Telemarketers on the ropes

CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER ^ | 8/11/2003 | Lance Williams

[xrp]

Popular do-not-call list bringing industry to its knees

Aug. 11 — In the past three months, the hallways at Groesbeck-based Tel-A-Sell Marketing Inc. have become a lot less crowded. CEO Edd O’Connor has been forced to trim his telemarketing staff from 72 to 18.

“I WAS RUNNING a full house earlier this year,” said O’Connor, who also serves as president of the American Teleservices Association’s Great Lakes Chapter, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.

One of the big reason for the cuts: the chilling effects of the National Do Not Call Registry and other similar efforts in statehouses across the country.

A month into the sign-ups for the federal Do Not Call list, nearly 30 million phone numbers across the United States have been registered for the list. That number could double by the time the list takes effect on Oct. 1.

The ATA, which is challenging the list in court, said the national list could eventually cause more than 2 million lost telemarketing jobs. The ATA estimated that telemarketers are responsible for $660 billion in sales. The combined effects of do-not-call lists and the movement of jobs overseas have left the industry ailing.

“It’s going to cause significant business problems for this industry,” said O’Connor, who said he expects a pickup in business in early fall. “We’ve got to step back and regroup.”

[KineticKitty]

I know... people whom want or expect personal privacy and simply want to be left alone are now cry babies?

I understand hanging up... I do that quite well... but when some of us see nothing on the caller ID we don't have the choice to let it go to an answering machine, My husbands calls from Iraq (as sporadic as they are) don't register sometimes. And my attitude isn't the greatest when I get a hold of a telemarketer, which I can sometimes guess it is them by the 5 hang-up anonymous phone calls I receive a few days before I am graced with a real live telemarketer. (You know the kind - where your hung up on or hear silence because they switch to another call because your not getting to your phone fast enough.) But I guess the only time that is important to them, is their own.

I've heard "this is like junk mail" argument before... I don't mind junk mail because I check my mail WHEN I WANT TO, and it is at their expense (shipping cost, paper, envelopes, etc). The phone? I pay for the monthly service, and I am busy 1/2 the time they interrupt me.

[billbears]

I know... people whom want or expect personal privacy and simply want to be left alone are now cry babies?

If they depend on the government for that, yes. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. If they choose to purchase one of the many products available offered by a company instead of whining to the government, then no

[MattAMiller]

They're losing their jobs because nobody wants to do business with them. They can go find the five people in the world who actually want what they're selling. I'm not obligated to give my time to keep anybody else in business just because.

[oldfart]

50 to 100 spam e-mails a day? I use webtv and I get absolutely NONE! I'm not saying it's a great way to surf the net, 'cause it isn't, but it obviously has some benefits.

[Michael Barnes]

I have an idea that should satisfy everyone. Instead of an "opt-out" list, let's BAN all telemarketing altogether, EXCEPT for those who specifically sign up for an "Opt-In" list. xrp and those on this thread that find it amusing that telemarketers are using our paid for phone service without our consent can surely see how this opt-in list will prosper, right? Surely there will be millions, upon millions who will salivate about getting on this list. Meanwhile, the sane part of society can rest assured that they won't get bothered about that latest and greatest life insurance plan, or whatever other absurd shit that I wouldn't buy in a store, let alone over a phone.

[Arthalion]

Most sites using Microsoft server products have that many crashes in a typical day, even without spam.

For the record, we're running Exchange 5.5 and DO have to reboot the server at least twice a day to keep it up. The four crashes I was referring to were server bombs which corrupted our email databases and took our mail down for up to 24 hours...not just annoying hangs.

[Cvengr]

My wife asked him what his name was,....he said he was Kamel,...I've never seen her laugh so much.

[Cvengr]

Hmmmm,...one job per Microsoft server crash,....sounds about right.

[KineticKitty]

Simple you can choose not to buy those annoying twist ties any longer. -Unlike the rest of us that are sick and tired of telemarketers... we had no choice when it came to being bothered by them.

Billboards? I could care less about them... As long as I am not forced to look at them while I am in the comfort of my own home

Junk mail? I choose a time in which to go check my mail, and when to deal with what is in the mailbox. which includes throwing away anything they have paid for, like envelopes, postage and such, unlike my monthly phone service.

Spam? I check that on my own time... and if it is that intrusive, I can dump my free email accounts. ~But~ I do believe (as arguments have stated above) SPAM costs money, and in the long run it isn't the spammers that are going to be paying for it.

The telemarketers rights NEVER supercede mine when I am in the comfort and privacy of MY own home. I could care less how they feel about the no call list.

[auntdot]

Thank you Kitty.

For business reasons I must answer the phone 24/7 every other week.

I have caller ID but that does not solve the problem since many of the people I need to speak to also flash as 'unavailable'. Have tried other options, like call blocking, but that filtered out too many appropriate messages.

Don't mind answering the calls I need to but do not need to hear from someone trying to sell me something I do not want (have never purchased anything from a telemarketer, and would not. No need to encourage the vermin.)

What does work is getting your number unpublished and unlisted. Yes, it costs a few bucks a month, but for some reason almost no telemarkers ring us up anymore.

For those that do, I encourage them to waste their bloody time talking to me. Finally they get the idea they are being put on, and hang up.

Don't buy the two million jobs lost number. Those that opt out of the system are probably those who would not buy from a telemarker, like me.

