not-call list, you file a complaint with the federal gov't, which passes the complaint on to your state's attorney general's offices, which may act on the complaint when they get around to it, and the state keeps the fine. Tell me which one sounds better to you?
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Don't take this as legal advice.)
1) Put into their terms of service that the user agrees to use the phone company as an agent for their $500 Title 47 small claims court actions against telemarketers, giving the phone company a 50% cut of any awarded damages
2) Give users a special dial code to call immediately after receiving a telemarketing call, like you can use *57 for harassing calls
3) Deliver the telemarketing companies a weekly invoice for their calls to cell phones
4) No, this isn't the stupid joke you thought it was, move along.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
I get a cash bonus on my pre-paid cellphone card for incoming calls.
Where do I sign up to get telemarketers to call me? =)
I'm putting all you marketing fuckers on notice right now. You spam my cell phone, telemarket my cell phone and you will wake up with a god damn horses head in your bed....
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
[quote , emphasis by me]
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice 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; [/quote]
Telemarketers moving their call centers over the border (say, Canada) would not be held by this law. The person making the call is out of the country, so no problem. Of course it could be argued that the "person" of the company (corporations have in past been considered as 'individuals') is in the US, while only the call center is not, so the "person" (company) would still be liable.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Offtopic: my favorite new telemarketer trick, which has seemed to help reduce my call volume. Pick up, and as soon as they go into their pitch, put the phone down on the counter, but don't hang up. Don't pick it up again until they've given up on you. Sorta pointless, but hilarious. I haven't tried the reverse crank call yet, but next time I'm whipping out the Dr. Evil Sound Board.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Good!
This idea won't fly. The reason is simple: money. On landlines it costs nothing to receive a call, so consumers can complain but that's about it as far as the telephone carriers are concerned. Cel phones and SMS are a different story. When a telemarketer calls a cel phone or sends a text message, the phone's owner can point to a line on his bill and say "This unwanted call/message cost me $X.". Now the phone owner has proof of an actual dollar amount to go with his complaint, and he can demand reimbursement. If the phone carrier reimburses, it's going to turn telemarketing into a cost for the carriers and they're going to do something about it. If phone carriers refuse to reimburse, we'll see something like the junk-fax law passed ASAP. One way or another, when the telemarketers start generating provable costs to the recipients of their calls there's going to be a major backlash against the telemarketers.
Telemarketers, take note: if you won't compromise, if you insist that it's either no limits at all or nothing, you may find that the rest of us consider giving you nothing at all a perfectly acceptable outcome. :)
"Hello, may I speak with Tony?" "Who is this?" "This is Telemarketing company X calling to talk to you about a great, limited offer deal." "Excuse me, what is your name?" "Sandra" "Hi, Sandra, can I get your home phone number so I can after you get off work while you are eating dinner? We can talk then." While we are on spam, I noticed a buddy of mine gets a form of spam through his direcTV receiver. Now I have direcTV (Hughes DVR system) but I get no such spam. Anybody else get annoyed by that?
You never saw a fish on the wall with its mouth shut.
If telemarketers were to eat up cell time and start costing people money, I'm sure a class action suit could be brought against major telemarketing companies for damages. If Big Blue can be sued for vandalism for painting penguins on sidewalks, telemarketers can be sued for wasting our money selling us products we don't want.
It's been a long time.
Of course, the originator of the call pays for his end of the call, but in the case of a telemarketer that would be a very low "corporate bulk-rate" pricing for a normal land-line.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
It seems to me that somebody could make a heck of a lot of coin by setting up a business specifically for the purposes of suing telemarketers.
You'd charge, say $20/offence, and require a form granting access to the customer's phone records and listing as much information about the call as possible (though time & date should be enough)... then go ahead and sue (maybe on behalf of hundreds of other people complaining about the same firm as well). Keep 90% of the judgement and send the remaining 10% to your client(s).
It sounds to me like you need the Anti-Telemarketing Counterscript.
-r
Hello mister kook-troll. Although I am not a fan, I have been watching you for the past while. Today I see you are getting lazy, the stuff you copied & pasted in is not all crazIE.screwed up ?? like the junk you actuallIE.typed. Should not everything in your post be in crazy code -- even direct quotations from other people? By the way, why do you hate America?
...if I can sue a telemarketer if I crash my car in high trafic on my way to work because of his call, and all my friends who have my number were told not to call during that time ("because I have difficulties with splitting my attention")
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I'm suprise to see that marketing compagny did not use the text messsaging future to send pub on cell phone. I mean, in Canada, each cell compagny have a email adress to send texte message to cell phone, so it shoud not be hard to make a litle script to send a batch of email to all possible number. no ? The only thing you should no is the range of phone number you want to reach... like 555555555@txt.telus.com -- Sorry for the bad english. I'm french.
