Now That is creating a 'hostile workplace' for door-to-door salesmen!
Posted on 09/27/2003 7:05:03 AM PDT by joesbucks
I've read over the course of the past few months the numerous threads regarding the use of telemarketing and the intrusion it has on our homes.
I had a long discussion with my wife who hates the intrusion. I ask her why did they call her? She had no idea. Well, despite the black eye telemarketers get, it's probably the most effective way to get business. Even Mrs. Me admitted that if they called about something that she had an interest in, she probably would buy. BINGO.
But let's look at if from another perspective. You will see numerous threads about how regulation is driving business from our shores to others. How we've taken manufacturing and moved it to low cost countries. Not because of productivity, but because of emission regulations or community groups that complain about the noise, smell or traffic caused by the facility. Even right to know and safety concerns. Changes necessary would be costly and not enforeced across the border or across the pond so companies locate there.
We seen threads about government regulation taking over our lives. Yet when it comes to a minor inconvience, we run to the government for help from the big bad telemarketers.
What's the difference between regulating out a obnoxiouis telephone call but not noxiouis fumes from the plant next door?
What happens when all the telemarketing jobs get exported to Ireland or India and our laws don't extend to them? And the calls continue cause we can't stop them.
What are we to do with all the folks who try to eek out a living working in a humid cramped call center. Many are the folks we drove from the welfare rolls with welfare reform (a good thing). Many are college students trying to earn their way through college. Others are seniors trying to supplement a fixed income. Or the physically disabled who find work in a sitting position reading a script, possibly from the company you work for or possibly even own. Some are just the slugs of life and a call center is the only way they've managed to find some sort of paycheck. What do you suggest they do for a living that's not immoral, illegal or indecent?
I find it amazing that we would rally all day about government intrusion and regulation on companies, yet we have rallied to stop a few phone calls a week or day.
The other thing to remember is that there are several ways that you will still get calls. They WILL NOT GO AWAY. Doing business with a company? They can call. Done business with them in the past 18 months? They can call. Signed up for one of those free give aways recently? You can now legitimately get a call. Charities. Exempt. Local lib dem candidate? Exempt. Pollsters. Exempt. Probably a thousand other loop holes? Exempt too!
I'd love to, but I cannot hang around any longer either. You can't change other people anyway. You've done a good job presenting the case. If the horses all want to die of thirst, there is nothing you can do about it. (Suppose you could shoot them and put them out of ther misery.)
Hank
Right, I am PAYING.
If you get cable, do you require that your cable company block signals from stations you don't watch? Why not?
This hair-splitting is absurd. The unwanted channels do not intrude, they do not turn themselves on by themselves, nor do they interrupt dinner, nor do they even exist, for all practical purposes, unless I want them to.
People HATE demands on what little free time they have. No hair-splitting or straw man arguments will change that. It's a fact. And as more and more companies have jumped onboard using intrusive techniques like spam and telespam, people hate it more and more.
The responses to the DNCL proves this. People's rights of being left alone trump any fictitious employment figures from the DMA lobby.
Could be that a lot of what gets complained about around here results from The People exercising their power under the Tenth Ammendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)
The people have the power to do "whatever" it is, and they also have the power to have their elected representatives do so for them, and they exercise that power. Everyone may not be happy about it, but those are the ones who came up on the short end of the vote.
Can't the Govt help me? I can't take care of myself!
Now That is creating a 'hostile workplace' for door-to-door salesmen!
I am squeamish anytime the government is given more control but, like the smoking bans, this is an attempt to reign in a group of rude and obnoxious people who have ignored pleas to police themselves and respect the wishes of others. Government regulation is a last resort, not a first option.
Such regulations also carry a double risk - 1) that the offending party will simply come up with more ways to be rude and annoying and 2) that the government won't turn it into a power trip and overstep the authority granted to them.
I always have the choice to turn off the tv or the radio if it annoys me (that's why it's off 90% of the time). I always have the choice to seek another website that doesn't offend me (that's what a "favorites" list is for). While some people have the choice NOT to answer the phone, that isn't true of all people - particularly those who work out of their home or are dealing with family emergencies.
When my phone rings during the day, I stop what I'm doing, head for the Caller ID box and see what number is being dialed. If I don't recognize it, I don't answer. But my train of thought and whatever I was doing were already disrupted because the phone rang. What's truly annoying is when the call is made by some auto-dialer which then delivers a canned pitch to my answering machine.
NO HUMAN BEING IS CALLING ME. A computer is. NO HUMAN BEING IS TALKING TO ME. A machine is. And yet I'm forced to put more effort into ignoring this damned nuisance than they are in creating it.
THAT deserves to be outlawed and yet there's nothing I can do about it. Now politicians have entered the racket and I am trying to make it clear to everyone - even candidates I agree with - that they've jettisoned my vote the minute I learn I've been added to their autodialer. That's the only way I can fight back (short of violence).
