Have you ever purchased from a TELEMARKETER?

[NJFFSA16]

They say it's profitable. I find that hard to believe. Let's just see what our members response is. The poll is simple. Yes or No.

[jaybird210]

No, never, won't ever. I hate cold-calling salespeople, at home and at work.

I don't hate the person, just the job they're doing. It ain't their fault, I know, they have a job to do, but I still get PO'd when they call....

[MalahatTwo7]

Are you NUTS?? LOL.. 'Chew must be caarrraaazzzyyyy maaann!!!' to ask such a question. :D

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

never

[bobsnyder]

Originally posted by NJFFSA16
They say it's profitable. I find that hard to believe.

It's a numbers game. The marginal cost of a call is so small that, when calling is done on the scale of most telemarketing firms, they only need hit (sales) rates of 1% or so to make the campaign worthwhile. For the same reason, it's not worth their time to bother trying to cull out only the "hot prospects," so they just keep invading the privacy of the general populus.

I'd like to see a monsterous class-action suit on behalf of consumers against telemarketers. If they can claim "free speech", I should be able to protect my right to privacy, or at least be compensated for my time to preserve my "pursuit of happiness." I figure it this way...My billable rate at work comes out to something like $2.17/minute (that's not what I get paid, it's what the clients pay, including labor, overhead, materials, etc.), so I think that every telemarketer that ever wants to call me should be paying me $2.17/minute for my time. It's only fair.

How about that?

[Rayr49]

How many of you have received calls at the fire station from telemarketers selling fire/ems equipment and or office and cleaning supplies?

They seem to be more agressive. We had one selling the latest "break through" in vehicle soap. He wanted to sell us 55 gallons at $10.00 per gallon plus shipping. We told him no and not to call again. He called three times in the next five minutes and got told no each time.

Another one calls abut once a month with great deals on equipment because of cancelled federal government orders. They also are told not to call but they do. I have received several calls from this group at my federal fire job. I asked if they are on the federal supply schedule. Their response was "What's that?". It would seem that if they had cancelled federal orders they would know how the federal government orders supplies and equipment.

I do not buy anything from telemarketers.

Stay Safe
IACOJ

[superchef]

From Tuesday's NY Times Op-Ed
Dialing for Dollars
By IAN AYRES

Published: September 30, 2003
New Haven

The Federal Trade Commission's do-not-call registry, the most popular consumer protection initiative in American history, is in jeopardy. Although President Bush signed the law authorizing the list yesterday, a federal judge last week ruled that it violates the First Amendment because it allows households to block commercial telemarketing calls but not calls from charities, political parties, religious groups or other nonprofit organizations.

Instead of fighting the court's decision, Congress should seize this opportunity to improve the program, which 50 million Americans have already registered for. By allowing households to decide what kind of telemarketing calls they want to receive, Congress can resolve the constitutional difficulty, protect charities, give families better control of their privacy — and save jobs.

The Supreme Court has already made it clear that government can give people the power to choose which solicitations they allow into their homes. In 1970, the court upheld a statute that allowed a household to block mail from any sender simply by notifying the local postmaster.

Such a system of selective association can easily be accommodated within the trade commission's proposed do-not-call regulations. Under those rules, telemarketers can still call people who have registered for do-not-call status if they have given an express authorization to a "specific seller." Congress could expand the concept of express authorization to include intermediaries, like phone companies, which would then connect the call.

This concept of "authorized intermediation" simplifies the government's regulatory burden. The trade commission doesn't have to decide what types of calls to connect; it can simply leave it to the marketplace to offer the kind of filters that families really want. Families would benefit by having greater control of a scarce resource: their privacy.

Some families would choose to block all calls. Others would agree to accept calls from charities. And still others would take commercial calls if the telemarketer agreed to compensate them for their time.

As things stand, telemarketers are trying to take your time without paying you for it. That's why they call so often. Local phone companies could set up a kind of reverse "900" number system where customers would get paid for each minute they listen to a sales pitch — in fact, companies have already offered long-distance service based on this model (customers can earn free minutes by, for example, listening to phone sales pitches).