I could remeber explicitly back when I got my cellphone in 1998 that the verizon (well then bell atlantic) guy told me and my family that since you pay for the minutes, its against the law to have telemarketers call your cellphone, much like it is for the to fax you, and if you got the info, still penalties could be inposed on them. now I put my cell on the do not call list just incase, but still is that law in existance, or was it just for NJ or what was the case with that. Shit like this is why I think you should be able to read the incomming phonenumbers and why private lines should be gotten rid of, too often its these assholes who hang up before they tell your who they are when you catch them. I know of only one person who has a private line who actually needs it for a reason I wont go into.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
P.S. it could be good if on the street-phone I could type somehow my ID (nick?) that would be recognized by the Caller ID system.
Less is more !
Have any of you folks had any difficulties with
the Earthlink cable internet offer of 41.95 ?...
It's a direct mail marketing offer that
apparently Earthlink is attempting to go back on before fulfillment !
I'm sorry, but "service provider" does NOT mean providing information to telemarketers. If my cell provider starts encouraging people to waste my minutes, then I'm going to stop paying for them.
I believe there are some... and an increasing number that give you a certain number of (prepaid) incoming minutes that are included in the plan.
Don tinfoil hat: is it possible that the cellular companies instituted these plans precisely in order to be telemarketer-friendly?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Since our family has dropped our land line and moved to cell phones exclusively, we've been blessed with very few telemarketing calls.
However, as more and more cell phone plans allow for free nights and weekends, the justification that telemarketers can't call you because you're paying for that air time wanes, and we're likely to see changes in telemarketing laws that allow calls to cell phones during those periods.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Make telemarketing a death penalty offense, same for political organizations and charities! Allow anyone with a gun enforce the law. The fuckers would be dead within the hour!
Unfortunately, this law only covers systems in which no human gets on the line, where the system just plays a recorded message.
If a human is making the call, even if all they are doing is pushing a "Next Call" button, then this law doesn't count.
Predictive dialer systems are in a grey area.
www.eFax.com are spammers
They are proving they are nothing better than slimy criminals. Of course we knew that, but congresscritters are so sheltered from real life, it takes longer for them to get the message.
---
SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
LOL! GRABOULOUS!
Everytime a wireless caller calls my phone I get
"Wireless Caller" on the display.
Unless of course I plug that persons number into the phone system.
This story was in Businessweek three days ago...
I don't think they get the point that the national do-not-call registry allows cell phone numbers to be registered.
My cell number was registered on the list as soon as it was started. Telemarketers would have a nice $11k fine if they called me on it.
-bm
If you bothered to read the story you would see that telemarketers may accidentally call cell phones that used to be land line numbers because of the wireless number portability rules the FCC will enact on November 24th.
Also, although it is illegal for telemarketers to use auto dialers and recorded messages when calling your cell phone, it isn't illegal for a live telemarketer to call you.
I don't think most people realize that those recorded ads are already against federal law. According to the CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS: RESTRICTIONS ON TELEMARKETING AND TELEPHONE SOLICITATION:
It is illegal to "Initiate any telephone call to any residential line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party...."
Add to that that the call was made to a cell phone:
"No person or entity may...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,...To any telephone number assigned to a...cellular telephone service,...or any service for which the called party is charged for the call."
The penalty varies, but it is generally $500, unless the telemarketer is judged to be in willful violation (aren't they all?), in which case the penalty triples.
Xesdeeni
...at least here in Alberta, this happens already. When I got my cell phone I had a telemarketer call the next day. When I called up my phone company to discuss this, I was told there's nothing preventing them from doing so.
However, I've had my phone for nearly a year and have received perhaps 5 calls in total. Obviously people aren't too happy about being called on their cell phones and are probably not going to buy anything. Even the people who would normally buy from a telemarketer aren't going to be in a mood to listen to a sales pitch when they're paying for it!
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Cell phone users to snipe telemarketers!
./ had this at the bottom:
/. polo! ;-)
BTW
"Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask!"
So I want the ultra cool, moderately geeky
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
I'm glad I went ahead and put my cellphone number on the Do Not Call list when I signed up. Sometimes foresight really does pay off.
On a similar subject, folks might find today (Tuesday)'s Sluggy Freelance amusing...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This article is absolutely pointless.
First, they will not be 'targeting' cellphones.
Second, they will not be calling phone numbers that are in the Do-Not-Call registry. They CAN'T.
