Did you know that unscheduled is not the same as unsolicited? I cannot find a way to ask that without sounding snarky. I apologize.
Family, friends, associates and companies I do business with have an implied consent to call me. Unsolicited implies a cold call, a complete stranger, it especially implies a sales & charity calls as in “No Solicitors Allowed”.
As far as pollster go, I never use to mind pollsters, but several disreputable telemarketers have ruined this for pollster by trying to disguise their sales pitch in the form of a product poll.
Telemarketers aren’t necessarily all in cahoots, either. One company may have absolutely nothing to do with another, so I think it’s inaccurate to consider them a legion. The company I worked for culled their numbers from telephone books-- probably because they didn’t want the expense of buying lists. AFAIK, they were not in contact with any other telemarketing firm.
There is, of course, a lobby for telemarketers so there is somewhat of an “organized industry” but it’s not as sophisticated as you might think. Not every firm has the same procedures. Rules vary in different regions and the cash flow of the company will determine how much technology they have available. (The place I worked for had no computers. When a call was made, we took the sticker with the number on it and placed it on one of three sheets: sale, re-call and “take off list.”)
As for Caller ID blocking, that’s not always the fault of the telemarketer. In my area, Caller ID always shows “unknown” if the call came from out of state. (It’s the fault of my phone company, I’m told, but they’re the only game in town.)
Sure, there are some who use shifty tactics to get around the gadets that people buy to try to block them, but there’s one sure-fire way of defeating them that they can never get past: don’t answer the phone.
They don’t have to be organized in order to be annoying, do they? Idiot A can call at noon, Idiot B at supper time and Idiot C at midnight, which is something that has actually happened to me. Just as Company A may call and then Company B and so on-- they have no way of knowing I just got a call from their competitor, nor, probably, would they care as they’re not all selling the same product/service.
So you’re saying that I can cheerfully abdicate my telephone privileges as a tactic to avoid telemarketers? That’s like suggesting I not ever eat because there was a poisoning somewhere.
It’s my phone. In my house. I pay for it. I expect to use it. And I expect to not be harassed with it.
I do undertsand your point, but I don’t think anybody can reasonably expect that the only calls that they recieve are ones that they want when they want them, just as you cannot expect that the only people to ring your doorbell will be friends when it’s convenient for them to come.
Because I resent having to answer the phone when I’d rather be reading or watching a movie (regardless of who the caller is) I let almost all of my calls go to the machine and then return the ones I want when it’s convenient to me. It’s a solution which works for me-- your mileage may vary.
I see telemarketing as one of the small annoyances of life, much like door-to-door salesmen and commercials. (I pay for cable-- why should I have to watch stupid commercials, especially on the premium channels?)
Residual defensiveness, I suppose. I probably had to explain a thousand times the difference between pollsters and telemarketers (at least a hundred of those times to my Dad who had some sort of bizarre mental block on the subject).
There are definitely a few firms out there masquerading as market research people who are actually telemarketers - but valid pollsters hate them with a passion I can’t even describe and actively root them out with extreme prejudice. The problem is there was a trend for a few years there of companies conducting their own market research/product polls and springboarding it into a sales pitch. This was an exceptionally bad idea - all it did was hugely cut down on the number of people willing to answer the actual product satisfaction questions. Oh, and irritate the bejesus out of customers.
Every so often, some brain trust would seize on the notion again and sell it to a whole new crop of executives. That is, right up until the DNC registry went active and the companies started getting slapped with really, really big fines for doing this crap.
You know who the biggest fans in the world of the DNC registry were? Pollsters.
I don’t go out of my way to torment them or be rude to them, but here’s how I see it: telemarketing will not stop until it becomes unprofitable. Therefore, the more of the telemarketer’s time I waste, the less time they have to make sales, resulting in lower profits, and getting us one step closer to a telemarketer-free world.
Personally, I just let the marketer go through their entire script, without saying a word. When they reach the first point where they ask for information from me, I say, “No thanks,” and I hang up. No rudeness, no games, but a jolly waste of his time and resources. Hanging up promptly would be doing the telemarketer a favor, and that I am not inclined to do.
And it actually works? I’ve had a similar sign up for years which is duly ignored by every Girl Scout, salesman and Have-Jesus-Will-Travel shiller who comes into the neighborhood. Not to metnion neighbors, Thought-I’d-Drop-By friends and co-workers, and those people whose cars have stalled and want to use the phone or “borrow” five bucks for gas money.
You keep blurring the distinction between vendors and other acquaintances. I have no problem with getting interrupted, at the phone or at the door, by a neighbor or family or the cops. I do have a problem with someone interrupting me because they want to sell me something.
Do you still get Girl Scouts knocking on your door? I would never expect a kid to comply with a “NO SOLICITING” sign. It would be nice if they did, but I would not expect it.
As far as neighbors, why on earth would you consider neighbors coming by to be soliciting? That is a very odd interpretation.
If a salesperson or religion pushers comes by, then it would be a very appropriate time to at least be snarky and ask if they can read. You might even consider calling the cops and including a license plate number if available. What they are doing is very rude and possible illegal. I have no clue on where “NO SOLICITING” signs have any legal enforcement behind them.
Someone in need of help for a broken down car, well if you are worried about it, make a call to the police for them. It is the very least any of us could do. I have never had a stranger knock on my door and ask for $5 for gas money. Has this really happened to you or was it just an example?
I lump them together under the category of “minor annoyance” or “unwanted interruption.” The fact that one is a sales call and the other is friendly is not the issue. I get interupted just the same if it’s a salesperson or my neighbor asking to borrow sugar. I’m a very private person and I only want to socialize when I’m in the mood to do so, and as a result, a co-worker or the neighbors knocking on the door is even more of an annoyance than simply reciting the “magic words” and hanging up on a telemarketer.
As for Girl Scouts, yes, they do come to my door. I live in the Historic District of my town, and people seem to think that we who live in the big old houses must have money to spare and that it’s a safe place to drop off the kids when it’s time to sell cookies or to collect for school fundraisers. And, yes, it gets annoying after the fourth or fifth kid rings the bell. (They seem to descend in herds.)
Here’s where we differ: I don’t think* any* time is an appropriate time to be snarky. I don’t think that I’m allowed to cast aside polite behavior simply because I’m annoyed. Being a polite person means being polite to everyone, not just people I like.
Or, I could just say, “No, thank you,” and shut the door. The police have enough to do with all the murders, rapes and robberies, so I don’t think they’d much appreciate the request to hunt down someone who ignored or didn’t see a sign because I’m indignant that my afternoon nap was interrupted.
Of course-- and I do call for them or hand the phone out the door. It’s still an interruption, though, and takes more of my time than would a telemarketing call.
Several times, in fact. I’ve also had a neighborhood panhandler ring my doorbell on two occasions.
