ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area one for the telemarketers....

This doo-dad seems to be better than the Tely-Zapper and is less than $50. It seems to have cut down on junk faxes.

http://www.sandman.com/tmstop.html

Hey, Doc,

I have a solution for those unread magazines piling up in the bathroom...
Raisin Bran & Maxwell House

Quite a bit of discussion on this recently at www.telecom-digest.org for anyone interested.

I live in MO and we have a state controlled list. You put your name on the no-call list and the telemarketers are not supposed to call you. It works for the most part. After getting on the list the volume of calls fell way off.

On a related note... Do you get lots of junk mail from credit cards and banks and such? I've taken to writing a big NO THANK YOU on the form and then mailing the whole package back to them in their pre-stamped envolope. They can throw away the trash.

Sometimes I ever send them other poeples stuff - thought they might be want to buy it since I did not.

Try this it make you feel good.

LOL DB!
I've done that. There's this certain credit card company that has spent countless postage over years trying to solict me.
hmmmmmm.......
I gotta ask the postmaster if pre-paid envelopes can be pasted to a brick?!?

In new york state just go to https://www.nynocall.com/index.html

Fill out the form and within 4-8 weeks you will not get any further calls.

If you do get calls as I did.. This was good.. You call New York state complain department and file a complaint against the telemarketer, call verison file a complaint with them and call the attorney general's office and file a third complaint against them.

Never got another call again from them. They were fines $5,000.00 for each call they made to me and were nearly taken out of business..

My way of getting even....

>

James

For the junk mailers I just mail back thier business return envelope with nothing in it. Let them pay for postage twice when they send the junk, and the hassel of opening empty envelopes.

Heh Heh Heh... One of my favorite topics.

I worked for the phone company on a contract at a federal facility and did some toe-to-toe conflict management dealings with a couple of them. We had two full exchanges (the middle three digits of a 10-digit phone number) for a total of 20,000 phone lines and guess who's name was on the bill and who had the phone number listed for billing?... Yep, mine.

It was pretty easy to say "You know, as a Federal facility, we're not allowed to participate in any surveys or purchase any goods without going through the extensive legal verifications and a competitive bid process. Can I get your Tax ID number and .. hello? Hello? Oh bummer, lost another one... heh heh heh...

At home, when I get those calls that are just 'dead air' when I answer, I hang up. If they don't have a human waiting with baited breath to talk to me, then I don't give them one on my end either. That's an auto dialer that's waiting on a human voice response.

The heck of the Privacy Plus feature is this - it's usually YOUR PHONE COMPANY that has sold YOUR PHONE NUMBER to the people who they now are protecting YOU from while you pay the ADDITIONAL CHARGE for the privacy service. Man, I wish I was getting the internal company bonus for thinking up that marketing scheme!!! I'd have all the privacy an island getaway could offer!!

The Telezapper is nifty but if you have a regular old answering machine (as opposed to voice mail), you can go to www.privatecitizen.com and record the SIT tones (the sound of a disconnected phone number) and when the autodialer gets the tone from your recording, they mark your number as being disconnected.

As for the human voice on the other end of the phone who calls up and heaven forbid, disrupt the chaos that I claim as my own, I have a number of responses:

1) Hello, Bren. This is blah blah from blah blah company. We're conducting ...blah blah... and we want to know blah blah blah about you (or your home, your credit cards, your whatever). Yeah. Well, I don't share or disclose that information unless I'm doing the soliciting. And, by the way, I do want something... I want you to put me on your 'do not call' list effective today. Can I get your name again. Click. Dang, lost another one.

2) Good evening, Mrs. Buggaboo. We appreciate your donation last year to the blah blah blah organization. Really? How much did I give? Well, I don't have the exact number here right at the moment. Really? I do. Do you want to know how much I gave? Zero. On March 27th, John Smith called and I told him then that this year's money is already committed. Do you see that notation there? I also asked him to remove me from your call list. I have a note of it. (You can almost smell the sweat by now because this guy's thinking 'infraction, small claims court, his quota's gone down the toilet, etc.) Uh, Oh, I do see that (they can't possibly, I'm making it up). I apologize and I'll make sure you're removed.

3) Hi Mrs. B, how are you this evening? Well, I was doing ok.. until my dog just.. oh wait, she's doing it again. Awww, gross!!! I gotta go. click...

4) Is this Bren? Depends, who is this? I'm Joe Schmoe from Capital Co. and we will be in your area... wait, Joe. Where are you now? Really, Phoenix, huh? I've been there. Did you guys get that cold front on Tuesday? We were down Scottsdale back in '92 at blah blah resort. Have you ever been there? Are you in school there or is this your real job? You should really be in radio, you have one of those announcer voices.......

5) Or the cut it short method: Hello Mrs... uh, yes ma'am what was that? I said, "You realize that I had this phone installed for MY communication needs, not yours, right? Well, I don't need anything from you. Don't call again. And by the way, sit up straight and get more sleep, you sound tired."

[This message has been edited by BuggabooBren (edited 04-27-2002).]

You're a piece of work there Bren! LOL!

[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 04-27-2002).]

I just had to post this here.....perhaps all our telemarketers could be persuaded to do thier patriotic duty, and call the Taliban ?

hee..hee....