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How to Handle Political Telemarketing?
TheOtherChimeraTwin writes "Slashdot has touched on telemarketing in the past. The No Call lists work pretty well for me except for a flood of political calls. They guys use automated dialers with recorded messages and use bogus caller id information, calling back multiple times. Political surveys are done by real people, but they hang up on me if I stray from answering their questions. Does anyone have a solution better than just hanging up on these slime? I'd just vote for their opponent, but sometimes I'm getting called by both sides. The distraction of these calls is annoying and the problem is only going to get worse."
just lie to them. but seriously there is a big problem. if you ignore or lie to political telemarketers dont complain when politicians do whacky things by relying on polling data.
always mosh clockwise
The calls are the least of your problems.
In addition to making annoying phone calls, they are also bilking you (and every member of your household) out of tens of thousands of dollars (each) to pay for foreign entanglements (wars, giving weapons to loonies, etc.) to stroke their half baked dreams of empire, selling your rights to the highest corporate bidder, who pay them back with booze and hookers (at your expense of course) and lying to you every chance they get. Oh yeah, and spying on you, paying newscasters to lie to you (again, your tax dollars at work), letting their corporate masters override you and your doctor's decisions about your health care, and hundreds of other things.
Plus that, they are being such jerks in the world at large that people you've never met hate you enough to kill you, just because they represent you.
But if the phone calls are the straw that breaks your camel's back, so be it.
--MarkusQ
Hi, this is Kimberly from the [Republican | Democratic] National Committee...
Hi Kimberly, my wife and I don't make any donations whatsoever over the phone, and we don't answer poll questions either.
Sure, I can understand that. We would like to send you a free brochure with our platform on it, but we need to have some level of commitment from you. Could I put you down for $25?
(It turns out she actually can't understand what I said). I'm sorry. Like I said, we don't make contributions over the phone. Good luck in November.CLICK. BZZZ...
---
For the record, any political contributions we make go to PACs. We figure that the money will be better distributed to the candidates that actually support our positions, than if we gave to the national parties.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
This crowd may want to look up 'civic duty'. A responsable citizen doesn't start and end at the ballet box.
Of course, there will come a day when so few people have landlines (that they actually use for voice) that politicians will make sure they can canvas the cel phones too, but until that day comes it's great.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
If you don't mind being rude try this:
If you are busy ask them to hold on for a while- e.g. "Please hold on, I'll be back".
Then finish doing whatever it is you are doing (dinner, shower etc) and if there's nothing else more urgent/important to do, come back and answer their questions.
This way you also delay them from pestering the next person.
A perfect example of the fundamental problem with American democracy. The two major parties both stink, but you won't even consider voting for anybody else, to the point where you actually forget other parties exist. Both sides? You really think there are only two candidates? Go ahead and vote for Kodos.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Voting for a third party is actually a very good option. If everyone that is whining about the current political duopoly would stop whining and vote for someone else then the duopoly would fall apart. People normally counter argue that you are throwing your vote away because they 3rd party will never win. I disagree with this because: - There are currently several independent congressman. - While they might not win this race more people who voted mainstream might vote for them next time if they are noticed in this race. People will take you a lot more seriously if you got 15% last election instead of 1.5%. - A large number of people don't because they don't like either of the 2 main parties. If they would get out and vote for 3rd parties then we would see a lot more 3rd parties winning. Most importantly, don't get that you have more than one vote! There are many issues on a single ballot, so you can vote mainstream for president and 3rd party for other offices. Last election I felt that the presidential race was very close and that there was a huge difference between Bush & Kerry. I voted for one of them even though I felt that one of the other candidates would do a better job. However, a number of other offices I often voted 3rd party because there was not nearly as much at stake. If more people in my state will start doing this then we can get a 3rd (and hopefully a 4th) party going locally. After that we can work toward another party for president.
-WolvesOfTheNight
Better yet, dont use your landline at all.
Have a cellphone and/or VoIP.
Dont give out the landline phone number to anyone, only the cell number.
If you have Cable for internet, dont get a phone line at all.
If you have Fiber or something else, dont get a phone line.
If you have Dialup or you have DSL or you have Fiber or something and you must have a phone line (e.g. "verizon will only let you get FIOS if you get verizon phone over that FIOS"), get the phone line but dont even have a real phone (only the modem for broadband/dialup) plugged into it.
That way, even if the telemarketers do get your landline number (if any), all they get is no answer then ring out since no-one even knows a call was made.
Which is why the first rule of the call center rep is "Don't waste your time, make the contact waste theirs." If somone goes off for 5 minutes, you'd only wait for 2 minutes, then hang up. Posibly less if you've got a low talk time contract like polical mesages. It's not like the people in the call center even care if you vote for the canidate that they are calling on behalf of anyway.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
Funny how your freedom trumps my freedom to control my own phone.
If you have no political convictions then I suggest you courteously tell them as much and ask to not be called anymore.
And if you have political convictions you are required to receive annoying phone calls?
Actually, you fucking moron, it's NOT your right to call and disturb people who don't wish to be disturbed by you, or to eat up the minutes they paid for in order to do it.
There's a fundamental natural right that trumps anything the Constitution or case law might say you can do, and it's called "the right to be left alone". Leave people the fuck alone!
You can believe and your cause and support your party all you wish, just so long as it doesn't involve infringing upon my natural right to be left the fuck alone.
People like you truly disgust me. Your argument is no better than when the telemarketers bitched about losing their "right to free speech" when the Do Not Call list was enacted. Sorry, but my right to be left alone trumps your right to free speech, so fuck you.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Who's the asshole, here? The asshole who is asking Americans about their political beliefs or the asshole who's hanging up on somebody without letting the other person finish?
It's you. You interrupted somebody's good time in order to pester them with questions. Listening to somebody's question and giving a well thought-through answer is a favour.
I know someone who actually got a job doing telemarketing for the Republican party - and took it as her personal mission to get as many hang-ups as possible.
I dropped into the bookstore the other day, and went over to the history section. I recently finished the Pulitzer winning "Washington's Crossing" (highly recommended, by the way), and wanted to see if there were anything else by the same author. Right next to history was the current affairs section.
What I saw there was frightening. Prominently displayed were row after row of books with titles like "100 People who are Ruining America". It wasn't just the right, it was the left as well: book after book whose theme was that you should think about and act in a juvenile manner towards people who disagree with you.
It made me think of something I often tell my children: You can't avoid getting angry sometimes, but beware: anger can make you stupid.
It isn't that there weren't books like this ten years ago. It isn't that attitudes like this didn't exist ten years ago. It's just that ten years ago this kind of childishness didn't drown out the other forms of political discourse. It used to be the politics of the lunatic fringe. Now it looks like the lunatic fringe is the loudest voice out there.
What's frightening about this attitude is where this logic leads: "Those people" are runining the country. You cannot live with them. Therefore it is us or them: both of us cannot survive. Mark my words: if the trend to political childishness is not checked, it will end in violence.
Acts like the one described gets no respect from me, liberal as I am and convinced the policies of the Republican are bad for our country. Either they are too much, or too little. You can only justify them if you are fighting evil, but if you are fighting evil, the fight deserves more from you than snatching a little puerile self-satisfaction.
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