This (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/congress.no.call/index.html) is seriously just ruining my day. I was SO looking forward to having this go through. I get so many calls a day from telemarketers that I just dont answer my phone anymore - checking for messages afterwards. But having it ring ALL the time is still really annoying. I just turn off the ringer sometimes.

I really love our court system, I tell ya. They now have Free Speech rights... to harass me! He who has the gold...

The other side of this coin - the telemarketers wouldn't be such a problem if they werent making money this way. WHO are the dumbasses in this country that are BUYING shit from these guys that call you unsolicited - making them profitable?? Jesus.

Relax. It was turned down on sort of a technicality, and it will be appealed. Congress has made it clear that they'll pursue this idea. And I think it will still go into effect on October 1st pending judicial review.

Read the article. The technicality they got it overturned on a couple of days ago is being addressed by congress really quickly (... this is the US congress moving quickly? whoa).

This NEW hold on the list is based on free speech grounds - congress has no say in it now, it has to be decided by the judicial system, which is screwy to say the least.

How does sales and personal contact violate freedom of speech? Especially if you've been told not to contact me? You'd think telemarketers would get the hint. Try to loop that under 'freedom of speech' basically undermines the entire spirit of that phrase.

Fifty million Americans can't be wrong," Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-LouisianaYikes! Don't bank on that! :b


-Kanyli

Oh, this (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/cnna.wientzen/index.html) interview is great.

HEMMER: Americans put more than 50 million phone numbers on the don't-call registry.

Can they be wrong?

WIENTZEN: Well, we don't think they're wrong. If they don't want to receive calls, we don't want to call them. About 30 million of those folks were already on a list, either a state list or a list that we've maintained for 18 years. So it's not new for a lot of them.

HEMMER: What is wrong, then, with what the FTC has done?

WIENTZEN: Well, Bill, what we said in our -- in our court case, and the judge agreed with us, was that the FTC simply didn't have the authority to do this. And he agreed with us. We think that people who don't want to get calls should indeed have the right to express that, and we shouldn't call them.

HEMMER: Now there is a major effort right now to get this thing reversed, quite possibly by the 1st of October. If you listen to members of Congress, we'll hear from some of them right now, they are going to put out a full-court press right now to make sure this judge is overturned.

Listen to the talk now in D.C. on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BILLY TAUZIN, R-LOUISIANA: This is something that Americans -- 50 million Americans -- have said they absolutely want the advantage of. And we are determined, bound and determined, before we leave this session of Congress, to make sure they have the advantage of a do-not-call list.

REP. JOHN DINGELL, D- MICHIGAN: We will try and have this matter dealt with by the end of the time that it -- that it is supposed to go into place, which is October 1, next Wednesday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: You fear that it's just a question of time before you're reversed again?

WIENTZEN: Well, I think there's going to be a do-not-call list. But this is a great example of the sort of political sound bite that makes this attractive. It's not 50 million people on the list, it's 50 million phone numbers. That probably...

HEMMER: That could represent families, too, on one, which actually increased that number to 50 million.

WIENTZEN: Well, indeed, but we know it has a lot of cell phones. It has a lot of people who have been on the list, our list, for as long as 18 years. This is a great political game that we're seeing here. Congress, I think, acted a little bit too quickly, and perhaps they are going to rectify that.

HEMMER: So your position is that you think the government should not have authority in saying who is on your list and who is not, is that correct?

WIENTZEN: We don't think the government should have a role in regulating the kind of advertising activity that goes on.

HEMMER: OK, then if that's the case, what kind of list do you favor, then?

WIENTZEN: We think a list that expresses people's desire not to be called is appropriate. As I say, we've had it for 18 years. We think it's probably a better thing not done by the government. You know government might want to regulate how you operate your show a lot more strictly.

HEMMER: Well, let's hope not.

WIENTZEN: And I doubt that you'd like that either.

HEMMER: A member of Congress also said yesterday, said this is as popular as a skunk at a church picnic.

