Comments on: Synergistic Annoyance Convergence

By: andy

andy — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 03:35:10 +0000

I thought you were joking about the convergence until my phone rang and informed me that a cable company had just called, and their number was…. (I stayed on the phone out of curiousity to see what they would say, and the line went dead!) Which leads me to wonder, why don’t they just call us once a year and tell us all of the companies that called us and how many times they tried. Maybe they could do that with spam too.

By: harry

harry — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:34:34 +0000

Am I the only person who find the pervasiveness of strong Indian accents to be the single mitigating factor in what is otherwise the awfulness of spending your whole life on the phone with strangers?

By: yabonn

yabonn — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 10:45:19 +0000

It would appear, from your experience, that some companies need to hire more operators Or could it be they are paid per call, whatever happens next?

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 05:35:44 +0000

I would think that it would make more sense for the US to have a ban on telemarketers calling cellphones, since cellphone owners in the US pay for incoming calls (I think). Stealing your time is one thing, but stealing your money is another.

By: fyreflye

fyreflye — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 04:43:00 +0000

Just keep chanting “Hari Krishna, Hari Rama” till they hang up.

By: eszter

eszter — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 04:28:56 +0000

I also recall seeing somewhere that telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones. Unfortunately, telling your callers this still requires you to answer the annoying calls and lose your minutes while doing so. I suspect what may have happened in your case is that the phone number you got had been assigned to a landline previously. If I were you, I’d call up my provider and ask to have the number changed to one that was guaranteed never a landline number and preferably one that has not been in service for a while. (Actually, I’m surprised that the exchanges would be mixed landline and cell numbers.) Recall my nutty experience. knock on wood I haven’t had any problems with my new number. As for the do-not-call registry, I finally got a landline due to DSL and I do get marketing calls although not too often (yet). This is despite the fact that I registered the number on the do-not-call registry the moment I got it. Sure, when people call I tell them that I’m on that list and they apologize and say I’ll be removed, but that’s not much help after waking me up at 8am on a Saturday morning (when I had gone to bed at 3am the night before). I think you should change your number, these things don’t just go away.

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 03:49:59 +0000

What is does is make it less likely you will wait and say, “Please put me on your do not call list.”

By: lago

lago — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 03:42:11 +0000

I think the FCC imposes serious fines on those who call mobile phones for marketing purposes in the States, since it violates federal regulations for telemarketers to use automatic dialing equipment to call mobile phones and almost all telemarketers use this equipment. In seven years of US mobile phone ownership I have received one telemarketing call, which ended in a profuse apology from the caller after I told them they had called a mobile phone. I seem to recall that individuals can sue for $500 in damages per call, should they have the time and inclination to do so.

By: George Williams

George Williams — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 02:45:13 +0000

As for the “All of our operators…” message: telemarketing calls from the big firms are dialed automatically by computer and then routed to the first available operator. The desired best-case scenario is that a call goes to an operator at the exact moment the operator becomes available. That way, no operator is ever idle for too long (maximizing the company’s investment in labor) and no potential customer ever receives the “All of our operators…” message (minimizing the chances the customer will hang up). It would appear, from your experience, that some companies need to hire more operators or make the current ones reduce their average call time.

By: jam

jam — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 02:05:53 +0000

Maybe it’s a screening device. Those who in fact do hold are precisely those who are likely to buy.

By: kamajii

kamajii — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 01:45:25 +0000

Have 2 numbers with AT&T Wireless, and over 4 years and have never received a single call from a telemarketer, Indian or otherwise. I never publish the number anywhere. Since the advent of the ‘Do Not Call’ registry, I don’t receive calls on my wired phone either, except from Democratic fundraisers, who claim they’re exempt from the list.