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Do-Not-Call List, Two Years Later
Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that two years after the National Do Not Call Registry took effect, regulators say the system is working, but only six federal fines have been issued. More than half of registered consumers say they're still getting unwanted calls, according to a recent phone survey. Now, a fresh fight is brewing over which calls are restricted and which ones aren't. Twenty-five states maintain their own do-not-call lists, and many of them impose tougher restrictions on the kinds of calls that telemarketers can make."
So... did anyone try to turn in the survey-takers?
I'm sick and tired of telemarketing. Why do we tolerate it at all? If I announce to the world I don't want sales calls, I have explicitly voiced that I do not want your intrusion. If you continue to try to con me into giving you money I don't want to give after I have specifically told you not to contact me, that is harassment. Somehow, we have huge punishments for stalkers, but not for these sociopaths who do basically the same thing. I don't know why we tolerate them at all.
And this isn't an issue about profits. There's nothing wrong with trying to make a profit. There is something wrong with violating people's rights to do it. If you want me to listen to your spiels, PAY ME TO DO SO. Otherwise, go away.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
I am NOT on the Do Not Call List, but I am getting about 90% less telemarketers calling me. I would have to say its a pretty good track record considering I didn't do anything. Some are having problems, but no one is getting MORE calls than before, unlike spam and CAN-SPAM.
This is because many companies that do telephone marketing are doing something else instead (spam maybe?). So while the system isn't perfect, and can be improved, it has to be considered a success for the most part.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I think the question is, do people report - or even know where to report - telemarketers when a violation occurs?
Carl Bialik sends in a free Wall Street Journal article every few days and they seem to be always accepted. Does Slashdot get a percentage of ad revenue/new subscriptions they generate for the WSJ? If so, shouldn't you make this more obvious? If not, why should Slashdot be a de facto WSJ advertisement?
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Because you show no polite respect to us. You've taken a job that you know annoys the hell out of 90% of the population. That shows an utter lack of consideration of any type for the rest of humainty. Be polite? If I met you I'd punch you in the face.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Yes, but I've known telemarketers and they all hated their jobs. The money was good, so they stayed, but having to deal with all the pissed off people wore on them. So I still take the time sometimes to yell at or mess with telemarketers. It keeps the price of telemarketing high.
While looking for the appropriate legislation, I googled up this What's up with that? Are they legit? Has anyone used them with success?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Over half say it doesn't work?
.."
I don't get it - I was totally harrassed by at least 4-5 calls per night before this list came along.
Not only has it blocked almost 95% of the bullshit, it kicked in almost instantaneously. The execptions for charities are annoying/minor. Some utiliies and banks I do business occasionally bug me with the claim that I opted-in somehow - or that its just a "courtesy call
But IMHO - The list rocks!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
And, so, when the law was passed, they had loopholes for
The only thing that seems to work is to hang up on the charities and to tell the businesses that you'll be closing your account with them if you get any more calls.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
At home, I get an automated recording on the machine (from a telemarketer, no doubt), saying that isn't a sales call. What good is is law if simply saying "this isn't a sales call" makes it so, even if they are trying to sell you something?
I've been getting the same thing recently. To my cell phone. i wonder who's doing it.
funny munging
i've discovered a new way to deal with the few that get through. Like yourself, I used to get furious with unsolicited callers. Now, I simply take my cordless phone into my living room, pick the first random object that I find, and try as hard as I can to sell it to the person who is calling...until they hang up on me.
yes, it wastes time, but it is incredibly fun.
dude.
I just stuff their junk mail into their prepaid envelope along with some selected nuggets from the cat's litter box and send it all back to them.
I agree with what you're saying, though I usually am less harsh in my time wasting. Often I'll come up with something that makes them feel foolish for calling me. It might not be very nice, but I have been known to berate them for calling and trying to sell home exercise equipment to "a paraplegic cripple". It's fun to see them try to explain their way out of that.
In addition it's fun to play the Hold game. When they ask for somebody or something, I'll ask them to wait for me to find them and then put them on hold (my phone even played music) and go back to whatever it was I'm doing. The record holder (pun intended) is 1 hour and 25 minutes. I guess he liked the classic 80's songs playing...
I try to waste as much of the company's money as possible by wasting their time and resources. At the same time I feel bad taking out my annoyance on the employees because it's very possible that they are at the only job available to them at the moment. Being a telemarketer doesn't require much in the way of skills, but it is better than other skill-less opportunities like fast food.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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My wife asks telemarketers not to call again and asks them to take her off the list. Generally they just start cussing at her. She has actually had a telemarketer say to her: "Shut the fuck up, Bitch! We will call you whenever we feel like it." Unfortunately there is nothing we can do because they were in Canada.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If you like doing these things, you'd love this.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I got a call a little while ago from one of those annoying taped messages wanting to let me in on some sort of "special deal" to "make money fast". I'm on the state's do not call list. I went to the state government's website, and they had a form to fill out to register a complaint. I did. A couple of days later, I got a letter from the Attorney General that said they're pursuing it.
