Gadgets Get Sales Callers Through (Telemarketers find way around TeleZapper, Caller ID)

Charlotte Observer ^ | Fri, Feb. 28, 2003 | JIM KRANE

[Between the Lines]

NEW YORK - A telemarketing tool that penetrates home privacy defenses is upping the ante in a technology battle between sales callers and consumers seeking shelter from unsolicited calls.

Castel Inc., a maker of automated dialing technology, boasts that its DirectQuest software is immune to the TeleZapper, a $40 gadget designed to thwart sales calls by faking the tones of a disconnected number.

Beverly, Mass.-based Castel has been mailing brochures to telemarketers and other prospective customers touting the software, which also includes a feature that lets salespeople transmit any phone number or text message to residents' caller ID displays.

That second component allows DirectQuest to dodge such phone company privacy services as SBC's Privacy Manager and Sprint's Privacy ID, both of which reject calls that don't provide caller ID information.

Castel's software is built for the high-volume "predictive dialers" that use multiple lines to phone residential numbers and connect salespeople to people who answer.

"It's a privacy arms race," said Robert Bulmash of the privacy group Private Citizen, based in Naperville, Ill. "The industry is crowing that, `We don't want to call people that don't want to be called,' and at the same time it's calling them."

Consumer privacy devices will increasingly lose effectiveness as telemarketing firms switch to the new dialing technology -- which costs roughly $2,700 per calling operator, said Bulmash.

Royal Electronics Inc., which manufactures the TeleZapper, says millions have been sold. The device is designed to trick predictive dialers into dropping the call by playing the three shrill tones of a disconnected number.

The privacy services sold by phone companies target another weakness of the predictive dialer: their inability to transmit caller ID.

Castel Chief Executive Geoff Burr labels as "unsophisticated" dialers that succumb to privacy devices. "Serious professional operations don't use that equipment -- or they won't be for long," he said.

Walter Elicker, Castel's marketing director, said privacy gadgets don't just thwart telemarketers but also bill collectors who use predictive dialers. "Collections people want to make ... certain they're not fooled by these kinds of devices," he said.

A more effective means of blocking sales calls lies with the emerging federal Do Not Call list as well as similar lists kept by some two dozen U.S. states, Burr said.

The Federal Trade Commission has said its Do Not Call list will begin collecting names this summer and be in operation by the fall. Telemarketers who phone listed numbers can be fined up to $11,000 for each violation.

Effectiveness of Do Not Call lists, at least for now, is a pipe dream, Bulmash said. The FTC doesn't regulate telemarketing-heavy industries like long-distance phone companies, banks, airlines and insurance companies.

State lists, too, often make exemptions for funeral homes and car dealers. No agency can prevent phone calls by political campaigns, charities and surveyors.

Predictive dialers fueled huge growth in telemarketing.

A Federal Communications Commission memo says telemarketers attempt 104 million calls a day to U.S. businesses and consumers. Sales revenue rose from about $435 billion in 1990 to around $660 billion in 2001.

Telemarketing advocates fear Do Not Call lists could devastate those revenues and the jobs that depend on them.

[RobRoy]

I pick up the phone and say hello. If I get no response within a reasonable time (about half a second), I hang up.

Having an unlisted number helps a lot but is not foolproof. If it wasn't for my need for the mainframe connection, I would not even have a land line.

[The Clemson Tiger]

One thing that bothers me about these Do Not Call lists is that all the entities that are excepted from the law - charities, politicians, pollsters - now have a convenient database to use.

The Do-Not-Call list for them becomes a ready-made call list.

Telemarketers are scum - and there are no exceptions to THAT.

[Fury]

I just love picking up the phone and finding out it's a telemarketing call. I put the phone down on the table and continue on with whatever I was doing. After 1 minute or so, I put the phone back on the hook.

[capydick]

True but, this is the free market at work. After these boxes are generally available, the carriers will come up with with something else to thwart these things. Oh - and you can be sure they will charge you for it.

One other point - I have found that our caller ID identifies 99% of these unwanted calls when it come up either "Out of Area" or, "Unknown". We either dont answer it, if we answer it,we promptly hang up. If you do answer and get that dead air you hear before someone actually talks, its a device which routes your picked up call to the next available slug who can talk to you. Just hang up if no one acknowledges your "hello?"