If Al Qaeda wants to come blow up some telemarketing firms, that's just fine and dandy with me. I'll be glad to give them some names. Might as well put those Islamic pricks to some worthwhile cause...
The thing that really burns me is the computer calls.
The way I understand it is , a computer calls a number, numerical order I suppose, IF a telemarketer is available, they pick up the phone if you answer. If you don't answer, the number is redialed at a future time. If you answer and no telemarketer is available, the line goes dead, leaving you holding.
One afternoon my wife was sick with a migraine. She received 5 or 6 calls within a half hour. I witnessed several of them.
Each time she answered the line went dead.
I was furious.
I called the NC State AG's office and demanded something be done. I was told the telemarketing scheme was perfectly legal.
I said that if I called someone that often, then hung up that I could be charged with harassment. He told me yes, that could happen.
I then asked why it was legal for a computer to do the same.
No answer.
Here is the Address of a service that stops telemarketers
I used it and it works pretty well. I don't get many calls anymore.
This is from the phone book
Telephone Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
P.O. Box 9014
Farmingdale, NY 17735-9014
include name, address, phone # w/ area code, signature.
remains on file for 5 yrs.
Not only that, but no one has a right to something that I pay for, and I pay for my telephone service, not the telemarketers.
Socialism has nothing to do with this issue.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
No one has any rights to use something that I pay for, and I pay for my telephone number, and my telephone service.
I doubt it, but I don't know for sure. I do know their turnover was extremely high, given how many applicants showed up at my office looking for a job with them.
I was just lucky I was "uphill" from the flood they caused--a few of my office neighbors weren't so lucky. I do remember it took over a week to dig the office out from the garbage they left behind, another few days to fumigate (I remember that they also had to call in a pest control company and spray around the floor), then another few days to recarpet the place, repair and repaint. They put the furniture store below them out of business for two days while they mopped up and cleaned up after the collapsed ceiling.
I also remember almost fainting when I opened the phone bill for $9K+ (we had the same phone co.), thinking it was MY phone bill.
Where they moved to--and under what name--is anyone's guess, but whereever they've moved to, they'll do the same thing.
The entire law is premised on voluntary compliance under threat of massive civil fines ($11,000 per reported unwanted call).
What I don't know how to find out is precisely HOW the federal givernment intends to ENFORCE the $11,000 per phone call civil penalty. Let's suppose you, an owner of a small local company, calls me (thus instantly becoming, for the purposes of the law, a "telemarketer" too, right?). Then suppose that I do not wish to receive this commercial message (although this does not pertain to political calls, non-profit organizations, companies I already deal with, etc etc). Assume I have proof (say a printout from the registration page of the DoNotCall registry) that I have registered. If I have just received a call, I guess one calls an authority figure to squeal on you. Of course I don't know your phone number, since I don't pay an extra fee for Caller ID, nor do 90% of the people I know.
At that point, some government bureaucrat has to take time to research whether there really was an infraction of this new federal law against calling people for your home-repair business or whatever. How would legally-valid proof be obtained? Proof that a call was made from you to me at a specific time would have to be from your own records, my records, or the phone company.
The average home phone is not connected to a computer system that logs calls, so that's out.
Perhaps they could subpoena the records of the business which makes phone calls. But a telemarketer could either dial the number by hand (hence no computerized records at all), or could refrain from keeping computerized records. Or will the government begin requiring that companies are forbidden to make manual phone calls or have computer crashes?
Otherwise, there will need to be access to the phone system's records. Is there such a thing as a log file record for every single phone call (tens of billions each day) so that this is even physically possible? Would a subpoena be needed, since after all the phone companies are private? Or does the government already have access to all such records?
I keep thinking about all such questions, and I enjoy the debate.
The phone company keeps records called LUDs - local usage details. Basically, a record of the numbers you called, the numbers that called you, and how long those calls lasted. They have to, for billing purposes. Getting the LUDs from the phone company requires a subpoena, or a search warrant if you're the police.
The Telecommunications Act of 1992 established a number of consumer protections, most notably, those on "slamming". It also established that telemarketers had a right to call but consumers had a right to have their name/number put on a do not call list.
Although a few telemarketers did go to the time and expense of estabishing, maintaining and honoring such a list, the law was essentially ignored by the industry. The industry was also arrogant in their refusal.
They had 11 years to conform. So when you hear the telemarketing companies talk about the economic dislocation that the the list will cause remember that they had 11 years to gradually change.
99% of telemarketers are outlaws.
Its not an accidental call to one person that's going to get the telemarketer in hot water. Here in Missouri, they've gone after the guys that have made hundreds or thousands of calls to people on the no-call list after being warned. If that many people say they were called against their will and they subpoena the phone records and determine that the call was made, the telemarketer is screwed. At that point it would be up to him to prove that he had some kind of continuing relationship which is doubtful.
Should the government give you the right to sue an obnoxious neighbor for calling at dinner?
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