I pit advertisers who cry wolf
A specific incident annoyed me enough to want to start this thread, but now that I’ve cooled down a bit, I think the evil practice that aggravated me is more widely employed and worthy of being vented on in true Pit style.
First the story, later the abstraction. 
Coming out of the subway entrance, here in the nation’s political hub, one meets all kinds of hawkers and (literal) petitioners – people selling flowers, newspapers, umbrellas, and every flavor of politics…clean water, lower taxes, end the war, support the troops, impeach the bum, “protect marriage”, and so on. Even some flat-out panhandlers.
They gather there because they know they have a captive audience endlessly streaming past. I don’t resent them gathering there to feed off the stream, although my experiences with nitpicky police at public protests lead me to believe I wouldn’t be allowed to exercise my First Amendment rights in front of a captive commuter audience.
But I do resent it when they’re rude, obnoxious, or mean. And for reasons that are hard to explain, it REALLY ANGERS ME when they resort to lies or deception to get my attention. Especially lies I more-or-less MUST stop and assess because they touch on my self-interest.
Last week is the setting. I’m rushing off the escalator, looking at my watch. Having just been through the ticket gate a few moments ago, I’ve recently been fishing in my pockets, so it’s not totally implausible when a friendly voice behind me says, “You dropped something.”
Automatically I look down, then turn, sweeping the pavement with my eyes, but…nothing. I look up. A friendly-looking older gentleman smiles toothily at me.
“You dropped that shine,” he says. “Shoeshine?”
I realize he’s made me look at my shoes, and also made me stop right in front of him. He has a shoeshine kit.
Now, please understand I am NOT pitting people who shine shoes! I’ve been desperate enough in my day not to consider myself in any way “above” a person in such a position.
That’s got to be a rough way to scrounge for a living. I don’t blame him for wanting people to give him business, either. He’s got to get customers.
But I’d have to be a world-class idiot to IGNORE hearing “you dropped something”. It happens, and the consequences of losing one’s credit card or wallet or cell phone or house keys in the big city can be anything from painfully inconvenient to potentially life-shattering. I’ve GOT TO LOOK when he says that – and he damn well knows it. He’s exploiting it.
Maybe my shoes could have used a shine, maybe not; that’s not the point. It’s not like he would have stood on principle and refused to shine my shoes if they were already perfect. But I don’t have a ton of spare money right now, and I am trying to balance how I spend it. I see shoeshine guys in that place often enough that if I want to pay someone to shine my shoes, I can find someone. It’s not doing ME any good to get interrupted by his pitch; it’s only (potentially) doing HIM some good, and he doesn’t scruple to lie to get that interruption.
I didn’t have the time to waste either. So I went on my way, but I was suddenly fuming at his little trick. It’s hard to say why I was so mad; maybe I was just mad at myself for falling for it. All kinds of resentment welled up; it was like being back in grade school and being flicked on the ear by a bully.
Ten minutes later, I met someone at work who asked, “How’s your day so far?” I told him I wished people didn’t have to lie to get my attention, and he said, “ah, the shoeshine guy, right?” and rolled his eyes. So I wasn’t the only person annoyed by this guy.
But we see this all the time in advertising. (For now, I’m going to leave alarmist politics out of the discussion, and stick to pitting the abuse of deception and fear for filthy lucre).
I’m pretty sick of deceit and fear being exploited by advertisers competing to grab our attention. My time and my attention are limited; the world’s capacity to devour it is so much greater as to be essentially unlimited. Like everyone else, I have to weigh how much time and attention to give advertisements and attempts to bend my ear/grab my eyeballs. I know the advertisers are desperate…so what, so am I.
I’m not against advertising itself. Go ahead and put it out there. Maybe I will look and absorb, maybe I won’t. But it’s MY CALL.
If the law prevents me from shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, because it’s dangerous to cry wolf, or selling yokels some bridge I don’t own, because it’s fraud, why do advertisers who want to make a buck get such leeway to alarm us, mislead us, lie to us, in any way they can think of, to get our attention? It’s no longer MY CALL if you yell, “FIRE!” – I HAVE TO LOOK. You’ve taken away my discretion with your little trick, which was its purpose. That doesn’t make me want to buy from you!
Imagine a Mafia thug telling a parent new to his Joisey neighborhood “That sure is a byootiful little goil youse have there. She’s precious to youse. It’d be a shame if sumthin’…happened to her. Youse might want to…insure that nothin’ happens to her, if youse knows what’s good fer youse. My organization could…provide for her safety.”
We’d be horrified. We’d recognize the implied threat of harm to a child being used to extort money. I’ll bet the police would be willing to rush to help the parent.
But when a tire company shows an infant riding around on a tire and says “<you should pay us money> because so much is riding on your tires,” everyone thinks it’s okay. Sure, it’s different – the tire company isn’t likely to kill your child intentionally. But the intent of both statements is to create fear and uncertainty in the parent’s mind so that he or she feels an inducement to give money to the tire company/thug to “provide for the child’s safety.”
Mortgage direct mailings are another hotbed of this kind of abuse. We refinanced with a company that’s known for charging higher rates – and every other company wants our eyeballs on THEIR offer. We get direct mailings all the time. Some look handwritten, like a friend wrote them. Some say “MORTGAGE PAST DUE” and when I open them, say “…for a change! Why not go with us instead?” Some say “<OUR MORTGAGE COMPANY> – OPEN AT ONCE”. We have to open those, because theoretically if we don’t, our mortgage company might repossess the house. But they never ARE from the company; they’re always someone else lying to us.
We recently got an unsolicited advertisement and/or chain letter from some “church” containing a prayer rug and elaborate lies about how we would be deviating from God’s will unless we forwarded the rug to other people we know…and perhaps sent some money to the church to finance its activities. 
How are the mortgage firms any better than the Church of Mail Fraud? Both are threatening vague consequences to panic us into acting.
Surely you fine folks have many other examples. Let the venting begin!
Sailboat