WIENTZEN: Well, it's a great political issue. We understand that. But the serious aspect here is that people who don't want to get called are probably not going to buy and we don't want to call them, either.

HEMMER: Do you think it's just political or do you think there's a question of politeness involved in this as well? If people don't want their phone ringing, why can they not have the FTC step in and say you know what, we're going to give you this option?

WIENTZEN: Well, again, Bill, it's we don't oppose the concept of people expressing their desire not to be called. We've been doing just that and respecting that for 18 years. Our point here is that the FTC did not have the authority to do this. The federal court agreed. There are some other technical issues that suggest this could be done a lot better. But politically, this was a very attractive thing, and I'm afraid the FTC rushed it a little bit too quickly.

If they don't want to receive calls, we don't want to call them
WHAT? Bullshit flag, flagrant foul, 15 yards.

Night before last, the night of the first judge's injunction blocking the 'do-not-call list', I got home from a long day at work, lay down for a few moments to catch a nap before doing some grading, and the phone rang. The person tried to sound casual, like he knew me. 'Hey, is this Deborah? Etc... I was groggy and asked who it was and then he started in on his spiel: 'Hi, this is XXX from MCI...'. I was so incensed that I screamed at him to go to hell, and hung up the phone.

Last night, while I was teaching a night lab, they called again. Faervas answered the phone, and the girl did the same thing. Tried to pretend that she was a friend of mine, and then started in on the script. Faervas told her: Didn't she tell you guys to go to hell yesterday? Then why the fuck are you calling? When I got home, he told me about it, and I bet him 10.00 that they call back tonight... ;) .

I'll be really, really steamed if the 'golden rule' wins out in this case. I hope that some measure is enacted to allow us to deal with the avalanche of spam that is making email useless as well...

Regards,
Nydia Ywalmoriel
Autonomous Collective

Don't forget to use the words "take me off your list."

Don't forget to use the words "take me off your list." Be much more careful about what you say. Be specific about what list.

We have been pretty lucky so far with getting phone calls.The phone company screwed up and listed our computer line as our main phone line,so when we are not connected(which is rare),we know it's telemarketers and just don't answer.

Telemarketers should all be herded together and locked in special prisons. The prisons should then broadcast nonstop offers for "new and exciting deals on long-distance service brought to you by MCI/PacBell/Sprint/OtherFucktards." Ear plugs will be a commodity reserved for the guards...

I'd wager five bucks that they would all kill themselves or at least pierce their eardrums after a month.

These telemarketers you hate so bad, pay taxes, and are making a pertty decent living doing it. What would you think if they all lost their jobs and you had to pay 2-3x as much in taxes to cover the unemployment, welfare, and foodstamps?

They can be annoying, but face it, they are just doing their job trying to make an honest living. If the call center has any class like mind does, we place people on our Do Not Call list no matter what client they came from.

If we call you offering msn internet and say do not call me, our call center will never call you offering you free caller id for a month. :)

I also send these do not calls per client back to the provider so they can be removed from future telemarketing list. They should make it a requirement that all call centers join the DMA (http://www.the-dma.org). :)

Dart,

How do you get off every telemarketers list? I have never nor will I ever by something from them, I have only had 1 long distance company since I bought my house and wont change(not that they make any money I use my cell for all long distance).

A better question is why should a telemarketer call and not be on the line when I pick up. I get no less than 10 message a day with a computer call number(or call blocked) and after the 30 seconds per message time limit, there still isnt anyone on the line.

Why do I have to opt out of list instead of opting into list? you have to sign up for tech lists, or at SAMs, but you can be called at anytime by any organization without a choice, why do the American people have the responsibility to remove themselves from a list they didnt sign up for?

Now congress did screw up and act unfairly against the telemarketing folks, by making them the only ones you opt out of, where as they can call for money for campaigns anytime. That is known as preferencial treatement and it is against the law, in that regard the Judge in Colorado did the right thing. To fix the problem they need to have an opt out list that covers charities, politician and telemarketers, then no one gets to cry foul. In addition, it doesnt fall under the FTC only the list also has FCC implications since it is a communications medium that the calls come in on. The FCC will probably be required to maintain the list.

