Will we have to bomb India to stop telemarkerters?

[Botafogo]

I just got a call (during dinner of course) not "from" but "on behalf of" Cingular Cellular and the audio was going in and out like it was being controlled by a noisegate to limit bandwith. When I demanded to speak with a supervisor as this was the FIFTH such call in four days and I had requested to be put on the don't call list each time, the solicitor started speaking to someone else in HINDHI!!!

I asked him what was wrong with the audio and he answered in English that the call was being placed through Net to Phone (a system to make long distance calls via the internet) and that was why the background sound went out when he was not talking (to save on bandwith), wasn't modern technology wonderful, ya da ya da...


His supervisor actually responded to me that, since they were calling on "an informational call" originating from INDIA that the Federal laws about telemarketing do not apply.


I urge you to boycott Cingular, call them and tell them why you are switching services if you are a customer and write a letter to your Congressperson noting how this would make a good opportunity to test a satelite launched smart bomb!

Roberto

[Bucko]

Cheapskate! Get off of your sorry butt and call the phone company. Ask for the solicitor block service. It costs about $7 a month and is worth every penny. We never get a solicitor call anymore, never. What a blessing.

[Botafogo]

Bucko, these things are regulated on a State level and YOU have an Attorney General who in addition to being fine for her age is genuinely involved in this and also spam e-mail. HERE in LA, we have no such protections and must rely on the Federal Statute which has been circumvented by these weasels. AND, even if you can get around it, they deserve to be boycotted and villified.

I am a single issue voter: capital punishment without benifit of trial for all telemarketers and spam e-mailers gets my vote.

Roberto

PS the fact that YOU have to pay for that service shows you that the phone companies are in cahoots with these slime. THEY should have to pay YOU for the right to call you.

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 05-20-2003).]

[Bucko]

Understand, but you reach a point where telemarketers and spam begin to morph into one........ I don't want to deal with it, don't have the time or energy to fight it, so the next best thing is to pay to make it go away.

[Georgie]

Here's my favorite way to handle a telemarketer. Just say, "Could you hold on for a mintute?' Then put the phone down and walk away. I have to admit that I get some devilish satisfaction from doing that.

[This message has been edited by Georgie (edited 05-21-2003).]

[Thomas]

I say, "oh, he isn't with us anymore."

Truth is, I never answer my phone at dinner time, or almost any other time--I let the machine do it, and the message on my machine tells telemarketers that I am screening calls so they needn't bother to leave a message.

Those who know me and need to reach me, have a private number to call.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 05-21-2003).]

[winoweenie]

'Sno wunder I get the bloomin' machine ebber times I call!ww [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]

[Kcwhippet]

I understand the phone number at IS Wine is also unlisted.

[Thomas]

not unlisted KC, but screened by an efficient receptionist/sales rep...

[stevebody]

Sorry in advance. Probably no one will read this, anyway, so I'm going to just vent as briefly as possible:

Agree 100% with Roberto: Nuke the Buggers. WHY in the name of Yaweh should I have to pay $7 a month - or seven cents - to stop someone from committing an invasion of my privacy? As far as I'm concerned, someone showing up unbidden in my email or on my phone line is the same as them showing up in my living room. The ONLY THING thing that a person owns completely is their name, and the phone company sells that off to anybody with two bucks and a business license. I've harangued Qwest mercilessly about this when the telemarketing calls have gotten out of hand and their response is that there's nothing they can do because it's legal. My position is that THEY are the ones who sell off call lists, WITHOUT my permission or even my knowledge, so THEY should be the ones I call, ONCE, to get the calls blocked. According to a friend of mine at Microsoft, the technology to do this already exists and it is as simple as requiring anyone registered as a telemarketer or email solicitor to attach an electronic identifier to their calls or emails. Phones that don't allow such calls or email programs that are blocked would simply end transmission. He says it's not prohibitively expensive and could be up and running in a month or two, IF qwest would do it. The problem, as always, is money. The phone companies make millions off selling us out to these leeches and it wouldn't do to have the seller start tampering with their list-buyers' "rights".

The simple solution is to just make ALL this crap illegal, across the board. YES, by damnit, Boycott Cingular and every other company that finds clever little ways to circumvent existing laws. That's what will happen if we get our Washington legislation passed, BTW. There is an initiative being circulated to outlaw email spamming and impose heavy fines on repeat violators but what will happen is that these scum will just base their marketing schemes outside the US and let the issue of jurisdiction become the Mommy's Skirt behind which they do business.

Look at the sheer volume of CRAP with which we're inundated DAILY: spam, telemarketing calls, junk mail, not to mention the unrelenting barrage of aural and visual advertising on busses, buildings, taxis, billboards, radio, TV, MOVIE previews, even on the videotapes we purchase. Companies that do this justify it by saying that this is the engine that runs the economy and, without it, business would be impossible.

Baloney.

What would happen is that product quality and price would determine who stays in the marketplace and who folds, which is how it should be, anyway. It would cripple the middle-man culture and somebody tell me how that's an inherently bad thing.

I will gladly lick stamps, man phones, lobby in Olympia - or DC, for that matter - with anyone who promises a concerted effort to rid our culture of this verbal and visual garbage. The very fact that people keep telling me that I NEED to do ANYTHING to stop it infuriates me. I didn't START it. I didn't ask anyone to sell me their crap. If I need anything in our society, I'll find it. For me to have to waste ten seconds opting out of this effluvia is absurd. This sort of marketing doesn't have to cease altogether but it should ALL be opt-in. Period.

[tandkvd]

C'mon Robert and SB, let us know how you realy feel.

I do agree with you.
I had a message on my answering machine the other night, saying that I had won a car or a vacation. Gee I wonder what I won?
I called the place to play along. And when I asked them how they got my number, they said it was from a contest that I entered. I asked which contest, and they said "Oh you know one of those contest at a mall"

I then informed them that this is why I absolutly do not enter contest!!! It's one thing for people to be selling my name. I certianly am not going to give it away!!

By the way, it was the vacation that I won. Along with a sells pitch!! GRRRR!

[willp58]

Whenever a telemarketer calls, they ax for me or my wife...I say, "Noone here by that name" CLICK..

That ends it right now.

[Botafogo]

So, NOW, I get a call like this (at work!):

"do you have any Crystal?"

Yes, but we have some much better fizz for half the price.

"Oh, and do you have any really dark red Chardonnay?"

No, Chardonnay is a white wine...

"Do you accept credit cards?"

Yes, everything except Diners Club.

"Can I speak to a manager or owner about saving you money on your credit card processing?"

F$#k off and DIE!!!!!!!!!!

Next week this time I'll have been in Rio for a day and maybe I will relax, Roberto

[hotwine]

If she'll let you....

[Georgie]

Yes, I'm sensing a bit of tension there, Roberto. I hope you have a wonderful trip.

[winoweenie]

Takes 3 weeks on return to wipe the smile off'n his mug! WW

[Botafogo]

This is the final straw, we begin bombing in five minutes:

I just picked up the phone (at work) and got about fifteen seconds of silence then a recording saying "this is a collect call from..." and then a different voice gave a name that I could not quite make out. We have instructed all of our drivers that if they have trouble to call us even if collect and also my amor sometimes calls me from the street in Rio so I hit 1 to accept the call.

THEN, I get ANOTHER recording from BARBADOS telling me about the wonderful vacation opportunities there.....on my dime (or more likely multiple dollars)!

I have become a single issue voter:

I would elect David Duke President if he would decree capital punishment without benifit of trial for all telemarketers.


Three days and counting (till I go bye bye), Roberto