Third, E-911 does not provide address information to telemarketers, it is a system where CALLING OUT from a cellphone allows the 911 provider to get the location of the phone. The cellphone provider's location-tracking system is not part of E-911, but is a requirement for it. And if the provider is going to use advertising to recoup the cost of adding the tracking to the phone system, I'm not necessarily against it. But I certainly won't be getting or keeping an phone that will be getting advertising on it, and I imagine those who care will feel the same.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
You *pay* to *receive* calls? How fucked up is that? Do you have to pay to receive snail-mail as well? That's got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.
Well, gee, I guess it's a good thing I registered my cell number with the do-not-call registry.
blog |
Indeed, for many people this should also apply to SMS. While *some* people do get a flat rate or have this included, on my plan I pay $0.10c per SMS or DSM, with certain exceptions.
Oh, and they might want to clue in that while the likelyhood that I will buy something while called at home is low, the likelyhood that I will buy something what called on my cell minutes in in the negetive range (whilst the likelyhood that some pleb calling my cell is very high), and the likelyhood that I will go postal on somebody SMS-spamming me is even greater.
One thing I've often wondered, what are the conditions on calling businesses. Whilst I think we've gotten charity calls at some places I've worked, the usual telemarketing BS doesn't apply - I assume there's some laws against it (Canada in my case, but should also apply in US). If they call my cellphone and I'm at work, would this fall in there somewhere?
Nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way they'll learn!
I have been getting calls since the DNC registry went into effect, whereas I did not before. Basically I am sure they did not have my number before and now I was dumb enough to sign up and give it to them. Although a healthy dose of heavy swearing seems to drive away any thought of calling me twice.
----- "It's all fun and games 'til somebody puts an eye out, then it's just funny."
...and I don't even own a cellphone!
It is so depressing that more and more areas of our lives are being invaded by advertising. Given the obvious level of annoyance with telemarketing (e.g., the enormous success of the do-not-call list), you'd think some innovate telecommunications service provider would be able to come up with a way to make a killing offering guaranteed protection from telemarketers. I mean, 50 million people is a pretty nice market...
Perhaps some sort of call screening mechanism that is both fast and simple to use, but that gives to the recipient of the call the option to charge the call back to the caller, like some of the anti-spam proposals. If the caller doesn't agree, their call is dropped.
I dont plan on having any telemarketers calling my cell.
You don't excercise your so-called freedom of speech by calling my cel, I don't excercise my right to defend my freedom of privacy by firebombing your house.
(yes, it's sarcasm)
the answer to both of your questions is that people are stupid, plain and simple.
Yes, and we know companies never use marketing tools that they fear we won't like. That's why webvertisers never use spam, pop-unders, stupid animated banners that cover the page....
How many millions did X-10 make from pop-unders? As they chuckled all the way to the bank, I somehow doubt they were shedding tears about my "annoyance and antagonism."
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
Yes, you're right. I work for a company that contact clients via telphone, and legally we aren't allowed to call a cell phone, pager, or any type of phone that may incurr cost to the customer. It's illegal, and it's been illegal for years.
I got a cold call on my cell phone the other day from Sprint, my own service provider. They informed me that I would not be billed for the call, and asked if I would be interested in participating in a special offer of some sort. I declined and hung up.
Based on my reading of the relevant US code, providing the airtime for the call at no charge to me does not mean it's okay for them to telemarket to me. However, the code only seems to apply if they contacted my phone using the phone number -- if they established a connection using the phone's internal ID, that's not covered. Also, there's probably a clause in my contract that says by using the service, I agree to let them bother me all they want.
MEH on Sprint. I hope the other carriers are better come late November.
I'd read they did something like this in italy, where the cellphone/minutes are free, but whenever you dial someone, you first listen to a ~30 second ad before it connects you.
This works much better, since if ppl called me, then our conversation was interrupted by an ad, I'd just hang up and stop talking to that person via phone.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Track the unsolicited calls that were made to you and bill the agency that is responsible for your now unusable minutes. Better yet, if the wireless providers were to reimburse you for your lost minutes and then bill the responsible agencies to recover, we could possibly see the end of telemarketers.
This would work only if the phone companies didn't already pay the telemarketers for their services in marketing. Then we probably wouldn't see the providers charging the telemarketers.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
And what happens if they clog up your messagebox, causing LEGITIMATE CALLSERS to be unable to contact you?!!! Each telemarketer thinks "oh, we only called him once", but with 30, 100, 1000 unanswered calls built up in your VM, the aggregate can kill you. (Or at least prevent you from finding out that your mother was in a car accident and is in the hospital.)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
last I heard, it was still okay to hire an attorney to pursue these worthless fools and sue them not only for your personal time wasted, your cellular minutes, but also your attorney fees.
they catch on quickly.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
>
>What does it take to make our world come alive? What does it take to make us sing? (SoM
Best juxtaposition of .sig and post ever.
