Considering the average turnover rate for a typical telemarketer is something like 24 hours, the telemarketing industry is widely familiar with putting people out of work.
Jesus, if you were a TM, wouldn’t YOU?
I don’t understand the telemarketers suing. The do-not-call list is essentially telling them them who doesn’t like the calls and, I would presume, who doesn’t buy from telemarketers. The numbers that are left would be, generally speaking, higher quality leads of who to call.
Although there’s always the chance of making a sale to someone who’s now on the do-not-call list, I would imagine that you have a much greater chance of a sale with someone who’s not on the list. So now they can focus their calls on a smaller group of people on which they have a better chance of making a sale.
I do understand the telemarketers suing, like any other business, they’re absolutely desperate to protect their right to milk the consumer for every last drop.
If they were actually concerned, there would’ve been a voluntary Do Not Call list long ago.
As I understand it they’re basing the suit on First Amendment grounds for the most part? What a bullshit argument. If a stalker has no First Amendment right to call his victim ten times a night then neither does a telemarketer.
The other non-legal argument I’ve heard made is that a hefty percentage of telephone sales are made to people who don’t normally think of themselves as the type of person who would buy over the phone and so would place themselves on the list, not realizing they actually do want to buy things over the phone after all! Riiiight.
I’ve worked as a telemarketer (I am sorry! I don’t do that any more!) and I’m thinking that the actually people working the phones approve of the list. TMs take a lot of abuse from people they are calling (Justifiably so from the perspective of the one getting the call) and not calling people who don’t want to be called would make their lives so much easier. I imagine the suit comes from the people who run the sweat shops that are telemarketing firms. Those heartless SOBs who care nothing for anything but the profit to be made are precisely the sort who are bound to be crying foul at this sort of call list. From the perspective of one who used to be in the call pits, that list ought to be automatically assigned to any number when it is assigned, and only removed by written consent of the person who owns the phone…
I seem to recall that in the 60s (when the term was “telephone solicitors”), Mad artist Al Jaffee wrote and drew a blistering criticism of the Telephone Soliciting Business; I figure, as some have already suggested, that it’s the fat cats who are suing; they’re squealing like stuck pigs…
Maybe I shouldn’t say that–it isn’t fair to the other stuck pigs… 
Or the other fat cats…
It’s unrealistic to expect decent behavior (honoring the do-not-call list) from people indecent enough to engage in telemarketing.
I just don’t see how they could possibly win…unless of course they line the right congressperson’s pockets.
I’m so grateful for telemarketers.
At last, there’s another profession that I can point to when people start telling lawyer jokes. They’re so low in public esteem that people don’t even joke about them.
I’m crying them a river right now.
:rolleyes:
Some people I call are quite happy to hear from me. Those people would be in the minority, but they exist. And not all of them are insane.
Yeah, but they don’t put themselves on the DO NOT CALL LIST.
Crack and heroin dealing is one of the major careers open to uneducated inner-city dwellers. I say, let drug dealers sue for loss of income.
I’m surprised at newspapers reporting this (and giving out the Do Not Call toll-free number), since a lot of the people who run telesales businesses are probably involved in other forms of marketing and advertising, including as purchasers of newspaper advertising. The joy of conflicts of interest.
I did telemarketing once. For two days. Then I decided to get a respectable job and dealt crack to school children instead.
filmore has got it exactly right. For some reason, suits just Don’t Get It.
LMAO. I think your statement pretty much sums it up!
Why, thank you Gemma.
Now for something more than a smart remark: I think that the government’s defense will echo the sentiment that has had a lot of popular support among Internet Service Providers, namely, that telephone solicitation, like e-mail solicitation, should be considered a theft of services.
With both types of solicitation you have people essentially using or causing you to use a service that you pay for without your consent. Tough fight from the phone side, since it’s free to receive a telephone call. From the e-mail side I think it will eventually become the standard though.
Whatever the result, I don’t think they’ll win. If there is a jury trial on the case (not likely) there’s no way they’ll win, and I think they’d have a tough time convincing a judge (or panel of judges) that people should be subject to telephone calls, often from the same place.
Too bad for the telemarketing industry, but they brought it on themselves. A voluntary list would have stopped this in its tracks. Even better, if the telemarketers actually took your name off of thier call lists when you asked them to there wouldn’t be a problem at all.
I was gonna type more, but I looked up and this is too long already.
I believe that they do have a right to free speech.
They don’t have the right to talk to -me- on -my- phone if I’ve gone through the trouble to sign up to a list that tells them to F-ck off.
I feel that they should be able to talk freely, just as anyone can, but not to me.