A couple of years ago I wrote the following…
“When the sea of societal ills is so shallow that “phone calls I don’t like” is scraped from the bottom and added to the legislative agenda, when the public tolerance for disagreeable things has dropped so low that “I have to hold my breath” is a complaint worthy of the commiseration of 100,000 radio listeners, we have a problem.”
Well, with two years of said “no-call” legislation under the nation’s belt, it seems that it isn’t having the intended effect;
The 2006 legislation underpinning the do-not-call list appears to be a huckster’s dream. The process of investigating complaints and meting out penalties is dawdling along at such a leisurely pace that it’s hardly a deterrent to flouting the rules.
This is beautiful with a capital “B”. Unlike most nanny state regulations that afflict the unsuspecting and uncomplaining, this one is coming back to bite the very people who wanted it most.
So, I hope that list is sold to every third world call center on the planet, ’cause my number ain’t on it.
Via Chuck Adler.
First! Haha, that was gold, Kate! People shouldn’t get angry if someone calls them. How hard is it to hang up? Better yet, tell them this:
“I do impressions! This is my impression of me hanging up on you”.
“..??..”
>
*click.*
Yeah I also figured that no-call list was a sucker list…..
I have the the resolve to just hang up on “is Mr or Mrs. …….”
I don’t rush to the phone, and don’t waste time responding or listening.
A fella with a Hinglish accent, representing himself as BELL TELEPHONE almost got me. He was speelling off my info real good and was offering a REAL, REAL good deal on hi-speed internet. Even when I told him hi-speed was not available he BSed about new technology…. then he asked me for my credit card number—-I hung up and called the cops.
The Do Not Call registry works just fine in the US. I don’t know why it shouldn’t work in Canada.
I have a do not answer registry. If the call display shows an unfamiliar or blocked number, then I do not answer. Works for me.
mike
The “do not call” list is administered by the CRTC. The list is SOLD to telemarketers. Why would they prosecute their clients? The larger the list the more valuable it is, the more money they make.
It would be a lot more palatable if the money received from a sold list is distributed to the names on the list. However, the whole thing stinks of corruption. In principal it is not much different than the Bernie Madoff scheme. Instead of money its our identity. They duped the public, again.
I agree with Roger. How hard is it to hang up on people?
Adler was sure singing your praises today on the air.
He point blank said you nailed it.
When I get these calls I just tell them Ive had a heart attack & have little life span to waste on them.
I seldom answer my phone. My friends know to send me an e-mail if they want to communicate. If a call is important, the caller will leave a message on my voice mail. My philosophy is that my telephone is for my convenience, to make calls I want to make. If the recipient of my call doesn’t answer, then I leave a message on his voice mail and it becomes his choice whether to reply or not. It’s a simple system and it works well. I never have to deal with phone solicitations.
The trouble with the “do not call” list is it doesn’t apply outside of Canada.
I got sooooo many calls from some Indian outfit, that I finally canceled my land-line and now rely only on my cell, the number of which I am very careful about giving out, especially online where I suspect they are asking for it only for the purpose of selling it.
I pleaded with the Indian call centre folks again and again and again to take my number off their list, but to no avail, even though they promised they would. I was getting three or four calls a day from them. I disagree with Kate that these calls are just “disagreeable”. They amount to harassment.
I just keep repeating “Hello?” with a deep nazal retarded type voice.
…Hello?…
– Is this Mr. X.?
…Hello?…
– Hello Mr X. I’m from ABC firm and…
…Hello?…
– they stop, and then ask again if I’m Mr. X.
“yes”
– They then go on with their spiel…
…Hello?…
– silence.
…Hello?…
– *click*
Posted by: mike at July 9, 2010 5:28 PM
That’s all I do Mike. My most common numbers have their own ring as well.
Another enabler are the phone companies like Telus. I recently discovered the number of a telemarketer using the *69 service. Upon calling them back, discovered that the number was not in service. Called Telus to inquire as to why their *69 service returned a number that was not in use. They informed me that they give out these kind of numbers just so that the telemarketers cannot be called back. There’s good customer service for you – we wouldn’t want those money generating telemarketers being disturbed by law-abiding citizens who have supported Telus for over 30 years, now would we?
By the way, I have jumped through all of the hoops to register 2 complaints with the CRTC many months ago. Seems they went into a black hole somewhere.
Here’s the thing about a ringing phone – it means someone would like to talk to you. It does not necessarily mean you would like to talk to him. If you don’t want to talk, let the thing ring. Even the dullest caller will give up after a dozen rings or so.
If the ringing bothers you, turn the bell off or stick the phone in a drawer. Call display or voice mail will let you know if you’ve missed anything important.
telephone marketers? Easy!
When they first try to sell you something, reply “Thank God! A thought it was another collection agency! Please go on!” Only the stupid ones don’t get the message.
I tell them to call me at my work 1-800-701-7789.
My phone has been unlisted for 16 years. I get no solicitations on that line.
My biz phone is set to take messages and I return calls. The sales ghouls never leave a message.
