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US regulators on Tuesday announced a nationwide crackdown to stop companies from inundating people with billions of unwanted and illegal robocalls and telemarketing calls. The crackdown, known as Operation Stop Scam Calls, involves the Federal Trade Commission and 101 other federal and state law enforcement authorities, including the attorneys general of all 50 states and Washington, DC. More than 180 enforcement actions and initiatives are part of the initiative, including five that the FTC formally announced on Tuesday. “We don’t know too many people out there who enjoy getting scam calls,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC consumer protection bureau,...

I have been getting marketing calls in Chinese for the last few weeks. Not recognizing the number, I answer it (I know, not good!). Get a tape in Chinese. Block the call on my iPhone. Blocking seems to have put me on a great deal more phone lists; the calls have proliferated - some are local numbers, some DC. Feedback??

A call center company spun off from Quicken Loans' telephone-focused mortgage sales operation is planning to add 500 employees by year's end and looking for additional office space in downtown Detroit. Rock Connections, a five-year-old call center and part of Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert's family of companies, has reached capacity with 800 employees in its building at 1900 Saint Antoine next to Ford Field, said Victor You, CEO of Rock Connections. The fast growth adds teeth to Gilbert's observation that call centers could be a growth industry for Detroit and create a "point of entry" to jobs for residents....

When Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the man dubbed "Trump of the East", told U.S. businesses to pack their bags if they didn't like his anti-American rhetoric, the huge and growing outsourcing industry got a little nervous. It's now the real Donald Trump who has businesses worried here, after the U.S. president-elect vowed to bring offshored jobs home from places such as the Philippines, a big provider of back-office services for corporate America. The Southeast Asian country accounts for 12.6 percent of the global market for business-process outsourcing (BPO), which has been growing 10 percent a year for the past decade,...

Telesales reps have been asked to reveal the cruellest things people have said to them over the phone. Cold callers of reddit disclosed the harshest and most bizarre put-downs they have suffered, presumably before being hung up on by disgruntled members of the public.No one like being disturbed by strangers wasting their time with sales talk and most of us do not appear to be shy about telling random callers exactly what they think.

"Sorry. Obamacare is going to hurt me and I can't buy that right now." "Sorry. I used to give to your charity each year, but the money must go for my higher health insurance costs due to Obamacare." "Sorry. We have to lay off 20% of our work force, and the people who own the cars in the company lot with the Obama Biden bumper stickers.... well, you're first. You understand, don't you?" I used to avoid the unknown incoming phone numbers on my home phone. They were usually solicitors. But not anymore. I pick up, I listen... then I...

I need to keep my land line, but I'm about ready to turn the ringer off which means real calls won't get my attention. This all really started at the change of the year, and may have something to do with the small political donations. Maybe. I don't know. But it starts in the morning and ends in the early evening. One is particular is GE Capital and I do absolutely no business with them. I went throught the "don't call" years ago. Anyone else experiencing this?

Please Note! As I have not had a chance to fully compile the list of every Small Claims Court in the United States yet, please visit this list until such time. If and when I get my list fully compiled, I shall be including a lot of extra data such as links to the applicable court rules and which courts allow the filing of claims online as mine does. Suing Telemarketers - Simple and Cheap When most people think about the process of suing a business entity, they naturally consider it a complicated and expensive process. They consider having to...

This is the second in a series of YouTubes designed specifically to help you all in being a highly effective and professional salesperson.

This is # 1 in a series of short instructional YouTubes on how to become a master salesperson. I know that many of us have chosen this field of work as the income can be quite good and it can be very enjoyable. So I am providing these as a public service to all conservatives, and yes, even you lefties who are here....to help you become all that you can be!

Over the last few weeks I have been received up to 5 calls a day from these fraudsters from the "Prolixus" people. They call claiming to be from the "Prolixus Identity Protection Center" and they claim that I contacted them earlier for a call back. Well the problem is their product is a "male enhancement" product and I am female. This doesn't seem to stop them from calling me for what seems like ALL of the time. I have on several occasions demanded to talk to a supervisor who then assured me I would be taken off of their list...

World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt Outs As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about “opting out,” and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. The list below does not contain all opt outs that are available. Rather, it contains the opt outs that we believe are the most important and will be the most useful to the most consumers. Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We...

You answer the phone, and it's a recorded message: "By now you should have received your written note regarding your vehicle warranty expiring. This call is to give you a final opportunity to extend coverage before it is too late. Press '1' now to speak to a warranty specialist regarding your options on your vehicle." Upon pressing "1," you are transferred to a "warranty specialist" who lies to you, telling you he is affiliated with an automobile dealer or manufacturer and that your warranty is up. And before long, you may have agreed to put $450 down on an extended...

WASHINTON – Thanks to a little known provision in the recent stimulus bill, your cell phone number will soon be in the hands of any telemarketing firm willing to pay the government’s fee. Section 411 of the bill empowers the FCC to ‘raise government funds through the sale of information assets’. The language is so vague that there were no concerns at the time over the potential impact, but telemarketing firms have been beating a path to the FCC’s door since they quietly announced the availability of the information that cellular providers are required by law to file with the...

Business think tank, Direct Marketing Directions, has released their findings on the worldwide effect of ‘Do not call’ lists throughout the English-speaking world based on six months worth of research and interviews.

Some central Iowa voters said a voicemail message on behalf of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign has gone too far. The automated messages, also known as robocalls, have been ringing phones in Iowa homes since the last presidential debate. The message talks about a relationship between Sen. Barack Obama and '60s radical Bill Ayers.... "It was vicious," said independent voter Marilyn Greene. "It was a hateful, vicious message." She said there's too much on the line in this election for candidates to stoop to this level. "Stick to the issues," she said. "What can you do? What are you looking...

Excerpt - Responding to a wave of consumer complaints, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it will bar telemarketers from making prerecorded sales calls unless a consumer explicitly agrees to receive such calls. The FTC also will require all recorded sales calls to provide an opt-out feature to allow consumers to place themselves on the caller's do-not-call list immediately. ~ snip ~

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Politicians have finally found an issue they all can agree on: Telemarketers calling at dinnertime are a scourge that must be repulsed. Congress on Wednesday sent to President Bush two bills that would make permanent a program to protect consumers from unwanted phone calls from telemarketers. Its hallmark is the national "do not call" list. "This initiative has proven to be one of the most popular laws in history," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C. Extending the program was necessary "to avoid the wrath of millions of angry constituents." The Do Not Call Registry, initiated in 2003, has...

Three men who ran a now-defunct telemarketing company were charged Friday in an alleged $75 million scam to defraud customers and potential clients into paying for Internet-related services without their consent. GoInternet.net Inc. president and chief executive officer Tyrone Barr, vice president Neal Saferstein and chief information officer Billy Light were charged in a 26-count federal indictment for allegedly scamming customers from March 2001 to April 2004. GoInternet telemarketers would dupe potential customers into receiving an information packet, which was designed to look like junk mail so that it would be thrown away, authorities said. Investigators said that receiving the...

Gupta's InfoUSA Pays Pelosi's Son Ronald Kessler Tuesday, June 5, 2007 A database company that has showered money on Bill and Hillary Clinton – and is alleged to have aided scam artists – now appears to have close links to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family as well. The firm InfoUSA, headed by major Clinton backer Vinod Gupta, has placed Pelosi's son, Paul Pelosi Jr., on its payroll – even though he has no experience in the company's main business activities, NewsMax has learned. As NewsMax previously reported, InfoUSA repeatedly rented marketing databases to unscrupulous persons who used the information to...