If I were trying to hawk my goods through telemarketers, would I want to spend lots of money having them call people who had as much interest in the product as getting a nasty case of the shingles?

Heck no.

It seems to me those who do not opt out are a much more select market.

Unless, of course, the telemarketers believe they are basically con men, and every one is a potential mark.

Have not opted out yet; the unlisted, unpublished system seems to be working well and I am waiting to see how the courts view the issue. If the law is upheld, I will be on the list. And go after any telemarketer who violates the law.

[MattAMiller]

How about if the people who want to sell stuff go to the trouble not to bother people who don't want to do business with them? Why is it my responsibility to inconvienence myself for their harassment based business?

If they can't stay in business dealing purely with people who want to deal them then they belong on the trash heap.

[Fledermaus]

How about if the people who want to sell stuff go to the trouble not to bother people who don't want to do business with them? Why is it my responsibility to inconvienence myself for their harassment based business? If they can't stay in business dealing purely with people who want to deal them then they belong on the trash heap.

Are you harrassed when you open a magazine and see ads? How about when they cut to commercials on TV?

Oh, the horror of having to click the remote during commercials or the risk of a paper cut turning a few pages to resume the articles. The government should pass laws!

[KineticKitty]

Nope, I shouldn't have to pay one red cent to keep these leeches from intruding into my personal time and home all the while they are calling me on my phone... which I pay for.

A simple no call list government ran or not, is not "crying", it is a simple request or statement. "LEAVE ME ALONE, I AM NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR CRAP, DON'T BOTHER ME TO BEGIN WITH"

Someone made a wonderful point, if this list is putting people's jobs on the line by helping them to avoid the people who do not want to do any business with them, then how is this creating hardship? Hypothetically wouldn't it save more time and money for them by enabling them to call other people who are more inclined to buy their junk?

[Texas Mom]

I pay for phone service for my convenience, not theirs.

What did we do before without telemarketers? We received mail outs, catalogs and saw ads on TV or radio and if we were interested we called to check out the product or service. Maybe if they went back to the mail outs the telemarketers could get a job with the post office. They'll be needing extra help.

[Arthalion]

You know, everyday I go to by mailbox, and mail has been around for centuries, it's full of stuff I don't want either. I guess I should force the government to create a large, unaccountable bureaucracy to have a "No Mail" list.

Not at all. Bulk mailers have the decency to PAY THEIR OWN WAY. In fact, not only do they pay their own way, they pay each of us back by subsidizing our postal rates with their volume. Without the paid bulk mailers, it would cost over a buck to send a letter across the country.

Many, many people don't like to look at billboards while driving. Maybe we should force the government to pass a law that will signal the billboard via satellite technology that I'm driving by and use a hydraulic pole to quickly retract it underground.

Billboards and signs are on private property, and those property owners have the right to put anything they want on their land. If we don't like it, tough. Of course, if those marketers tried planting their signs in MY front yard or on MY desk without my permission, we'd have words. That's what telemarketers and spammers DO!

I would think any company that has 4,500 employees could find and IT staff smart enough to use software and monitor the spam. Much of the spam going into corporate servers is because they have open sites with a simple "contact us" link

Sorry, but it's not that easy. We DO run spam filters that remove 95% of the spam before it reaches our end users, but that spam still has to be received and stored on our email server before it can be processed and deleted. Unlike an end user, a domain email server has NO WAY to filter email before it reaches the server.

Thank you for the reminder though. The SPAM filtering software and server was another $20,000 we had to spend in order to keep our email server useable. Your tax dollars hard at work (subsidizing spammers).

Oh, and we're a school, not a corporation. Our instructors have to post their email addresses on their websites so that students can reach them with questions about homework, schedules, and lectures. I suppose you also think that it should be OK for telemarketers to troll the instructor phone numbers off their websites and bug them with sales calls in their classrooms?

Spam is stupid, expensive, and a drain on our economy. Sure, spammers can claim that they are contributing to the economy by running their "legitimate" tax-paying businesses, but how much MORE are they DRAINING? I'm sure we've easily spent over $100,000 on spam related software, hardware, and labor over the past two years, and we are just ONE organization. How many other American companies and non-profits have had to deal with this same thing? How many hundreds of millions of dollars have been flushed down the toilet because of the spammers? That's money that could have put Americans to work, or been returned as dividends to stockholders, or upgraded assembly lines. That's money that the spammers have stolen. And for what? So they can sell cheap Viagra knockoffs to 12 year olds?

[Conservababe]

Well said. For all the conservatives here who want an new law for merely an annoyance...telemarketers...expect to see your bill in the mail in more taxes...compliments of the government you do not wish to expand.

LOL

[KineticKitty]

How is it harassment when "matt" CHOOSES to watch TV, or when HE CHOOSES to pick up that magazine? I am sure he understands what these two activities entail when he CHOOSES to get involved in them.

[Conservababe]

I forgot to add...do you you think that the "no call" lists are going to be a complimentary goodie from the government forever?

I think not.

[MattAMiller]

Ads in magazines help fund what I want to read. I purchased the magazine they came in of my own free will. And they've never interupted me while I was watching a movie.

[KineticKitty]

Is there an alternative right now? No.

If there was a civilian alternative I would most certainly take advantage of it, and pay a fee if necessary. Just because people choose to protect their privacy with this no call list does not mean they are "cry babies", in a way you sort of pointed out that for the time being there is really no other alternative, yet.