One million points of light, each one a telemarketer from Glib Telemarketing being burnt at the stake. That's my Vision Thing, and the next time there's a recall election, I'm running for Governor on it!
I suggest we target telemarketers with this: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/gbu-28.ht m
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
The only problems I've had with it are that they only have to keep you on the list for a year, and they aren't very bright about multiple phone lines per household (even with sequential phone numbers - but it took MCI a long time before they successfully called my second line at a time that I was home and didn't have a modem attached to it. :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They've been telemarketing my cellphone for years. Good thing it has caller ID - if I don't recognize the number they get to speak to my voicemail box.
bkr
Suppose you do get a call on your cell phone from a telemarketer. How do you prove that the telemarketer didn't dial your cell phone with the assistance of an automated dialer? Without a search warrant on their premises, it'd be awfully difficult to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Furthermore, this is a federal crime. This means that you have to convince a federal prosecutor that he should pursue action against the telemarketer. An individual would likely have no success in convincing a prosecutor to do this. At best, it would take a body of complaints against the same telemarketer to be able to establish a case. If they block the caller ID or you receive an out of area call, you may have a lot of trouble trying to find out who the jokers are unless you listen to their entire spiel. Worse, if it's only a small local operation, good luck trying to track them down and prove that they had used automated dialing equipment if they mysteriously pack it up and go on to the next town.
The government needs to step in quickly to close the loopholes and ban all telemarketers from making calls to any number to which the recipient may incur charges, including but not limited to cell phones, personal 800 numbers, and forwarding services.
"Road rage increased 200% today .. but the odd thing was this all accored around 8:00PM"
I have the metered rate on my landline. I pay $13 a month plus 8 cents for each outgoing call. When I had voice mail each call forwarded to my mailbox counted as an outgoing call. If it was just friends and family it wouldn't be a big deal, but the bulk were telemarketers. During the worst attack I received 25 telemarketing calls in one day. I quickly switched to an answering machine and am saving at least $10 a month.
I don't know, just in time coupons for my favorite adult bookstore would be sorta cool.
Telemarketers on cell phones bear a lot in common with junk mail faxes, which are illegal. Junkfax.org explains all about that, and why you should be hearing a cash register every time you get an ad for a cheap tropical cruise!
Telemarketer cell phone calls are similar to unsolicited telemarketer faxes in that the recipient of the ad is required to pay to get the message in front of them. It doesn't matter if it's toner and paper or minutes, the cost is there.
I have to wonder about the people who not only are not bothered by adver-harassment but buy what they are hawking. They must have been the kids who were forced to take cod liver oil as kids and told to "like it".
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Don't forget that many tele-scammers are switching their marketing scripts to include a survey to get around the law. They'll just add the DNC list to their database and have MORE numbers to call. Putting your phone number on the DNC also puts it in the database of every tele-scammer, charity and seedy politician in the world. bkr
At least in the UK the caller pays. In the US, the recipient pays, or it comes out of his monthly minutes. We (Americans) pay for all calls, coming and going.
The answer to your first question is the second question. Companies continue to use these marketing techniques because they work. Plain and simple.
Random Marketing Company pays a person $10 an hour to make calls selling the new TV Widget at $39.95. Say the profit margin on said widget is $5 each after you take into account the cost of the phone lines, etc. A marketer can easily reach 10 potential customers per hour, not counting the 40 or so other calls where the person isn't home, hangups, busy signals, etc. If only 2 of the people contacted buy the product, it is break even. More than likely the number will be closer to 40 or 50 percent, depending on the product, price, and source of the number list. If 50% buy, that is 5 per hour, or $15 profit per person per hour. Multiply that by 100 people in the call center, $1500 per hour *profit.* Again multiply by 16 hours of calling time per day (8 am to 9 pm, and timezone differences) and voila: $24,000 profit per day. Continue down the line to 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year, and you see where the numbers go.
As for the answer to your second question, sometimes the calls actually are for good deals. When I was in high school, I worked for a company that called existing magazine customers and offered a low renewal rate. In all but a very few exceptions, these renewals cost less than the regular renewal rate, and even less than the new subscriber "fall in the lap card" rate. If a customer wanted to keep their subscription, it was stupid (in the expensive sense) of them not to take advantage of the rate.
Now don't go and say that it isn't stupid of them because credit cards aren't safe over the phone to someone you don't know. That is true. But if they wanted to renew, we were just as happy to send them an invoice as to take the number over the phone.