I have no problem.
However …
If and when you do get a call from a sales dork, just feign interest than quickly ask them to hold for a moment while you change phones or whatever. Then just leave them there. Eventually they will hate the wasted time “as you do” and take you off their call list. They have quotas and time is money.
Twas a stupid idea to begin with, how feeble minded are some Canadians that they can’t hang up on telemarketers?
Talk to them for a short time, tell them to hold on for a sec “someone is at the door”, carry on with your normal business and burn up the telemarketers time while he/she waits for your return. Time is money to them.
Astonishingly to me, I have started to enjoy intrusive telemarketing calls. It seems to be the only time I can unleash a bit of appropriate bile on a foreigner without censoring myself for the usual reasons. Upon hanging up, I find that the process has had quite a refreshing, if not restorative, effect.
I cannot recommend it more highly.
Sometime ago I put myself in charge of the “Don’t Answer List”.
Utilizing the wonders of caller ID combined with how I feel at the moment, I answer or not.
Syncro
The way to stop the calls is to advise the caller that you will call the company that they are representing and tell them in no uncertain terms you will never deal with them, and if you currently are dealing with them, you will stop.
You have to go directly to the organization that is hiring the telemarketers.
Mike!!
You mean you handle the problem all on your own?!?
You make an independent decision that gives you power over your own phone?!?
And you don’t need a nanny state to make your life near perfect?!?
WoW!! What a concept!!
Me too…ain’t it great?!!
Of course you could always do something like this.
http://www.glumbert.com/media/telemarketer
Kate
To be grateful for what we have, accept our own burdens, and mourn quietly for what we lose.
That is all.
Syncro
The no-call list is brought to us curiosity of the same people that brought us the long gun registry. They are both very effective at meeting their stated goals
Unless a family member is out of the country, we don’t answer long distance calls: three rings. If it’s a bona fide call, the caller leaves a message.
On the few occasions that I answer a telemarketing call, I say, immediately,”Is this telemarketing?” The L-O-N-G pause before the answer always gives it away.
I say, “I’m not interested, thank you very much,” and immediately hang up. Being polite helps me feel no guilt at all!
I don’t know what the problem with the Canadian DNC list is but it has worked fine for me in the US. The only time it hasn’t worked is when I moved and forgot to add my new number to the list. AT&T called me once and I informed them to put me on their DNC list. They called me the next day and I informed them they had exhausted their one mistake allowable under the law. They never called back.
Our law does not apply to political calls, so when I was at home studying the week before primary elections I had to turn off my phone.
Most recently I got repeated calls from people claiming to be with the US Census trying to verify information. I told them I can’t see their credentials over the phone and I refused to answer their questions. They told me I was required to answer and I told them “F you and F your law.” They said they’d keep calling back and I said I’d keep hanging up.
I checked the Census website and there is a way to verify their call if and only if you have the Census form number which we did not save. They never offered alternative means for us to verify their identity, they just told me to respect their authorite!
We were getting persistent calls from a duct cleaning service, until I finally agreed to let them come over and give an estimate.
I gave them our address but forgot to mention I live in a rental apartment, haven’t heard from them since.
Now I don’t bother to answer, call display works fine.
> it’s hardly a deterrent to flouting the rules.
I’ve been saying it all along.
Pay $2 a month for a non-listing service to Bell or get onto VOIP and problem solved.
No one knows my phone number except those with whom I shared it and an odd telemarketer who is going by sequential number rather than by phone book.
Caller ID is worth its weight in gold. If I don’t recognize the number (esp. if it starts with 800, 888, 866 or some other BS area code), I don’t pick-up. If it’s legit, they leave a message…. Funnily enough the only messages I get on my phone is from numbers I recognize…. problem solved. Got 4 phones in the house… only the base unit has the ring-tome turned on, meaning I don’t hear the ring a lot of the time when telescum call… it’s all in how you use tech. If everyone had caller ID and used it intelligently (I know, impossible….) telemarketing would die a quick and painful death.
Two words: -unlisted-number-.
Sometime ago I put myself in charge of the “Don’t Answer List”.
Utilizing the wonders of caller ID combined with how I feel at the moment, I answer or not.
Syncro
Posted by: syncrodox at July 9, 2010 6:46 PM
This.
And … GASP … it doesn’t require a new government agency.
I use my call display like a lot of the other posters- I don’t answer unless the number is someone I want to talk to.the voicemail is there for people that need to get ahold of me although I don’t regularily check voicemail either. fact is I’m just not a phone person. sometimes when I feel like being a prick I’ll answer a 866 number and snarl at the caller but mostly they go unanswered and this system works fine for me.
To think at one time even getting a Party line (Multiple user, like todays CB’)
phone was an event the whole family celebrated.
Now some have our phones in castles, dreading the ring, like cattle the prod.
When times change, the social climate reflects this.
Not unusual in this age that young girls like dead boys. Necrophilia by TV. Phones become predators
stalking us, interrupting our timed lives.
JMO
Like someone above said, it works in the USA why not here?
