Telemarketers Want $1 Each to Delist Deceased

NewsMax/AP ^ | 7/22/05

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The dead could soon be less likely to be haunted by telemarketers.

The nation's largest direct marketing group has set up a registry to remove dead people from its phone, e-mail and direct mail lists - for a one-dollar charge.

The fee is for credit card verification and for checking that those on the list are really dead.

The Direct Marketing Association says its Deceased Do-Not-Contact list was designed to help families dealing with the loss of a loved one.

The idea follows the government's popular Do Not Call list, which allows consumers to sign up online and imposes fines on telemarketers when they call those consumers.

Relatives can still register the deceased's phone number on the list, provided they live in the same residence.

[camle]

i'd let them keep sending mail out to them - sooner or later thier costs will be burdensome and they'll clean up their own lists without charging their victims.

when their costs of wasted mailings gets high enough they'll do ti on their own.

[RightWhale]

The mere existence of lists is a Big Brother kind of thing.

[Prime Choice]

Telemarketers Want $1 Each to Delist Deceased

If any telemarketer asked $1 to delist any deceased member of my family, my response would be very direct:

"Who's going to pay the $1 to delist you, mother******?"

[MAEsser]

The article is about telemarketers, not mass-mailers.

On the other hand, just think -- if no one responded to mass marketers, there would be no mass marketers.

[Phantom Lord]

How about getting the dead off of voter registration lists!

[coder2]

The fee is for credit card verification and for checking that those on the list are really dead

HUH ??? Give us your credit card # and we'll verify if your loved one is dead ??

Whatever....

[Slings and Arrows]

Methinks you posted to the wrong thread.

[gridlock]

If they want to waste money calling a phone that will never be picked up and sending mail to a box that is never emptied, I have no problem with that. Let them waste their money.

And if they want to annoy potential customers by calling and asking for a deceased relative, I guess that's OK, too. It's their money.

[discostu]

It can be a pretty extreme nuisance though. In the two estate distributions I've been involved in the deceased's home became kind of the base camp to work from (being that's where 90% of the paperwork you need to work with is, plus all the stuff that needs to be distributed). So when you're sitting there waiting for calls from relatives, funeral homes, social security and insurance companies a sales call is pretty much garaunteed to piss you off.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I'll put my government-shrinking urges on hold for a second -- just long enough to advocate that telemarketing be banned.

If it's free to put a live person on the do-not-call list, how come it costs $1 to put a dead person on it? Theoretically, at least, live people have greater ability to pay.

[bondjamesbond]

My Father-in-Law died suddenly this Spring. He was a big ACLU supporter, and had been all his life. In fact, the funeral announcement asked that any gifts be directed to a memorial fund at the ACLU.

The thing is, he never used our address. He maintained his own residence and never got mail of any kind at our house. After he died, we had his mail redirected, but never sent out notifications to anybody, so there is no way his name could have been attached to our address...

But about a month ago, I started getting mail with his name on it from the ACLU at my house. I probably get three fund-raising solicitations from them every week, and it has been going on for a month. The ACLU knows he's gone. They set up the memorial fund themselves. So why the heavy solicitations, and why are they using his name but sending them to my house?

IMHO, they are sending them to my house in his name in the hope that we'll continue to send them money out of some kind of sentimental attachment. They purposefully use his name, because they realize full well that any unsolicited mail they send out is almost completely ineffective. But when I get mail with my dead Father-in-Law's name on it, it gets my attention.

Now I will not give money to the ACLU until they recognize that there is a Second Amendment right that applies to individuals and that the First Amendment does not require the elimination of all references to religion from the public square. So they're barking up the wrong tree with me. But I wonder how many other grieving families throw them a couple of bucks because old (whoever) would have wanted it that way.

If this is the marketing strategy, I find it reprehensible. It needlessly traumatizes families all so they can wring a few more bucks out of somebody who is already gone. I get home first, so I sort the mail and throw these things in the garbage before my wife gets home. But if she had to see these letters coming in two or three times a week addressed to her father, I know it would upset her and she would be depressed about the loss for at least a day each time.

I was never inclined to give to the ACLU, but after this last month, I would rather take my money out into the back yard and build a bonfire before I would give them one red cent. Goulish perverts!

[Rodney King]

Relatives can still register the deceased's phone number on the list, provided they live in the same residence.

You can just go to the website and de-list anyone you want, no matter where you live.

[Spirited]

Called Capitol One to get off their lists offering credit cards. They were uncivil. Told them there is no way we'd get any of their cards based on their reputation. If they want to continue to waste their money each solicitation will affirm our resolve to despise their corporation and be an impetus to be certain that the youngers in the family adopt that attitude, too.

[Ichneumon]

I misread. I thought I read televangilist.

LOL!

Not that there's a lot of difference, sometimes...

[Slings and Arrows]

Understandable - very similar scams.

[Stand Watch Listen]

How about getting the dead off of voter registration lists!

Great idea! But alas, the radical hardcore left wing would simply up their efforts replacing these lost 'votes' with more cigarettes/cokes/$5 for college students (re: UW), more illegals, more homeless, more duplicates and the Hillary sponsored 'restored felons'.