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Canada's Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List
An anonymous reader writes "The creation of a do-not-call list in Canada has run into
trouble. Michael Geist reports that the proposal has been effectively destroyed, with exceptions for just about every telemarketer including businesses, political parties, polling companies, and charities. The government committee apparently heard from the marketers but refused to listen to consumer groups."
In the U.S., the Do Not Call Registry was about as effective as well. The bosses signed up our business phone lines and nothing has really changed. We still get on average of 20-50 solicitation calls a day.
That doesn't sound like much, but for a small mom-n-pop ISP run by 4 guys and a dog with 2 phone lines, it's awful. Fwiw, we're all pretty good at screening calls via Caller ID.
Good luck to our fellow Canadian brethren, whether they've disowned us or not.
do() || do_not();
That's our Canadian government - always looking out for the little guys. Those much maligned mega marketers, the poorly pictured political parties and poll promulgators, the little lobbyests languishing in the face of previously proposed changes to our country's telecommunications laws.
What ever were we thinking in our attempts to wrest the right to remain "unlisted" and "untapped"?
How dare we expect to have the right to not be disturbed in the midst of our daily ablutions by the ring-ring-ringing of the telephone?
I am (almost) at a loss for words, but I'm certain that if I wait a bit, someone new will call me and try to sell me their own.
Sadly it appears that my government is no longer similar to the American's "of the people, by the people, for the people", but "to the people".
The article is gone, but if the businesses that are exempted are those with a pre-existing relationship with you, that would be the same as the American Do Not Call list.
just do what I did, and get cell plan where you get refund for received calls.
I've almost paid my last months phone bill, just by talking with telemarketers.
You can easily keep them talking for about 30 minutes by asking everything about the product they're selling.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Just be less polite. If everybody just hangs up on the marketeers once they start talking, it should stop fast enough (no income anymore=exit scheme, onto the next one: Pop-up and pop under adds, exit pages, etc EVIL LAUGH).
The marketeers are usually trying to be persistent by just saying things like: you don't know what I am going to offer.
If telemarketing anoys you, just hang up, do not even say goodbye anymore, you don't know them, you don't owe them, so what do you care.
Sofar my advice to make canadians less polite.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I'm wondering how and to who this list is distributed? Hopefully it isn't possible for a businesses/political parties/charities to use this list to get phone numbers and people to call. But since it was originally meant as a list of people not to call I can foresee where such safety mechanisms where not put in place.
How are they benefiting by calling me when I make it clear I don't want to be called? How do they benefit when I continue to not purchase their products or services when they call? This seems like rocket science to the telemarkters but they don't get it.
Who are you to say I or anyone else who refuses to listen to political groups (who are almost always the very special interest groups you sit here and decry) phone calls do not care about politics? Many of us are very active politically and are well educated on the issues.
The uneducated masses do not need special interest group propaganda, whether it is a solitication for votes or an attempt to "educate" (again, LOL) them. This also shuts out minor political parties that cannot afford telemarketing either. The whole idea is retarded anyway. This is what schools are supposed to teach, not special interest groups.
Are you really seriously telling me that telemarketing is nessecary to ensure the "best quality of life"? Are you really telling me that those of us who desire to not hear from telemarketers (its not as if they do not have a MULTITUDE OF OTHER WAYS to advertise their presence) cannot figure out how to spend our money, how to be politically involved (or choose to shut out politics because we think the system is fundamentally broken and cannot be solved within the means of the system), etc?
There are plenty of businesses that cannot afford to telemarket, yet they are sucessful.
Give me a break man.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
with exceptions for just about every telemarketer including businesses, political parties, polling companies, and charities.
I am not sure if any businesses are exempt in the US Don't call list, but the US list does exempt charities, political parties and polls. Then again, would a legislative body ever pass a law that restricted themselves from calling?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I'm being forced to get up and figure out who is calling me. Thats pretty much being forced to me. If people don't want to listen, whats the point?
Your apathy is disturbing. You can indeed make a difference, whether locally or on a state or national level.