[kellynla]

For 29.95 you, yes even you, can eliminate answering those pesky calls. And this device has been around for decades. It's called an answering machine. I haven't been bothered by telemarketers, old girlfriends, nosey relatives or inquisitive neighbors in 30 years.

[NautiNurse]

buh bye, newbie...don't call us, we'll call you! Go find a real job.

[angkor]

to protect them are the type who can not say no to a salesman.

I don't even give them a "no." I just hang up.

[Mears]

I have been annoyed more with junk-mail.

Anything that has a pre-paid postage envelope I mail back to them,with all the junk they just sent to me(after removing anything with my name on it)

I'm averaging 8-10 returns a week.

[killjoy]

I just love picking up the phone and finding out it's a telemarketing call. I put the phone down on the table and continue on with whatever I was doing. After 1 minute or so, I put the phone back on the hook.

YES! This is exactly the right approach! If everyone did this, it would put an end to telemarketing overnight. When people just hang up the phone, it takes up 5 seconds of the telemarketers time. When you just put the phone down, or keep them on the line, it takes up much more. This is time that they are not calling someone else. If everyone did this, so much of their time would be consumed, without making sales, that it would put them out of business!

[babaloo999]

LOL. What grade are you in?
Seriesly(you read that right), answering machines are quite useful for telemarketers.
If a number doesn't show up on caller id, I let the machine get it. They generally don't leave messages unless it's a recorded one.
I do like some posters' idea of wasting their time by stringing them along.
That's if you also have the time to waste.
Cheerio.

[NautiNurse]

One of my personal favorites is to ask for the caller's name, wait for a moment while they dive into their monologue, then in my most sultry voice, "[Caller name], what color underwear do you have on today?"

[I Am Not A Mod]

Free Republic Highlights, 2/28/03

[killjoy]

That's if you also have the time to waste.

Not true, takes almost the same amount of time. Just set the phone down on the counter, come back about a minute later and then hang it up. You just took up probably 1000% more of their time then if you just hung up the phone initially. That is 10 people that didn't just get called during that time period.

[MrLeRoy]

answering machines are quite useful for telemarketers. If a number doesn't show up on caller id, I let the machine get it.

I use this system, and I can't remember the last time I had to talk to a telemarketer.

[lafroste]

"telemarketers attempt 104 million calls a day... just to lafroste's home phone. Only Heaven knows what the total number really is", he was quoted as saying.

[Sergio]

Ain't the internet grand.

Here is a little information I got off the web on Castel Inc. The company that is making the anti-telezapper equipment.

Castel
100 Cummings Center
Suite 157H
Beverly, MA 01915

Phone: 978.236.1000
Fax: 978.236.1197
E-mail: info@castel.com

Maybe someone can find out who the owner or board memebers of this distinguished company are and what their personal email or home addresses are. With that information we can do like they did to that junk mail guy. He is supposedly the junk mail king. His company was responisble for a lot of the junk mail you get everyday. Seems some folks found out his home address and started signing him up for everything. He started getting about 100 pieces of junk mail a day. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

As it stands now, I think I'm gonna do like the guy in the straw hat in the Budweiser commercial.

Telemarketer: How are you this evening?
Me: Just fine, thanks for asking. You sound real friendly, where are ya from? Cause ya know, I'm from California, but originally from Illinois. It's real nice here, doesn't get as cold in the winter as it does in Illinois. I remember one winter, I think it was in '67, well we got so much snow....

Gotta remember to keep track of how long I can keep them on the line and report back.

Best regards

Sergio

[jiggyboy]

This is actually illegal in CA. The way they get around that is that they do a "press 1 for more info" at the end of the spiel instead of giving a number to call back. Check with your state PUC.

[Peace4EarthNow]

you are a communist. we have a right to make money and earn a living by selling products. why dont you move to canada?

turmeric signed up 2003-02-27

LOL!! You're off to a great start, Newbie!

[jiggyboy]

Yep, that's the ultimate stopper. Anybody who knows me knows by now that the answering machine is *always* on, even if we just finished talking.