Sorry for the long post, but my point is that telemarketing is profitable, and will continue to be used as long as the fact stays true. The moment that people stop buying from telemarketers and it becomes an expense, is the same moment telemarketers go away.
I don't regret working for the company. There really isn't too much more of an ideal job for a student. They worked around my school hours and extra-curricular events, let me do homework on downtime between calls (and no we didn't use a predictive dialer, we had a modem at our desk that dialed the number when we hit "next call" on the dumb terminal) and they paid about $10 per hour after you added in commissions. It beat the hell out of working at some fast food joint for minimum wage and the working conditions were orders better.
Jeremy
I think I'd rather have sensible mobile phone prices than unmetered local calls. After all, if someone is near enough that it's a local call, and I need to talk to them, it's far more sociable to just go round there and see them, or meet them in the pub.
I actually only know about three people who still have landlines. None of the people I phone regularly (apart from my Mum, who leaves her mobile off all the time) is on a landline.
I wish these g*ddamn telemarketers would stop trying to crawl into my pocket. Leave me alone....I wasn't going to buy from you anyhow!
IIRC, cellular numbars are relegated to seperate 'precincts'. At least around here, you can tell which numbers are cell numbers and which are landlines by the second set of 3 numbers: 250, 251, 257, etc. for cell phones, 252, 253 for land lines. This might simply be due to the fact that seperate companies have control of these numbers, though.
What I wonder is how companies get cell phone numbers in the first place, to 'accidentially' call. Cell phones are all unlisted for a reason. This means they were either sold the numbers by the cell company, or they're randomly calling folks.
Going through numbers in random/sequential order is illigal, IIRC. It's considered right up there with prank phone calls and the like, which (again, IIRC) you can be prosecuted for if found out. The problem is, you can rarely find out precisely who called you. Phone networks don't exactly have whois. That, and the only realistic way to do something like this is a class-action suit. That involves a lot of dirt digging by many people - something that isn't practical in the least.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
what if telemarketers had to register for a special kind of line. And anyone calling from that kind of line before the call goes through gets one of those automated little voices saying "you are calling .. A cell phone .. the time there is .. 2:00am .. " so they dont bother you in the middle of the night because of timezone differences or roaming with phones etc and they know its a cell phone and to leave you alone.
Just put your mobile # on the do not call list too.
Thats what I did, at least.
*shrug*
the first time someone drives off the road cause a telemarketer got them all enraged should be an interesting headline...
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
The phone could come with a message already recorded--something polite like "The person you have just called does not accept telemarketing calls." It would also let you record one or more custom messages. Here are a few possibilities:
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
I've had one unsolicited call to my cellphone in last five years. I told the caller to wait a while since I'm in a middle of important affair. Then I proceeded to chat with friends while watching the call timer.
He was pretty persistent and disconnected only after four minutes
Robert
PS I believe it's the same in rest of Europe.
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Personally I would be suspect the second that someone touted a "beautiful timeshare right on the beach" in Ritzville.
Do not read this sig.
They'll probably keep that tied up in court while they harvest the list for numbers.
Anyway, I saw something funny in the article: And consultant Mathias argues that some revenue-desperate carriers might not take such a high road. "To opt out, you'd need to write them [a letter] in Swedish," he jokes.
Just in case, as has so often happened in the past, the bad joke of today becomes the reality of tommorrow, here's the Swedish.
Ingen reklam, tack!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
As someone who works in the telemarketing world, I can't see the legitimate companies doing this as they know they'd get hung out to dry. It's the smaller companies that operate one or two call centers that I could imagine would do something like this, which means that I doubt it would be very widespread, since all the major telemarketing companies really do comply with the laws to the best of their ability. Admittedly, some of the laws are rather ambiguous (the drop ratio law, for example, could be very hard to prove in court -- even so, we attempt to comply with it) but calling cell phones, those are usually scrubbed long before the leads are ever called or even sent to one of our call centers, at least.
With a sniper rifle...
I HOPE they call me on my cell phone, then I can charge them with breaking TWO federal laws!
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
In Europe you do pay the international part of a call to your cell phone when you are abroad.
And in the US, it being geographically so large, it might be the owner of the cell phone would have to pick up the tab for the long distance part of the call.
I would say why no Opt-In ?
Oh, you say your politicians would not support this ???
What would we call this in a Third World place ?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
A little off topic...but the DNC list (apparently) does not apply to businesses that make calls within their state borders.
I had a client (I'm a software developer) ask me to develop a database application to help them keep track of who asked to be put on their DNC list and to keep track of how long it has been since a customer had a "business relationship" with the client.