For an elderly person, these calls are more than a headache, annoying and frustrating. I did go on the no-call list and it has weeded out all of the telemarketers with the exception of Bell and Sears.
Bell has been pushing a free cell phone and the Indian call centre will ask for your social insurance number in order to check your credit rating at the same time you’re telling them you’re not interested.
Sears is offering their telephone service right now so that can account for some of the nuisance calls. When they’re not doing that, they’re trying to get you to purchase an extended warranty for your last purchase.
The computers are programmed to call at different hours in order to catch you in up to 9.00 p.m. The corporations using this system to promote products and services should be fined heavily. It’s as much an invasion of my privacy and wellbeing as all the blasted junk mail I have to pay someone to take to the dump.
I must agree about the call display. Our kids had to convince us to pay the extra for it, but now it is one of the things you would have to “pry from my cold dead hands”, so to speak. I have not talked to a tele-marketer for at least 3 years. Although, I must add, I never did see what the big deal is……how hard is it to say “no thanks, I am not interested”, hang up, and then just carry on with what you were doing? Never for a minute thought about joining “the list”.
I don’t answer the phone, I have a machine that does that. If I recognize the person leaving a message and I want to speak with them then I pick up.
What sort of idiot thinks they have to answer the phone every time it rings? Get a life.
Great article Kate.
“The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” ~Ronald Reagan
A whole new “Ministry of Do Not Call” Empire is created we will never be rid of it and the leeches that “work” under it’s employ!!!
“There Ought To Be A Law” to cut government in half.
This is a great tactic…same problem
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/07/4-million-fake.php
WTF? Now we have spam here on SDA?!?
I was visiting a frend a while back when he answered a phone call during dinner, We were all shocked when he started screaming, begging for mercy then subsided into choking gasps,and thumping the reciever, the phone was left to dangle as a small tinny voice said Sir? Sir? until the beeper started sounding.Claimed it was an excelent stress reliever.
Everyone’s circumstances are different. We have elderly parents living in a different province and teen to young adults as children … and we live on the west coast. To be awakened by a 5-6am call from some eastern bastard … I just wish I could kick the shit out of the f*cker … and, no, I don’t care that they are just trying to make a living.
Having worked in the telemarketing industry, double zero, I can tell you that most telemarketing firms are very careful to respect normal calling times. We stop calling at 9 pm, even if the customer is interested, and asks us to call back at 9:30 pm when he gets back from work. Our systems won’t let us do it. When we’re calling consumers, we rarely start calling before 4:30 pm, because it’s a waste of time – all you’ll get is Ring No Answer or answering machines – unless you’re specifically targeting people who’re home during the day. I remember times when we ran out of Ontario numbers to call early in the shift, and had to wait 10-15 minutes before Manitoba “opened up”.
However, we decide where you are based on the area code of your phone. So, if you have an Eastern time zone phone automatically call forwarded to the West Coast, you might get a call early in the morning. Sorry, pal, but how are we supposed to know? But I know from experience this hardly ever happens.
I have developed several way’s of dealing with this problem. I may tell them yes this is Celina, and then listen as the give their spiel. After a long dead silence, they will say Celina? … Celina… and then they hang up!
Another way is to steer the conversation. Ask where they are calling from? Whats the weather like in New Delhi? Are you married? How many kids do you have? etc…
After ten minutes or so I tell them I don’t want a vacation in Las Vegas, and say goodbye.
If you have time, burn their’s. It can be entertaining and educational, especially for the children listening.
Hmmm…I was always taught to be polite. When a phone rings, it means someone wants to talk to you and the polite thing to do is to answer, if you are able to.
So, I answer. And I listen patiently to their opening spiel and wait for the opportunity to say “I’m not interested, thank you…no…no…I’m really not interested, thank you”. After this, I feel that I have been sufficiently polite and conscientious to be justified in hanging up.
D@mn christi@n upbringing!
Does anyone know what percentage of telemarketing calls are actually successful? I don’t know anyone who actually buys something from these calls, and I know hundreds who don’t. The best way to stop all these calls would be to make them ineffectual.
The Mr or Mrs is an automatic hang up along with the delay while the computer tells an operator they got a human that is now gone.
It is illegal for Bell to ask your SIN number. By Federal law it is to be used only for taxation and benefits. It cannot be used as ID. Use it in a bank sometime. They will take it but look pretty squeamish about it.
Signed up for DNC at the very beginning and that did stop almost all telemarketing calls. I was getting 10 to 15 a day.
A couple of companies were trying to circumvent the “rules”, as I got a call for a survey from Ekos or some such polling company (love to give my opinion!) that ended with a pitch for some product. Another company was calling about telecommunications (exempt) and then went on to sell carpet cleaning.
The few telemarketers that still call continue to get hung up on, or if I have time to waste, I tell them how lonely I am, how happy I am to have someone to talk to, and go on to speak gibberish – that usually ends the call.
Now, whenever I am asked for my phone #, I give my cell #, it never gets any calls from telemarketers. Wonder if there is a reason for that.