Posted on 10/31/2002 5:56:28 PM PST by Texas Eagle
Cancel that credit card and restart with a new credit card number. Friend of mine had to do that to get AOL to quit stealing money from him (AOL sucks)
Any company that makes cold sales calls to peoples' homes is not "respectable and an asset to the community". What is the name of that company anyways?
You can dispute any credit card charges. The procedure should be in the very fine print on your credit card statement, but you basically don't have to pay those charges while in dispute and if you win (and you probably will), the charges are erased from your bill. There is a minimum amount.
If these thugs have your card number, I'd request a new card with a new account number. Close that one.
Cancel that credit card and restart with a new credit card number. Friend of mine had to do that to get AOL to quit stealing money from him (AOL sucks)
My teenage son, 16, has worked out a "who's on first" type routine for telemarketers. Whenever we get a call, I pass the phone to my son who launches into his "torture a telemarketer" routine. The last time this happened, he kept the poor shmuck on the phone for 40 minutes.
I've noticed lately an increase in 1) recorded telemarketing calls. 2) Telemarketers who can barely speak English.
Yeah, so says you. We don't lie, we don't steal, and we honestly represent the products and services we sell. And even though consumer sales in a tiny portion of our total revenue, the fact is, we sell A LOT. The company I work for doesn't push credit cards, phoney contests or fake charities. Our consumer sales work consists primarily in offering services on behalf of our clients. We choose these jobs carefully.
You don't like it, tough. Many people each day do like what we offer, choose to purchase, and are happy with the result.
And there really is no doubt that we are an asset to the community. Less than 1% of our millions in revenue is earned from local business. That means we import money to the community, primarily from the east and west coasts. This is far more valuable to my community than another restaurant or a car dealership, for example, as these just shift the local money around. We employ hundreds of people and pay them quite well. We are the first job for some of our younger agents. Daily I strive to teach them a solid work ethic, accountability, and commitment to standards. If I catch ANY of my agents misrepresenting the service or product we are selling they are immediately fired.
And hey, like us or not, today we just made 50,000 unsolicited calls in support of the Republican candidate in one of the most important races in the battle for the Senate.
No, you just tie up people's time and render their telephone useless. You push products and services on to people that neither want nor need them. Most people will go out and seek a product if they need it, not wait around for the snake oil salesman to sell it to them.
You don't like it, tough. Many people each day do like what we offer, choose to purchase, and are happy with the result.
I'm sure that there are a few suckers that fall for the pitch, but just because they don't complain doesn't mean that they are happy.
And there really is no doubt that we are an asset to the community. Less than 1% of our millions in revenue is earned from local business. That means we import money to the community, primarily from the east and west coasts. This is far more valuable to my community than another restaurant or a car dealership, for example, as these just shift the local money around. We employ hundreds of people and pay them quite well. We are the first job for some of our younger agents. Daily I strive to teach them a solid work ethic, accountability, and commitment to standards. If I catch ANY of my agents misrepresenting the service or product we are selling they are immediately fired.
How on earth can you say you're teaching solid work ethics while you are teaching these youngsters how to be pushy pests?
I notice that nearly all these phone spammers come through as anonomous on the caller ID. Sounds pretty respectable to me. BTW, who did you say this respectable company was?
The company I work for is Advanced Data-Comm, Inc. You can learn all about us at our website www.advanced-data.com. If you are ever in the area stop on by and I will give you a tour. I am truly proud of the company I work for and I'd love to show you the type of work we do. We currently only have 2 projects that involve cold calling. I would be surprised if it was even 2% of our revenue. We are picky in the work we accept. If you'd like, I will freepmail you with more details on these projects we have that involve cold calling.
Now you tell me where you work so I can learn about your notion of a respectable company.
I know the sleazy companies exist that prey on the old and weak. That is not us. We could pick up scads of work if we wanted to get sleazy. It is the easiest work to find. Credit cards, long distance scams, fake contests, etc. But even when our revenue stream slowed down after 9/11 and we were faced with some challenges we turned that work away. There was no debate about it. We won't do work we can't be proud of.
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What has worked particularly well for me, when they call, I say 'great', please give me your company name and billing address. I charge $25 for answering questions, for each question, $50 for winning a prize, $100 for each survey.
Or something similiar.
It gets very interesting responses, and assures no call backs.
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What has worked particularly well for me, when they call, I say 'great', please give me your company name and billing address. I charge $25 for answering questions, for each question, $50 for winning a prize, $100 for each survey.
Or something similiar.
It gets very interesting responses, and assures no call backs.
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Contact your credit card company, specifically delete the money for that particular bill, and instruct them to not pay or pull back the money already paid to the offender. Let the credit card company fight and pull back your money. It works. If your credit card company doesn't respond, next time you pay your bill, tear the bill in half. Make sure that it is still legible, but make sure that it cannot be machine processed, and that it must be processed by hand, and therefore gets your message read, and usually acted upon.
Texas has a law that all telemarketing calls must be done by a living person, not a machine. It cuts down amazingly on the number of calls. Florida doesn't have such a law, and I got about 10 times as many calls as in Texas.
Short of cancelling the credit card, there's not much you can do. I found that out the hard way in a similar situation a few months ago.
Good luck!
heheh
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