Posted on 05/30/2007 6:43:24 PM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
A relative has been in the hospital, and then rehab at a nursing home, for a couple of months. The other day I took the 90-year-old over to his house. We weren’t there for a minute when the phone rang. It was a telemarketer. In less than ten minutes, two other sales calls came in.
The elderly, often housebound and lonely, are particularly susceptible to phone pitches. Some companies specifically target them for scams.
Last month the New York Times ran a story on an information broker business, infoUSA, which sells lists for telemarketing. According to the Times, a list of “Suffering Seniors” comprised 4.7 people with cancer or Alzheimer’s. “Elderly Opportunity Seekers” included more than 3 million people “looking for ways to make money.”
Another contained information on half a million senior gamblers. One sales list boasted: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”
Predictably, some of the businesses purchasing these lists used them for fraud. One Iowa man mentioned in the article lost more than $100,000 to scam artists.
There are laws preventing information brokers from selling their lists to evident swindlers. OK, so honest mistakes are a part of life. The newspaper tried to contact infoUSA officials dozens of times for its story, but, unlike the elderly who’ve been bilked, they evidently don’t answer their phone. Later, infoUSA termed the incidents an aberration, pledging similar episodes wouldn’t occur.
When the story appeared, I surfed over to the Web site Democratic Underground.com, a place where you can always find the often extraordinarily loony “thoughts” of practicing liberals. I wasn’t disappointed with the reaction there.
It’s all part of George Bush’s America, you see. Yet another example of the rich preying on the weak and ignorant. We need more protection from the government. There’s no difference between organized crime and corporate America. It’s just like how we’re getting ripped off by oil companies.
No, I wasn’t let down by the usual suspects at the Democratic Underground. They had to be disappointed to read the Associated Press story less than a week later reporting infoUSA has been most munificent to the Left’s very own Ozzie and Harriet, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
A shareholders’ lawsuit charges the company’s founder and CEO, Vinod Gupta, with wasting corporate millions trying to ingratiate himself with the Clintons. Cited as examples are the more than $3 million in contracts for Bill Clinton to provide business advice as well as $900,000 spent to jet the couple around the world. Mr. Gupta’s infoUSA paid the impeached former president $200,000 for a speech in Omaha. According to the Washington Post, Gupta “and his company donated at least $1 million to help underwrite a lavish millennium New Year’s Eve celebration at the (Clinton) White House and on the Mall.”
The CEO has also given $1 million to Clinton’s presidential library. He donated more than $220,000 to Democrats when Hillary Clinton first ran for the Senate. Other beneficiaries of his largess, Federal Election Commission records show, are Barack Obama, Al Gore, John Kerry and New York Senator Charles “Let’s Investigate Unethical Republicans” Schumer.
Vinod’s bigheartedness didn’t go unnoticed. He stayed in the Lincoln bedroom back in the good old days when the Clintons operated the White House like a Motel 6.
Bill offered him an ambassadorship and a second high level diplomatic post, but Mr. Gupta declined. He did, though, accept a presidential appointment to the celebrated John F. Kennedy Center Board of Trustees.
After the Times’ investigative story, the two leading Democratic presidential candidates did what was expected. Mrs. Clinton’s flunkies tried to put distance between her and the infoUSA chief. In accepting private plane trips, the senator “complied with all the relevant ethics rules.” Perhaps they should have gone with “there is no controlling legal authority.” That worked so well for Al Gore.
Barack Obama describes himself on his Senate Web page – your tax dollars at work - as “a leader in fighting for open and honest government.” Prompted by the Times’ article, he wrote to the Federal Trade Commission, expressing his concern that the agency isn’t doing more to protect the elderly from fraudulent telemarketing schemes.
If Mr. Obama returned the 2004 contribution he received from infoUSA’s Vinod Gupta, he didn’t mention it. Leaders in open and honest government can only go so far.
With any luck, there’s a special place for people who profit from gouging the elderly. I mean a spot other than as an illustrious contributor to the Democratic Party, White House overnight guest, and friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Someplace much, much hotter.
Thats good stuff!
Good read!
B U M P
I believe it was Rush who was talking about this today...
CSI: Ls Vegas had an episode about this.
Too bad I missed it : )
Hey, if it wasn’t for heavily-accented Pakistanis named ‘Kevin,’ I’d get no phone calls at all.
“We need more protection from the government.”
Heh. How very libertarian of you.
Damn right it is...it was written by a FReeper! We know best, we know right.
I can only trust that the live-ins "follow orders" and refer ALL calls to me.
But, on the flipside, we've managed to get me/siblings on the power-of-attorney track, hopefully without any missteps.
A shareholders’ lawsuit charges the company’s founder and CEO, Vinod Gupta, with wasting corporate millions trying to ingratiate himself with the Clintons.