Your faith in the democratic process is disturbing. I fundamentally disagree with the concept of a populist government and no matter how I try to campaign for reform, there will always be groups more powerful than me who are in control and masses of people who are willing to cede the government to them becuase they believe its the right thing to do, even after years of education and propaganda from political groups.
Whether you agree with my view or not, I am not going to be swayed by political propaganda and special interest groups calling. So why not make it easier for both of us and just not waste each other's time?
My point is that some people do want to hear the message, and may choose to get involved in something based upon a telephone call they receive.
SO CALL THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE CALLED!
Give me a break!
When I say I don't want to be called, I DO NOT WANT TO BE CALLED. Do you get it yet?
You don't want to be bothered? Then don't pick uo the phone. There are plenty of autoscreening solutions out there, so you wouldn't have to lift a finger. Is it so hard to get off the couch?
Why can't they just honor a do not call list? What difference is it if I pay $100 for some stupid system to keep these idiots off my phone or if they just agree not to call me in the first place?
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Good luck. I had a telemarketer cough when I said I wanted to be put on their Do Not Call list. And every time I tried to say, "Put me on your," he'd have another cough or two, and say that he couldn't hear me.
Go figure.
The do-not-call-list has worked great for me. Since I signed up I have gotten zero telemarketers. Just a couple pollsters. After I got VoIP (kept my phone number), I started getting telemarketer calls again and i thought the do-not-call thing wasn't working. Then I learned that any time the service on a number is change in any way (such as going from POTS to VoIP) it gets removed from the list and you have to add it again. I added it again and the calls stopped.
I don't really know why your business is still getting calls. Are you getting called by telemarketers or just cold calls from B2B sales people? Perhaps they are calling one of the numbers in your hunt group and not your main number? Did you add ALL your businesses numbers to the list? Most businesses will have a group of numbers with one "main" number that autoforwards to a free line in a group.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
...is to figure out how to contact the Direct Marketing Association (or its Canuck equivalent; I forget its name) and get struck off the list.
I did this nearly a decade ago and I have *no telemarketing calls* save three local charities that aren't members of the DMA.
Unfortunately, I failed to save the information. I recall I obtained it by calling the telco and getting downright irate about the attempts by Sprint Cda to slam me into one of their plans. Somehow or other I finagled a phone number from the customer service rep...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
What did I say about government teaching anything?
I've worked on a number of local grassroots campaigns where telephone campaigning has been necessary to get the message out and recruit people to volunteer.
Good for you. Please respect my wishes when I declare I do not want to be called and understand that those of us who don't want to be called are not going to mend to your ways.
Sure, some people don't want to hear anything. But some people do. Don't generalize and assume that all groups that call people are not honestly interested in educating the public. Yes, they may have an agenda, but points of view you haven't already heard should be welcome.
Good for them. Call them, not me. I signed up for the DNC so please respect that. I do not wish to impose anything on anyone, except those who wish to impose their views on me, I wish to tell them to fuck off and leave me alone forever.
I am saying that it is not out of the question. Outreach to citizens is very important, politically, and can contribute to quality of life in myriad ways. The economy also contributes to quality of life.
Thats some twisted thinking. Do people exist outside of their homes and telephones?
Most businesses do not use telemarketing to gain sales.
Don't like it? Don't pick up the phone. Nothing is stopping you, nothing at all.
Who gave you the right to keep calling and harassing me at all odd hours of day and night even after I said stop calling me and putting myself on a DNC?
What I don't agree with, is not allowing communication about an issue just because the method annoys you.
Television ads bother the crap out of me -- but I'm not saying they should be banned.
Um, its my phone. If I don't want to be called, I think you should respect my wish. Way to alienate people you want to sway to your side. I have no problem with you calling people who have not made their wish clear that they don't want to be called. I have a problem when you think you are entitled to bother my free time or my family's time for your own selfish interests.
I don't like TV ads either but the TV does not go RING RING RING and then require me to either listen to it ring for several minutes or turn it on and be forced to hear some spiel from idotic politican. (I don't own a TV anyway, thankfully).