After developing the estimate, the client (a carpet cleaning business) did some checking and found a loophole. Apparently, as long as they are only calling people in Washington (home of the wonderful beachfront property towns of Ritzville, Moses Lake and Spangle), they do not have to query the national DNC list.
I haven't reviewed the law regarding the NDNCL, but if that loophole is extremely broad enough, I foresee corporations setting up call centers in nearly every state!
Or, my client was simply trying to back out of the proposal graciously without admitting that they couldn't afford the development costs.
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
If the call me while driving and cause me to have an accident.
Can I sue them for distracting me while driving?
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
I say let them call cell phones!
The unintended consequence will be that people will not answer calls from numbers that their cell phones don't identify. That will reduce the annoying cell phone prattle in restaurants, movie theaters, etc., etc. and will make the streets a safer place to drive.
How long will it be before 3d holographic style stuff is available and we suddenly get unwanted "popup" salespeople materializing everywhere like on the bus, next to our bathtubs, on the golf course, etc.?
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Just another group to put on my "must be destroyed by a Death Star" list. SCO, Spammers, Telemarketers, people who don't use their turn signals.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Here's what I want-- a 976 number that by default charges the caller $1 a minute or something, where I can opt to override the amount with a *{something} when the call comes in if it's someone I actually know.
Then the telemarketers can call me all they want...
...and when it shows up as Blocked or Unknown, you don't answer.
...and I put my cell phone number on the national Do Not Call list when it was first announced.
I got two phone calls within two hours of each other on Saturday. Since I live in Southern California and didn't recognize the area codes, I declined the phone calls. Very annoying nonetheless:
* (404) 461-9978 - Called at 12:52:50 PM, apparently from Atlanta, Georgia.
* (720) 587-9978 - Called at 2:17:25 PM, apparently from Denver, Colorado.
Sure, I could've answered the phone, gotten their information, and reported it later, but the thought of answering the phone to get their information, and paying for the connection on top of that didn't appeal to me (lame excuse, I know).
Some cell phone companies don't care if you get spammed. If you do, you'd probably be told to just choose a new number, probably with a fee along with it. I remember when I first spam via SMS on T-Mobile. I was told that they couldn't do anything about it and that I should get a new number. I love their service and all, but this was just ridiculous. If they can monitor what time I send or receive messages (they've told me before when I asked them regarding something else) they should be able to do something about this too. What if somebody does something worse, like send death threats? Would they be able to protect you, or just say "It's not our problem."
.smell my feet.
In Europe we don't only not pay for incoming minutes, but I also get a small (about $0.01) amount per minute.
So I just hope that they start calling me, alot...
and I think I'll go over to his house and kick him in the shin just for the hell of it.
Seriously, they have to live somewhere, they are bound to have friends and family (well, maybe not friends). I urge everybody who knows one of these slimeballs to make their lives miserable. Don't invite them anywhere, don't lend anything to them, don't let your children trick-or-treat at their houses, in short, ostracise them. Make them the new lepers of society.
They have to be taught that they are at the bottom of human civilization and the only way off the bottom is to repent and sin no more.
When i get telemarketers calling me on my land line
(I don't have a cell phone)
I get a bit flusterted in my voice and tell them they have called me on my cell phone
(which is not true but since i have a wireless 900 Mhz handset, I can claim ignorance).
Then they usually apologize for calling me on my "cell" phone. Sometimes they say they will then take me off their list. I have seen quite a dramatic drop in telemarketers since i have started doing this. Seems if they think they are calling a cell it puts the fear of god in them. Hopefully they don't start thyis other monkey business since my stategy probably won't work then.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Arg, I'm tired of reading these turn your phone off responses, why should i have to take the burden of not being able to receive calls from others who know only to call if its IMPORTANT. You know IMPORTANT things cant just wait sometimes, things happen, the wives car won't start so you have to pick up Timmy from football practice.
But i should be the one to stop using my phone service because some companies cant go through the hassle of running their business correctly and ethically.
Hell, maybe people should move out of their house to their backyard to keep from getting a door to door salesman? --not the best analogy but good enough for this post
As a matter of fact a one of the companies in my ity did that! 40$ Buys you a cell phone with UNLIMITED local area code #s, anytime anywhere, plus you can sign up for any long distance providers like your old telco. Basically it is pretty much identical to the telco were on, witht the exception it costs 8$ more...but again, that is a small price to pay for such a nice,. convenient method of communication. The plan is called "FIDO-CITY" and witll probably be availlable in most cities throught US-Canada soon. Here is more info:
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
More and more, cell phone airtime packages have so many minutes and are getting so cheap that a few extra minutes used by telemarketers will become financially irrelevant to the subscriber. If you have itemized billing, then yes, you could "prove" the calls were received, but if you never go over the gazillion minutes current packages offer, it's a moot point...
