Freedom of Speech… that is amazing - telemarketers are protected legally while they annoy people in their homes, using the phone the citizen pays to have.
Do other countries get telemarketed?
I have given up hope that they will ever stop - they are like cockroaches - seemingly invincible. They found a way around Caller ID and soon they will outsmart Telezapper, et al. Bell South had the audacity to inform me of “Privacy Director”, which for only $1.95 a month (on top of Caller ID cost AND including a $19.95 initial programming fee) will tell me who “unavailable”, “private” and “blocked” really are. Um, that’s why I got Caller ID, now you want to charge me more?!
Sorry for the hijack… I just can’t believe this is allowed to continue. Hopefully the Government will put a stop to it but not likely.
Minor hijack…
Why is it the government’s responsibility? The simplest means by which to stop the telemarketing efforts that firms use is to not buy anything. If the American public stopped buying things via telemarketing the entire industry would dry up and blow away within a year. Trust me on this one; I know whereof I speak.
But otherwise stop complaining and call your congressman. Try here:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.htm#sc
Trust me, they’re aching for a chance to smack these guys in an election year. It’s like printing votes for them. And every single one is the house is up.
Point taken;) No more complaining - I could go on forever about the telemarketer/government debacle. I thought the FCC might have a say in it, maybe not.
And you are correct - the most effective solution would be for Americans to stop buying whatever they are trying to sell us.
The FCC DOES have a say in it. But the new administration of the FCC is pretty sensitive to lobbying.
Use your congressmen. I’m a marketer and I ASK you to.
I will! And, thanks for the info!
Oh, and thanks for taking my carping so well. I’m on edge about the subject.
My job puts me on edge too but I am not a “marketer” - that is a whole other thread though!
Let me clarify what I said earlier. I’ve been a phone monkey a few times, usually to pick up the slack for a week until an agency other than the one that sent me out can find an office position for me. But the first time I did it, I foolishly thought I would be able to do it for months, not days.
The management praised their top sellers highly to me, and went into detail about their tactics to set the example they wanted me to follow. “Make the customer squeak” is a phrase I remember. So I got hung up on, whined at, put on permanent hold, chewed out and insulted, while people around me were making sales every few minutes. I started feeling like the problem was me. Only after I quit (just when they were going to dismiss me, they said) did I realize that there wasn’t any honorable way to sell chocolate over the phone, especially when the packaging was worth more than the candy, and that the people who were succeeding at doing so were succeeding by dishonorable means.
My saying “I used to do this”, especially with that telling pause, may have been taken as a lifeline, like a dry alcoholic giving an active one an AA pamphlet. Sorry, that was the best analogy I could think of. Any dry alcoholics reading this please be assured that I am not comparing alcoholism to telemarketing! But hopefully, he subconsciously realized that telemarketing is something that should be past tense with him as well.