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
> When fire becomes a financial burden, safety will go up.
You sicken me. To paraphrase you:
"Once enough people die, and its too expensive to pay out insurance claims, insurance companies will enforce stricter rules."
Once people die. You need people to die first before anybody does anything.
State regulations may be reactive to a certain extent, but not by design. Placing safety and health regulations in a freemarket requires human suffering by dresign before a market correction.
Your counter argument, which I know already is, so what, more people die under supposedly proactive government over regulation.
Which is a hypothesis, and not factual. Turning these things over to the free market is essentially saying, "Well, we're too dumb to know what works, but one thing we know for sure is if enough people die/getsick/getfucked, it'll become too expensive to maintain insurance."
Lets be honest here, you're talking about fire insurance payouts, but the money has to do with injuries/death in addition to simple property destruction. So you're suggesting a free market where the cost/revenue model is related to people dying.
Sick.
"Old man yells at systemd"
That's great for you, but consider the following:
- I don't get good reception in my home, and really never have. That's never an issue on my landline.
- My cell is small and not made for long conversations. I like that it's small so I can carry it around.
- I live with my girlfriend, and we share the landline. We both get calls to it. Many times someone will call wanting to talk to either of us.
- The whole "calling 911 doesn't put my address on the operation center's screens" issue.
These are not uncommon problems. Until they are, I don't think it makes much sense for many of us to drop or just not use our landlines.
This is why I read at 0 so I can find decent posts such as yours.
First, I've been to Nike's "sweatshops" and you'd be surprised how few employees consider it a sweatshop compared to starving and dying in a country with little opportunity. You would also be surprised how many ex-sweatshop employees saved enough money to move to another country with better opportunities.
People are not forced to do any job at gunpoint by Nike or by any other corporation. Yet I am forced to pay 1/2 my wages to a monopoly with the threat of prison. Who runs the sweatshop?
Nader does the job people need him to do with his watchdog group. With the Internet and viral-marketing campaigns, it isn't that hard to disperse information about bad companies, and it isn't that hard to keep track of companies real time. Underwriter's Laboratories is the ultimate free market watchdog group. They stamp items that meet their safety approval, and retailers don't stock non-UL merchandise if they know what is good for them. Why is the UL succesful, yet the FDA and USDA can't get anything right?
How about being an example? Or are you and your tele-harassing cronies too good for that?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The problem faced by Canada and/or the USA is indicative of a more general (and therefore more difficult to solve) problem.
When a telemarketer calls you from your own country, both parties are governed by the same laws, however, many of those laws are ineffective when the caller and recipient are in different countries.
With cheap telecommunications international telemarketing is becoming more common, and consumer protection is beginning to suffer.
Take, for example, the recent spate of calls that have originated in Florida, and targetted North-West Europe. Each of these European countries has a national do-not-call list, yet international telemarketers are ignoring these lists, believing themselves to be untouchable.
It's become so bad that "the Consumer Ombudsmen from the Nordic Countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland have contacted the US Federal Trade Commission and cited concerns over some international business practices" [1][2]
The letter itself cites concerns over both telemarketing and general internet marketing, and illustrates that once national boundaries are crossed, the temptation to increase sales (possibly by misrpresenting the goods that are being sold) may be more than some telemarketers (or telemarketing company managers) can bear.
What is needed is a global agreement on Do-Not-Call lists. Without such an agreement, national lists will be entirely irrelevant as each company conscientiously respects it's own citizens whilst mercilessly telespamming the rest of the world.
boakes.org
Oh goodness... do you really want to encourage the ones who target the machine? When I lived in California, I came to dread coming home and checking the answering machine. There's always be series of "Sean, this is Mark of A1 Banking. I hate to say it, but we've run into a problem with your account. Call me immediately at 1-555-555-5555 so we can fix this" with inevitably routed to a credit card pitch. *sigh* One would think false advertising would apply somewhere in there. If you picked up the phone while the message was being logged, they immediately hung up.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.