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
The link got screwed up CLICK!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
In the US, most landline services are sold at a flat monthly fee for unlimited calls. In Europe, the caller is charged when they call anywhere, and charged extra when calling a cell phone. The the flat fee structure is insanely popular in the US (so much so that it's even being offered for long distance). So the US phone companies really want to keep it in place, even after the advent of cell phones. But cell phone calls had to be paid by someone. Since it can't be the caller (who may be on a flat-fee unlimited plan), it has to be the cell phone owner who pays it.
[shudder]
I am the Barber of Seville.
I do not understand how these leeches are still in business. The only way that they can stay in business and want to stay in business is because they are making buckets of money! If everyone hates them the way they say they do, there would be no way they could turn a buck and would close shop tomorrow. Basic economics demands it.
I refuse to buy anything from telemarketers, spammers, and the like. I don't care if ther're giving away free gold, on principle I refuse to listen/read/whatever. I can't be the only one! Please tell me, I'm not the only one!
With that said, what I want to know is "WHO KEEPS BUYING THIS CRAP?!?!" They have to making money somehow? I don't know who ticks me off more the telemarketers or the people who keep buying this stuff.
Please mod parent up. I've wondered about this for a long time. Bush DOES have the look of a dyslexic, it wouldn't surprise me if he WAS a dyslexic. And findout out that it runs in his family is another sure sign.
Un-news
Here in Europe telemarketing is in buz for a few years now. Parents filled a few lawsuits and won. Dodgy telemarketing firms offer free tones and images (very popular with 10-18yo). All you got to do is answer a few questions. After a few days you hear a message on your voicemail. That urges you to call back...to a payline. They even adjust the message to your profile that they pulled from the questions you answered. When you call back it takes a while before you realise the conversation is fixed. A lot of teenagers were ripped of this way.
During the period that the Do Not Call list was on hold in court, I received a telemarketing call on my mobile. And it wasn't even one of the industries on the exempted list.
Have I mentioned yet how grateful I am for the Do Not Call list? It's the only place anywhere where my mobile number is listed publicly that I know of (there's the important caveat). That some telemarketer would call it and use a recorded message to advertise their credit repair services annoys me to no end.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
I'll go find them and I'll put some serious hurt on some people. It'll be the *LAST* time they ever telemarketeer anyone..
I disconnected the phone at my home because of telemarketeers and use only a cell phone now. As of now I enjoy having zero unsolicited calls.
If they play this shit on my cell phone I'm going to go break some equipment and *hurt* some people..
It'll be damn hard to dial with their fingers snapped off and shoved up their ass...
There is no reason at all why any marketer should be able to initiate contact with me by phone (cel or land line), fax, email or by coming into my house. There is no difference between these --- the electronic methods are portals into your home just as much as a door is. If a stranger attempts uninvited entry into my house, I have the right to part his/her/its hair with a shotgun. I feel the same about telemarketers, spammers, et.al. You are attempting to break in my house without permission, anything I do to you is no more than you deserve. I particularly favor the loud squeal I can make my phone and answering machine generate for a live person, though I would frankly prefer placing my hand through their teeth. By the way, doesn't the use of war-dialers violate my legal right to have myself removed from a telemarketers' phone lists? And don't even mention free speech. It doesn't figure. Free speech, regardless of how the 1st Amendment has been misused, means exactly that: You have the right to say, print, whatever anything you damn well please. Nowhere does it imply the right to have anyone listen to you. You can pick up your phone and say anything you want, as long as you don't dial my number to do it! The spammers --- phone and otherwise --- insist they have some right to invade your space. Fine. They want it all or nothing, and so do I. And I want it to be nothing. No exceptions for political crap, charities, so-called prior business relationships. Nothing. Telemarketers, spammers, and all the rest of your ilk, just go off somewhere and die slowly and painfully. Rabid? Me? Hell yes! Mal the Elder
That's what we have to overcome. It's the first person to sue who turns it into a class-action that these worthless jerks will get the hint.
Although to be honest I was paying for a service from Qwest that blocked anonymous/Caller ID unknown calls from tele-jerks. I cancelled that service for 2 reasons:
Heaven help them if they call my cell. I have minutes to burn and spite in my heart!
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
I do the same, it's illegal for them to make an unsolicited call to my cell phone. I put it EVERYWHERE I'm required to fill in a number, and I've gotten 5-10 calls in two years with it. Compared to the 3-5 per day I receive on my landline.
who is going to contest this? The cellphone companies WANT you to burn up your minutes. This is good for both telemarketers and cellphone companies. Consumers will probably just be SOL in this case.
