Maybe, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on politicians getting rid of opinion polling anytime soon. 
This.
You only let them into your home if you answer the phone. Yes, it’s annoying that they “knock on the front door,” but you don’t have to answer. If the ringing bothers you, then turn off the ringer of your phone and check for calls periodically.
:eek:
This statement just cries out for CITE?!!
(snip)
That’s exactly what the last “survey” I took was like. And I haven’t agreed to take any since.
I read it with an interpretation that gives Dear Abby the benefit of the doubt. Making her sentence a little more long-winded “Many of those who you pester have done the best they can to stop unsolicited calls by registering for the Do Not Call list and are irritated that there is no way to expand their entry on the DNC list to include ALL unsolicited callers including survey takers”.
I conducted a telephone survey asking if people minded taking telephone surveys.
The responses were lopsided, to say the least.
Why give her the benefit of the doubt? She’s supposed to be a professional writer! If your quote was her intention she could have said exactly that or something similar, but what she said was flat out wrong. She’s either incredibly bad at expressing what she actually means or she’s misinformed herself and too lazy to fact check, and she’s spreading wrong information and ignorance either way.
Once in the last presidential election, I got a call for a short survey. It really was short, I think like 2 or 3 questions. I suspect they didn’t like what I had to say because I didn’t fall into the opinion they wanted
The last political survey I did was hysterically funny. It was all about the upcoming NJ senate primary and obviously funded by Cory Booker or Frank Pallone. I listened to it because I was curious about the race. The only thing the call did was convince me I should vote for Rush Holt, a scientist who I had not heard about before. I got the guy on the phone the next day and was even more impressed.
Rush Holt for Senate!
This is not a paid political ad. Mr. Holt has no idea who the hell I am.
Pretty much it for me. If a number comes up on my cellphone that I don’t recognize, I let it go to voicemail. Back when I had a landline, for my entire adult life I screened everything through my answering machine. Family and friends knew to just start talking at the beep, and if I was there and available, I’d pick up.
I have a personal quote/mantra for this;
My telephone exists for my convenience.
When it stops being convenient, I stop using it.
I tend to agree, and I work in the industry! 
I might agree that “most people like being able to give their opinion”, but I would be extremely surprised if you found that even a significant minority like taking phone surveys.
Phone surveys are fairly intrusive (since they’re not scheduled for a time when the interviewee has agreed to be available), tend to be on the long side (15 or 20 minutes is not uncommon for a legitimate telephone survey), and too many people have had (or have heard about) bad experiences with the things already mentioned in this thread (selling under the guise of research, political “push polls”, etc.)
I read Dear Abby’s response the same way that Canadjun did. Perhaps the problem is less with Abby’s ability to cram her meaning into a 600 word column every day and more with your ability to glean said meaning from her writing.
In any case, you’re picking a nit that doesn’t need picking.
My husband doesn’t answer calls on his cell from numbers that he doesn’t recognize. The last time our old house got burgled, he went to the old house, waiting for the cops. The cop assigned to his case called from a cell, my husband didn’t recognize the number, and much confusion ensued.
Her column gets edited, apparently by the same method that the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy got edited, by passing random strangers. Seriously, if you look at the same column in different papers, you’ll notice that someone has cut a lot from one column.
I kind of like answering surveys, IF they are genuine surveys and IF I’m not doing anything more interesting at the time. Since both of these conditions are rarely true at the same time, I usually decline. Now, if it’s a political survey, I have lots of fun. I’m a yellow dog Democrat in Texas, and this means that my opinions are usually pretty different from my neighbors’. I view political surveys as my chance to set the record straight. I also view them as a way to vent my spleen about Governor Good Hair.
Ah, so now my reading comprehension skills are suspect. Classy notch to kick it up to there, Bo.
I have no dog in the fight and don’t care one way or the other about Dear Abby’s grasp of federal law, I’m just engaging in that favorite pastime of lawyers everywhere of pointing out when people publish incorrect statements of law. I’ll drop it if everyone else does.
Before answering any survey, I would always ask if they are going to sell me something. Recently, after being assured “no,” I answered a very realistic sounding phone survey about what kind of cars we had, their ages, number of miles, etc. At the end of the survey the caller thanked me and said they entered everyone who completed the survey in a drawing for a “free gift.” Several days later someone called and said I’d won the" free gift," an air filtration system for my house: they would come out and install it and I only had to pay for it if I decided to keep it after a month. No, I don’t think so . . .
I’ve not answered a survey since. I’d be glad to answer real ones, but too are scams and they will lie toy just to try to hook you.
not even close. My son worked as a phone surveyor for a summer, for a reputable pollster that actually DOES surveys (the Marist Poll, for those interested) rather than the bait and switch that many have described. “Most people,” in his experience, had Zero interest in answering phone surveys. Hard to believe that his experience was all that atypical.
If you mean recorded messages, they are illegal in NC, with a $500 fine. Unfortunately, in practice, it’s not feasible to collect the fine, as far as I can tell.
I have a little more sympathy for political and scientific surveys, than for telemarketing (for which I have none). In between are market research surveys – in that case it depends on my interest in the market segment.
I’m sorely tempted to ask telemarketers, “Can you please hold?” and set the phone down, and see how patient they are. IMHO, if you want to do something rude, annoying, and effective (in reducing their call rate), that’s the best response I can think of. But I don’t. (I have a friend who says "Well, let’s see what Rover has to say about that, and calls the dog.)
I generally let the machine pick up if the caller ID is suspicious or uninformative. If I get repeated calls from the same number, I set the machine to block those calls. On my mobile, I add the number to a “SPAM” contact, which has a very quiet and short ring tone.
Actually, I always pick up when it says “Private Caller”, as 99 times out of 100 it’s my mother.
You’re lucky - I keep getting phone companies trying to get me to switch my service disguised as surveys.
"Did you know you are being charged an excessive fee by AT&T?
Would you like to stop paying that fee?
Note that you will still be served by AT&T, but you will be paying your bills to FlyByNight Phone Company."
The second time somebody tried this:
(them) "Did you know you are being charged an excessive fee by AT&T?
(me) "Before you go on, could you tell me which phone company you work for?
(them) (pause…click)
Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t understand why freedom of speech requires an exemption for surveys.
There’s absolutely nothing incorrect about what Dear Abby wrote. Surveyors do ignore the Do Not Call list, and that does bother a lot of people. The fact that they’re allowed, by law, to ignore the list is immaterial to the complaint.