That do not call list has been pretty good over all. It's really cut down to number of calls we used to get. Of the few we get, nearly all of them say "we're not trying to sell you anything" during their taped messages.... SUUUUUUURE.
I've been using the magic phrase 'please take me off your call list' for years now. Some people are very polite in return, and thank me and have a good day. I've had other telemarketers sigh and hang up, or even curse and hang up. Just last night I had one argue with me. I asked her to please take me off your call list, and she said she couldn't do that unless I provided her with personal information. I politely informed her that she's federally obligated to comply, and I don' t have to provide any information. I asked for her name, her company, and to be transferred to her supervisor, and she again stated that I'd first have to provide personal info before she could do that. We went through this 3 or 4 times until she finally said 'i'm not going to play games with me," and that she's not obligated to do anything, unless I provide the info she was asking for. She then hung up, and I've no recourse to pursue them. They block their incoming call so I can't ID the origination number.
THIS is what infuriates me. I understand these people are making a living. I am polite to them to a fault. I'm not litigous. However, she's got me at the point where I would pursue litigation with her IF i had a method of finding out who the hell they're with. I will likely pay my phone company the 10 bucks a month or whatever it is to block all incoming telemarketer calls.
I simply don't understand the business model of 'hey, let's bother potential customers while they're eating dinner with their families or on Sunday and piss them off. we're sure to get business that way.". Obviously it's working on some level, as they're still doing it. I, however, don't understand it.
Telemarketing != sales.
In fact, it screws up the reputation for people who are professional sales people.
A telemarketer could try to sell new windows to anyone, at random. They basically use a dictionary-style attack and if they're lucky they will get a sale.
A good sales person would first determine the market (ie: eliminate apartment/condo units but approach landlords). They might even drive around looking at houses and noting if the windows are old (=replacement) or new (=recently replaced). They might work with real estate agents, home inspectors, etc to qualify potential sales (15 people moved in the area. 5 of those have bad windows. 3 of them have good windows. Etc)
The point is that a proper sales person will know the person at the other end. If you're not the target market, a salesperson won't talk to you. A telemarketer would.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
I dunno. Maybe there's some loop hole in the law or something that allows telemarketers to look up your information. I'm not sure.
I checked Google, though, about Qwest. Their official line is this: Qwest said in its notice that it does not release customer account data to unaffiliated third parties without customer permission "unless we have a business relationship with those companies where the disclosure is appropriate."
However, another site says: Many phone companies (Qwest is a particularly bad offender) sell lists of phone numbers to telemarketers whether or not they are unlisted or unpublished!
Lame. Qwest does suck as a phone company. Like all the other ones, i guess.
Sometimes when we called people for Qwest they'd have some problem, like they got billed too much or they got some feature they didn't order or they wanted to take some feature off or put their account on hold or something like that. People actually have a lot of problems with Qwest (most of which are through incompetence rather than anything intentional).
It would've been cool for those of us who didn't care about making sales if we could've helped those people. Like taking a feature off somebody's account is like two or three clicks. But Qwest didn't let us do that. We were just s'posed to give out the dumb 800 number and let those people handle whatever problems they had.
I guess if we could have handled those problems, a lot of the people who felt like we were wasting their time would've been happier, 'cause at least they would've got something out of the call. Oh well.
Magic phrase? Burden? You don't want somebody to keep calling you: the solution is to ask them not to call you again. Who's the one ignoring the obvious here?
Speaking of obvious solutions, how about a telemarketing policy where the company single-handedly takes people off the list who obviously don't want to be called, regardless of whether they ask politely or not? Ultimately "Telemarketers suck" has the same meaning as "please don't call me."
If the telemarketers had any self-respect they'd take anybody off their list who didn't want the privilege of hearing about their amazing offers. Turn it into an exclusivity deal.
Then again, telemarketing companies can be willfully dumb as well, when they say "okay, i'll put your request through but it can take up to [n] months for you to be deleted from our system." As if computers had never been invented!
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I once worked doing telephone surveys, No joke the worst call I ever made went something like this:
Me: Good morning may I speak to Bob Someone
Sad sounding woman: I'm sorry you can't
Me: Is there another time I can call?
SSW: No this is his wake.
Me: Okay then sorry about that
*hangup*
Were it not for the sobbing in the background I'd have thought it was a joke.. it was not.
That was so awkward.
if someone screams "I'm on the do not call list" that should be good reason for a reputable company to never call the person again,
Apparently you've never dealt with Qwest...