And regarding the wardialers that telemarketers use, I am sure it is illegal but isn't it the job of the FCC or someone to regulate? I personally get those sort of calls all the time and of course the caller ID displays unknown caller and star 69 won't work so I'd have a hard time determining who made the call. Even if I could determine who to sue and take them to small claims, it would be their word against mine. I think whoever the responsible party is needs to do better investigating of telemarketers. IMHO, overseas telemarketing should be responded to with tac nukes.
From the article:
[E911's] purpose is to help 911 operators quickly determine the location of callers. But it could also be used for targeted marketing if carriers decide to act as middlemen between telemarketers and cell-phone customers in forwarding coupons and ads to wireless phones. That would facilitate just-in-time direct marketing. A telemarketer could beam a coupon for a can of soup to the cell phone of a person the system has spotted outside a grocery store.
If that doesn't make you want to throw your mobile phone away, I don't know what will. The idea that marketing companies will be following mobile phone owners around and beaming them ads and coupons should scare the hell out of anyone who cares a shred about their privacy.
Wait until the spammers get hold of this! Anyone need a "Refill your Viagra order" spam on their cellphone while on a date? Or worse, in a meeting at work?
Jay (=
An alternative viewpoint: I've registered my cellphone number and I'm worried.
How do they distribute the "do-not-call" list? Do they send the numbers to the telemarketers? If so, my cell-phone number will soon become 'known'! (Really, doesn't everyone expect that the first thing the telemarketers will do is import the list into their databases so they have more numbers?)
Perhaps there is a way to target telemarketers to people talking loudly on their cell phones in quiet public places - like the quiet car on Amtrak trains, movie theatres, and so on. If they can target that advertisement for soup to the person in front of the grocery store, why can't they access the decible level of the person talking and go for the loud ones?
I'm intrigued by the possiblity of making someone who annoys me suffer a little bit.
A little bit OT, but why aren't cell phone carriers offering white and black lists to their customers?
I want the ability to deny all calls without ANI, send certain calls immediately to voicemail, and only have pre-approved numbers ring my phone.
I just added all of my numbers at the same time (home, my cell and my wife's cell) to stop the calls before they started. I wonder why noone else thought of this.
you'd better hope that I am not in or near your neighborhood or I'm coming down there...
You wouldn't like me coming down there....
You make Hulk angry... Hulk SMAASH!
I don't get any advertising, on landline or mobile, but I do get a lot of phone surveys, even on my supposedly unlisted mobile number. Do surveys count as telemarketing? I guess not because they aren't selling a product... but why should that annoyance be an exception? :-/
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Much of the blame on this is due to a lack of foresight on behalf of the FCC and the baby bells. I know that in Israel, there is a separate area code for cellphones. If regional cellphone/pager-only area codes were overlaid on top of the existing area code "map", it would make it very easy to classify cellphones. And as for number portability, they could then stipulate that numbers are portable, however, landline-to-landline and cellphone-to-cellphone. And then direct marketting calls to cellphones could either be outlawed or be reverse-charged to the direct marketters.
The author has based the article on the fact that the telecom companies will allow number portability between wireless and wireline. Firstly there is no clear direction by FCC on this. Secondly it is tough to do this and will require a lot of investment from the telecom companies. I do not see wnp wireless + wireline happening anytime soon.
Telemarketers begin calling cell phones in large numbers. Cell phone owners/users complain to the phone companies in huge numbers. Phone companies do nothing. Users cancel their cell phone accounts and go back to land lines or use disposable cell phones. A couple of cellular phone companies go belly-up when most of their customers leave them. Under unprecedented public pressure, the remaining phone companies lobby for and get permission to adopt Accept Use Policies similar to those used by ISPs. Telemarketers' phone service is terminated due to abuse of the phone company AUPs. There is peace and harmony throughout the land.
RI-I-I-NG!! ``Hey, get up. You'll be late for work.'' (``Damn! And that was such a good dream.'')
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
http://www.na6m.com/anyquestions/hear.htm
Can you hear me now?
From article: "A telemarketer could beam a coupon for a can of soup to the cell phone of a person the system has spotted outside a grocery store."
...said person then promptly walks into aforementioned grocery store/Star Bucks/Auto Store etc, then proceeds to berate the employees & throttle the manager. Not a good idea.
It will just be easier for me to hang up on them... "I'm sorry your breaking up, bad signal, czzzhh! *End*"
I regularly drive 350-400 miles each way (thousand mile weekend...) to go and visit friends. After all, roadtrip!
"you will need a meeting of the minds", or there is no contract.
What if you put your cell phone number on the Do Not Call list?
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!