By encouraging compensated calling, Congress could save the jobs of tens of thousands of telemarketers. It would even give telemarketers the opportunity to make new types of calls that would be prohibited under the proposed rules. So long as the sender meets the household's prerequisites, the intermediary should be authorized to connect, say, prerecorded calls or faxes.

Finally, allowing families to choose their telemarketers could also serve the public interest. The current hang-up mentality has wreaked havoc on polling organizations, which now average response rates as low as 15 percent or 20 percent. Under this system, perhaps the response ratio will improve, and we will have more reliable information about public opinion.

With compensated calling, the telemarketing industry will enable its reputable members to continue marketing. For Congress, such a system offers a way out of a constitutional dilemma. Instead of crippling the industry, Congress should embrace a regulation that will rationalize and redeem it.


Ian Ayres, professor at Yale Law School, is co-author of ``Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small.''

[TCFire]

Never, ever, no way, no how. Hello?.....you wanna sell me what? Goodbye!

[E40FDNYL35]

NO :cool:

Please call me 1 212 479 7990 and I'll tell you why...

[RspctFrmCalgary]

I shoulda said YES just to stir the S**T :D :D

[superchef]

Never never never. :D

:cool:

[NJFFSA16]

Okay...let's try to figure THIS out.

A telemarketer calls me. I have a right to request that they remove me from their call list. True? They are obligated to do that.

So why is a National Call List, which basically does the same thing, any different? Why would it then become a violation of their 1st Amendment rights? If I can do it singularly...why not as part of a group?

[Dalmatian90]

Ok, about the "It serves the public interest since pollsters now don't have a big enough sample..."

BOO FREAKIN HOO.

Polling doesn't serve the public interest. Maybe for companies marketing a product it does, too bad. Far too many politicians follow fickel poll numbers day-to-day and week-to-week and doing away with the political polls would be a good thing. Listen to your consituents, not what some polling company is saying your supposed constituents and supposedly feeling.

[firenresq77]

Never purchased anything from telemarketers.....


I got something new today........ I went and grabbed the mail from the mailbox, and as I'm walking into the house, I see an envelope hand addressed to me from a Mortgage company in the Cincinnati area. When I open the envelope, inside I find a pink "While you were out" slip from a message pad.

My name (actually not my name because it said "Brain" instead of Brian) was in the "To" spot and in the memo section it said "Please contact me at 1800-xxx-xxxx Ext 5 about your mortgage from XYZ Mortgage Company. Don" and it was also handwritten.

This was definitely a first for me. I called the guy and asked him "What do you want" and they were just trying to get new customers to refinance through them.......... Needless to say, I wasn't very happy.





So why is a National Call List, which basically does the same thing, any different? Why would it then become a violation of their 1st Amendment rights? If I can do it singularly...why not as part of a group?

I believe that the big issue with it is just the fact that it's discriminating against the businesses now by making them adhere to the list, but not the politics or the charities.....

[NJFFSA16]

:D :D :D I couldn't stand the suspense any longer. I did a reverse lookup on that phone number that Ray prominently displays.:D :D :D :D

I'm still on the floor...........:D Wonderful Ray!

[firenresq77]

I tried it with different lookups and didn't get any results......

[E229Lt]

I ask them if they can hold on for one second, put down the phone and go about my day.

[Weruj1]

Artie ,
Thats funny............and NO is my answer to the orignal question.

[Dalmatian90]

If you call 212 479 7990 you get:

http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~peretti/reject/mainmessage2.mp3

You may also go to their website at www.rejectionline.com

Man, what a perfect job for New Yawkahs.

=======================

And as I was writing this...the local newspaper telemarketers just called the firehouse! :rolleyes:

[NJFFSA16]

Seems to be a trend here.:D But, ya know, 19 votes out of 224 views is a terrible ratio.