Because telemarketing uses resources paid for by the marketee, yet does not give anything in return (as opposed to TV advertising which pays for the shows you watch).
Because the better trained telemarketers don’t let go at “no”, and not everyone is as assertive about getting of the phone as you and I, Weirddave. My MIL can’t be rude and simply hang up - it’s not in her makeup.
And lastly, because now the firms employing telemarketers look for ways to defeat people’s efforts to free themselves from an intrusiveness that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I believe the PBX switch can be programmed to generate the caller ID text. That way when you call someone from your office phone, your name can show up on the caller id even though the phone company doesn’t have that info.
The telemarketing companies know that X% of calls will not be completed for some reason (disconnected, no one home, etc). So they use a predictive dialer to call X% more numbers than they have telemarketers. It detects if the call goes through and then routes the call to a telemarketer human to deliver the pitch. If a call goes through but there are no humans available, the call is dropped. That explains the many hang-ups you might get at your house. A predictive dialer called many numbers and enough calls were answered before you answered your phone that there were no more humans available. Don’t worry about missing their pitch, though. I’m sure they’ll put you back in the pile for a call at a later time.
To partly answer my own question, this is from DM News:
Apparently this is designed for very large phone spammers that handle multiple clients or campaigns. With this device, they could easily change their caller ID info without bothering the phone company.
But am I the only one who sees a potential for abuse here? I always thought the reason why phone spammers did not transmit caller ID is to deliberately disguise themselves. Have they now had a change of heart and want to warn the victum in advance of picking up the phone? Not bloody likely, methinks.
I think the telemarketers may be trying to get through to vulnerable populations. For instance, if an elderly relative in my house was an easy mark, I would get a telezapper to keep them out of trouble. It’s much easier to not get the calls then explain over and over not to give out credit card information on the phone. If an easy mark is on the “other side” of the telezapper, I can certainly see the telemarketers jumping all over themselves to get around the technology. Bastards.
This is a brilliant idea. Ironically the best way to sell it, bar none, would be over the phone. What a great sales pitch!
“Good evening, sir or madam. I suspect I’m probably interrupting you. Pretty goddamn annoying, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you love to be able to just push a button and give me a shock? Well, we’ve got this gizmo…”
Of course, it probably wouldn’t be limited to telemarketers, but anyone who annoyed you over the phone. I’d pretty much have to stop calling people, once this went on the market…
Let me explain it gently and slowly. A lot of people try to conduct themselves with manners and finesse.
With some of these jerks, “No thank you” is just an opening for them to insert some hurt “is there something about the product you don’t understand” type segue into yet MORE attempts to stay on your phone.
Some people aren’t comfortable with a “rude” (what feels to them as rude) “NO” and {{{CLICK}}}
That’s why people are complaining. To answer your phone, hoping, for instance, that it’s your boyfriend saying he’s on his way to pick you up and it’s some jerk trying to sell you tickets to the underwater basket weaving fair and then YOU are forced to be the “rude” one by hanging up on someone is not just annoying but an invasion of a person’s privacy.
Or, to make it short and sweet. To a lot of people it’s the principle of the thing. We, people who don’t want telemarketer calls, have asked the telemarketer industry not to call them. But the telemarketer industry refuses to comply and indeed is looking into ways to ignore people’s request to be left alone. That’s another answer to you “why is it so hard to just say ‘no thank you’” question.
Ive seen and heard of plans for faking/masking caller ID since I first heard about Caller ID. Apparantly its very easy and can be made from radioshack parts. A friend of mine made one and it worked, he could set his number from anything from 000-000-0000 to 900-545-9874 or anything at all! He even freaked out a non-lawabiding enemy of ours by putting in the police station’s phone number.
Anyway, like I said, I think “Consumer Requests Delete” is the quickest and easiest way to deal with them.
Nice try, but it doesn’t always work. I’ve had one tenacious tele-spammer that has called me at least once a day for over a year now…probably 500 calls total. They usually call in the middle of the day when I’m at work too, so I can’t answer and tell them to leave me alone.
Besides, it isn’t that it’s “hard” to deal with telemarketers. Obviously it requires no real effort physically. The point is not that it’s “hard” the point is, as another poster said, that it’s invasive.
I really like Pennsylvania’s Do Not Call list. There used to be 6 or 8 “Unavailable” entries on my caller ID box when I got home from work every day. They often left me messages, sometimes recorded and sometimes from a live human. I especially hated the message which always claimed that “we just happen to be in your neighborhood installing satellite TV”. Those people “happened” to be in my neighborhood 2 or 3 times a week! I also received 1 or 2 similar calls (which I didn’t answer) most evenings. Since I got on the list, most days I receive NO calls during the day and my evening calls, with very rare exceptions, are all from people that I actually want to talk to!
Way back in the mid 80s when I was working for famous local theater, I got a $500.00 donation too. My hat’s off to you though. That was in '85. Getting a credit card back then was a little easier than it is now. That was one of my most productive, and FUN rooms. We went out almost every night after work. Good commisions too, and a lot of great bonuses too, including a $150.00 lunch at the Clift Hotel.
And I thought it was the new 10th circle. I’ve been in managing research call centers for the past eight years. I sure hope the telemarketing rooms I’ve worked in the previous years counts, and gets me in. It will be hella fun.
We usually ignore the Unknown or Unavailable on our Caller ID, but for some strange reason, my husband’s work line shows up as unknown. So if I’m expecting a call from him, I’ll usually pick up rather than wait for the machine to get it. Like tonight.
“Is Mr. or Mrs. FairyChat there?”
“Who’s calling please?”
“This is a courtesy call. May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. FairyChat?” “Who’s calling please?”
“This is a courtesy call.”
And that’s when I hung up. How courteous is it to refuse to answer a simple question? Especially when I was hoping it was my sweetie…
An interesting new development, this. Our number is on the state’s do-not-call list. But apparently leaving a message is somehow exempt, because we get one or two messages a week. Yes yes yes, it’s easily deleted from the machine. But it still cheeses me off.
Or: Many of the messages have been from “not-for-profit corporations offering a valuable debt-consolidation service to the public.” I guess that, properly spun, this means that they aren’t selling anything…ergo they can call us with impunity?
Oh, and while we’re at it: one of the most annoying things about them is that they all have the gall to make the message sound like there was an actual person at the other end, leaving the message. Complete with casual, off-the-top-of-the-head diction, and everythingthe occasional midsentence “uh…” and like that. But we know that this is their machine leaving a message on our machine, right? For some reason, this stupid little conceit makes me totally insane.
It’s especially annoying, Grandfather Trout, in that I can’t tell them, “Take me off your list and do not call again” and also in that it takes up space for a message I really would rather have!
“Consumer Requests Delete”
Hmmm…sounds great, but according to antitelemarketer.com, the telemarketers are trained to twist such statements around into making it seem like you want off their do not call list.