Rev

Not long ago, I got a call from my old University Alumni.

At that point in time, I was in a fairly good mood, so the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Them: Hi, this is soandso from blahblahblah is this (My Name)?
Me: HOLY SHIT! HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER? The feds said nobody would ever find me!
Them: Eh...ummm
Me: Oooohhh.... I gotta call my handler *click*

They never called back.

What I also like to do is ask whomever calls to sell me whatever I happen to need at the time. If I'm short on bread, for example, I'll decline their offer of a timeshare but offer them a five dollar tip if they run down to the store and get me bread and deliver it. I've yet to have anyone take me up on this offer (mainly because most call centers operate away from the location territory which they target).

Actually, the list just prevents cold calling thus far. aka, getting a telephone book and making a lead set from it.

If you have a previously established business relationship with me, then me and my partners can still call you and circumvent the list.

One of our outbound clients is JOL(The horny goat weed company/Gerovita). When that list goes active, I will flag those records saying that they were on the list to show we are using it, but we will dial them anyway. The same goes with the state to state Do Not Call lists.

Have you ever signed up for a credit card? Guess what, they do in fact give your name and phone number to their Partners to sell to you. Why would they be a partner if they aren't getting something from it. Guess what, you can even use the credit card you got from company x to pay for whatever they are trying to sign you up for!!11!

You would really be surprised where 'these people' get your phone number from.

Their isn't some underground conspiracy that has a covert organization making sure that everyone gets telemarketing calls. I have been in the telemarketing industry for 5 years now, and have done many many different projects for a very large varieties of clients.

Back to cold calling. About the only cold calling going on these days is long distance service on the residential end.(Business numbers are under a much more lenient set of guidelines for getting telemarketed, and get more 'special offers' because of this).

A lot of the hype behind this list is that it will stop telemarketing calls altogether, when in fact it doesn't. The TCPA/Telephone Consumer Protection Act states that if you state that you would like to be placed on a do not call list, that the center has 30 days to get you on that list, and maintain it for 7 years. In that grace period, they can continue to call you.

That call center won't call you again. Call Center B(Same Company) working the list a month later can in factcall you again legally. I take Do Not Call laws very seriously, and while this will cause some damage initially, the calls to your house will keep coming.

About the only cold calling going on these days is long distance service on the residential end.

Absolutely false. Period. Every call I receive is a cold call. They've bought a list of names.

And as for putting people out of work, I stopped caring when they started using machines to make the calls. The majority of calls I get are made by machines.

That "call comes in but nobody is there" might be an automated calling routine. The same ones that go into the "please hold on the line for a very important call" and then give you to a live person/ (Genesys or something like that).

Sometimes the voice recognition system can't recognize your voice OR your answering machine is answering outside of the timeout settings for that system.

The net result is that you get dead air if you answer yourself or 9 or 10 bogus answering machine messages.

ya it boggles my mind if you ask them "take me off your calling list please" 95% of the time they stop calling.

if they do you ask to speak to a manager and tell the manager you have audio of company telling me they are taking me off your list and you still haven’t and you are recording this message. If they call you back again you will be hearing from my lawyer.



99.9% of the time this works...

my roommate and I have 2 phone lines I have one telemarketer call me a month, he has like 15-20 a day call, he fucks with them swears at them, hangs up doesn't answer the phone sometimes, it drives me fucking crazy he cant just tell them to " take me off your list" and few times and it's over. I turn off his ringer when he's not in the house.

Actually, without going into a lot of theory I'll explain dead calls. Laws are in place to try and limit this as a matter of fact. When you call a number, if you don't have a live operator available to answer the phone, you have less than a second before you must hang up.

Predictive Calling

This is an outbound campaign that will dial with more lines than available agents. Normally this is set at 3 lines for every 2 agents or more, or at a % of connect rate. That means if I have 100 agents dialing, I have 150 telephone lines dialing out.