Peas of a pod...
My sister and I had power of attorney, and it was necessary. At the end neither could sign their name on anything or comprehend anything. We had to always be around to answer medical history questions and answer medical problem questions since they either didn’t know anything or couldn’t figure out what was going on. We had to deal with everything on a daily basis for several years, and I spent 2002 until the end of 2006 at home 24/7 as a watchdog and guardian. It was necessary.
Yep, it happens. It happened to my father-in-law in CA. The only exception was there is a law in CA that says you can not prey on the elderly. To be fair, Dad’s best friend was also a lawyer and when he got finished with the vitamin company who snooked $500 from Dad; not only did they return his $500; they said keep the vitamins. Dad was fortunate.
I used to listen to telemarketers, but I have noticed that age makes it hard to follow them, so I put my name on the Do Not call list. Now I just get calls from conservatives and Republicans.LOL
4am reminder bump. ;-)
Somehow some sort of twisted pride, or just sheer stubbornness, prevents me from making this particular supplication, as I see it. You know, why should I have to? That's my thinking.
My parents used to get a lot of phone solicitations, and they had an answering machine and just didn't pick up until you identified yourself on the message cycle. We have an answering machine, but we pick up and say hello, and if no one is RIGHT THERE, we hang up. This seems to work great, especially if you answer quickly. Of course, it's still an annoyance, but at least one has the satisfaction of hanging up.
I have to say, the telemarketers seem to be giving up, at least on us. We used to have 4 or 5 messages on our machine at the end of the day ( we both work ) but now there seems to be one or none. This may be a technological artifact. I think they recognize an answering machine somehow, and just hang up. We used to find amusement in messages that went, "Hello? ... Hello? ... Hello? ....... ( sigh ) CLICK" but we seem to have stopped getting those.
When Dick Morris discussed the clinton’s 3 million dollar connection with these criminals, alan colmes’ rebuttal was to repeatedly scream “So What!” at morris. Even Hannity just shrugged and said, “well, that’s the clintons.” They’re so crooked that nobody even cares anymore.
but we kids we're so worried he would get "rolled" himself .......
he had lots of gadgets from the mail, lots of holy cards and appeals for funds and magazines of all sorts....he had about 10 harmonicas......
we have to remember though that these people have the right to make mistakes just like the rest of us....while I cringe at what these scam artists do, are we to take away the right to use the phone or read the mail from our eldest citizens....
in my dream world, our parents LIVE with family so family can keep an eye out, but these days that's very hard to do....
I thought about this some more. The lists of oldsters sort of obscures what is probably going on. Clinton is probably working with the list broker to target potential Dem voters like Rove did for Republicans. I will say that people I know who are usually indifferent to politics are spouting the most outrageous Rosie O’Donnell stuff, and I have been wondering where they are getting it.
I keep getting calls from the NY Times begging me to buy their paper. I tell them that they are calling my office and that I believe the NY Times is worse than the Weekly World News at the super market.
A few times the guy at teh other end laughed and said that he gets that alot.
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, they did not have a Do Not Call list back then.
A few years ago the beast made a speech saying that they were going to take money from american citizens. She’s just using Vin Gupta as a convenient shill to start the process.
Too kind. . . .
Firmly tell them. “Take my name and # off of your list”. They are required, by law, to comply.
No, they are not required to. You must tell them to PUT your number ON their Do Not Call list. Each company MUST maintain a DNC list and add your number to it upon request. This is not ot be confused with the national Do Not Call list. Different things.
It is a fine distinction, but it is important to be exact. The first words you say to a telemarketer are: "Do you have a Do Not Call list?". If they respond yes, then tell them to add your number TO the DNC list. If they say they'll "take your number off" their call list, you should correct them and state that you want your number ADDED TO their Do Not Call list. They are not required to remove your number from the calling list, and often will say they'll do that to molify you.
If they respond that no they don't have a DNC list, then get all the company information you can, because that alone is a $500 violation of Federal law, along with any other violations, like not having a written company policy regarding putting #'s on the DNC list and not sending a copy of that written policy to you upon your request. I've had some telemarketing calls that added up to $1500-2000 in violations if I had wanted to pursue it.
I have a little computer program that has the actual US Code telemarketing law quoted, and contains both a script to use to handle unwanted telemarketers (how ironic- reading a script to a telemarketer who called you to read you a script), but also a database to record/add them to, so if they call again you have a record and can sue them in small claims court for $500 per violation (not per call- there could be several violations during one phone call, as noted above.) It's worked really well for me. I had one boiler room supervisor ask me if I was an attorney. I said, "Why, do you want me to be?".
My unwanted telemarketer calls have dropped off precipitously after using it for a few years... both for the DNC list and for my own entertainment during slow days. [grin] Well, that and the TeleZapper... [bigger grin]
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