This is fast dialing, and occasionally it does occur where you get 3 live people instead of the predicted 2 that you would get, and without an agent available, you are forced to abort the call or be in violation.

Faster that line to agent dialing dialing uses % of connection. The line to agent ratio will keep going up until I reach a point where I am dropping (for the arguement of discussion) 5% of my calls. This means that the dialer will try and pace itself so I only drop 5 calls to dead air out of every hundred. it can grow to 8 lines per agent if a bad spot in a record set comes up.

When you hit the good spot, the dialer has to know hey I'm dropping 10 calls for every hundred, I need to decrease the line to agent ratio. Dialers are amazing equipment :)

Now if you are getting hold music, that means that person calling you definately has a business relationship. Any other time, a live operator has to be on hook(Talking to you) within the per second time limit(Varies by state).

Machine dialers without live agents are illegal. It says that in the TCPA. There are situations where it is legal though, with an Existing Business Relationship, but it's kind of a grey area.

A better question is why should a telemarketer call and not be on the line when I pick up. I get no less than 10 message a day with a computer call number(or call blocked) and after the 30 seconds per message time limit, there still isnt anyone on the line.Predictive dialing. Most cold-calls end in no-answers, voicemail, etc. They're calling numbers in blocks of 3-4 and sometimes they get "lucky" and more of them answer than they have people to route the call to.

The best thing to do with telemarketers:

POSTelemarketer: "Hi sir would you like to change your long distance service to AT&T??"
Me: "Well... hmm.. why should I change my long distance service? Im just going to kill myself after I get off the phone with you..."
POSTelemarketer: "Uh.."
Me: ".... unless.. hmm unless you can talk me out of it.."

Things get pretty interesting from there.

(Note: this was stolen from a stand up comedian whose name I cannot remember. Think they also did something similiar on Friends, I'm not sure. Doesnt mean its not fun though!)

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

This NEW hold on the list is based on free speech grounds - congress has no say in it now, it has to be decided by the judicial system, which is screwy to say the least.


Congress absolutely has a say. Let the courts interpret how they will, then congress could reword the law to get around the loophole if they get the votes. Just because something is in an ammendment doesn't mean it can't be changed.

These telemarketers you hate so bad, pay taxes, and are making a pertty decent living doing it. What would you think if they all lost their jobs and you had to pay 2-3x as much in taxes to cover the unemployment, welfare, and foodstamps?Wait a minute, that's a pretty big jump to make. If they couldn't make phone calls at times targeted to reach me when I get off work and am home for dinner, they'd be unemployed? Bull honkey. I've worked wage jobs before, and around very wierd schedules. I could have worked a call center, there's certainly plenty where I live, but there's also a matter of taking a job with some honor in it. It's a choice, I highly doubt anyone is forced into a call center.

This is what makes the free speech issue laughable. The spirit of the law tends to reflect free speech that expresses opinions (be it art form, literature, clothing choices, etc.). I'd bet money that the majority of people out there would box telemarketers into the harassment category.

In other words it's my damn phone, stop calling. What we need are stricter laws targeted at people abusing media for advertising, not just casual lists.

I know how call centers work - even if you ask to be taken off their list, another center selling the same product can still call you. And they know it. Phone companies have been specifically targeting individuals during family times, time off work, and so forth. Screw 'em. Nothing malicious towards you, but it is your choice to work the job.


-Kanyli

That call center won't call you again. Call Center B(Same Company) working the list a month later can in factcall you again legally. I take Do Not Call laws very seriously, and while this will cause some damage initially, the calls to your house will keep coming.

So you are saying it is a war?

Telemarketers have found a way to steal peoples time and turn that into money. They don't pay the people who they call for their time. It isn't an option.

Stealing cars is a job. It should be illegal.

Telemarketing should be too.

If stealing cars was legal, I'd hold car thieves in as much contempt as I hold telemarketers.

So, you need the job? Are your kids starving to death?

I mean, what else would justify stealing the time of millions of people for money?