Annoying Telephone Calls

[raydeon]

Has anyone received a similar call?
(The wording is approximate)

" This is not a sollicitation, it is a call for financial investments. We will put you in touch with an agent...(it goes on and on).........Contact an agent at 1 877 508 2115."

I am getting that call on a daily basis, at diff. time of the day, as early as 8am and late in the evening. I cannot unterrupt the call. If I hang up, and pick the phone again, the call is still on. After several hanging of the phone, the call stops, but there is no dial tone, and the phone line is dead, from several minutes to longer. Yesterday my phone was dead for over an hour.

I contacted Bell and after the usual wait, I explained the problem. The lady was very symphatetic but said that there is nothing illegal about it. She went off for a few minutes and came back. Aparently they have records of al coms. She told me that they have notified that company to stop calling.

That was 2 weeks ago. The calls have not stopped.
If I don't answer, the call goes in my msg box, and here again I have to listen to it before I can delete it.

I have tried calling the 1 877 #. I man came on asking if he could help me. I told him to stop calling with that message. He replied: "I am not calling you, you are calling me".

There must be other people who are getting this call. I like to hear from them, and any suggestion.

If this is not called Sollicitation, what is solicitation?

Oh yes, the Bell lady told me to unplug the phone from the wall to terminate the call. While this may work, it is not a pratical solution. In one case I have to move the sofa away from the wall, and in the other case I have to crawl under the desk.

Should there not be a law prohibiting these practices. This is not permissible in many Western European countries.

 

[gabeti]

I get these calls on a daily basis. I kid you not. These assholes have some nerve!

 

[bestillmehard]

many times I answer my ringing phone to hear nothing....hello...hello...i say...but nothing. After being bombarded with these type of calls on a bad day ..I called bell and the operator told me that telephone solicitors are using a computer to dial 10 or so numbers at a time. The first person to answer gets the call and the other 9 get a dead line. I think this type of crap should be illegal..if it is illegal...how the heck can you get rid of these pests?..most of the calls are from outgoing lines or the ones I can get the numbers for, go to an answering machine. I dont want to leave my name and number on the message....they might call more.

 

[Esco!]

man came on asking if he could help me. I told him to stop calling with that message. He replied: "I am not calling you, you are calling me".

Now thats a classic!!

 

[Bella6969]

OMG LOL ,,, the guy actually said *your calling me ! what an idiot ..
wow,, times like that you just want to be be to really reach through the room and ......

There has to be something bell can do,, well maybe not , they are pretty crappy with there customer care ,,

 

[TheNiteHwk]

Auto dialers themselves are not illegal. It depends on how you use them. You can use certain types of auto dialers if you keep the calls to certain hours and there is a person on the line calling not just a computer-generated voice. In a way this is good for the consumer because if you ask the caller to remove you from their list they can do so with the push of a button. If they are using a manually generated lead list then it’s not so easy for them to remove you from the list and most likely they won’t even make an effort. You can use auto dialers to make certain types of calls with a computer-generated voice. For example the library uses auto dialer with a computer voice to tell you your books are late. They cannot be used for solicitation calls though. This one IMO is on the fence and could fall either way. They have tried to cover themselves by stating at the beginning of the call that this is not a solicitation call. That’s just smoke and mirrors I say. Call or e-mail phone busters. If what they are doing is illegal phone busters will take care of them.


http://www.phonebusters.com/english/contactus.html

 

[Big Sleazy]

I didn't want to subsribe to this but the calls were driving me nuts ! I got caller ID. I don't pick it up if I don't recognize the number.

BS

 

[bestillmehard]

thanks thenitehwk...very helpful information

 

[TheNiteHwk]

Not only the Canadian Marketing Association but phone companies as well may be secretly opposed to the no call list. The reason of course is the amount of business they will lose. I would guestimate 1,000’s of phone lines just in GTA area. I have worked at call centers here in GTA where they had over a hundred phones all with auto dialers consistently calling, calling 12-16 hours a day. Well known major corporations are making $millions& a year from these call centers. Imagine all across Canada. I remember talking to some Bell people about this a few years back when I was a manager at Wheel Chair Sports and we did fundraising on the phone by selling 2 for 1 coupon books. They guestimated at the time that if telemarketing was illegal maybe 40,000 people across Canada would be affected. Lots of jobs would be lost for sure. Another reason why people in the telemarketing industry don’t want a no call list is the cost and difficulties to maintain and manage it. Also the penalties they are talking about are a bit severe IMO. They are talking about a $5,000 fine for making one call that they should not have. If there is a glitch in the system or they call a # on the no call list just by accident it could cost so much that smaller companies will go out of business. So long story short I don’t think there are any easy answers to this situation. There are a lot of legit businesses that use telemarketing to up sell and get new orders etc. And yes unfortunately there are also some scam places etc that ruin the reputation of the good guys and give telemarketing a bad name all the way around.

 

[jwmorrice]

....And yes unfortunately there are also some scam places etc that ruin the reputation of the good guys and give telemarketing a bad name all the way around.

The "good guys"??? Who the f*ck are they? I've never felt grateful to someone who called me at home, whatever they had to peddle.

jwm

 

[raydeon]

I didn't want to subsribe to this but the calls were driving me nuts ! I got caller ID. I don't pick it up if I don't recognize the number.

BS

....That does not solve the problem. It goes in the voice msgs box, and you then have to listen to it befire you can delete it.
(hitting 7 twice does not work in that case)

 

[raydeon]

I...................

Actually, when I have gotten the calls I have once or twice indicated to the caller that I am really busy right now.................

That's fine if you have a real person on the line. Does not work on a computer dialed msg.

 

[Big Sleazy]

....That does not solve the problem. It goes in the voice msgs box, and you then have to listen to it befire you can delete it.
(hitting 7 twice does not work in that case)

The callers rarely leave a message. Not a perfect solution but it helps. The real annoying one's are the one's that call at 10:00 AM on a weekend. That drives me nuts. Maybe I should do what my dad used to do. Scream F&%k O&* at the top of his lungs into the phone.

BS

 

[TheNiteHwk]

The "good guys"??? Who the f*ck are they? I've never felt grateful to someone who called me at home, whatever they had to peddle.

jwm

OK so to you there are no good guys at all. All telemarketing people are bothersome if they call you at home.

When I said good guys I meant that there are legitimate business that sell products that people actually want. They are not all scam artists.

BTW... I think you would be surprised how many people don't mind getting calls at home and how many people buy products off the phone when called.

I have not worked in telemarketing per say for a number of years. Although as an advertising sales guy I do from time to time pick up competition newspapers and call through the ads to get more business for myself. Also I call my current advertisers to up sell them. That is a form of telemarketing in a way I guess. When I was years ago though selling to homeowners in the various places I worked over the years the complaints were really low. I could make anywhere from 60-100 calls per shift and maybe get one per month, yes one per month would say to me take me off your list or would just yell some profanities or something like that and hang up. So that’s about one in every 2000 calls. Not many at all. And number of sales was in some places very high. Newspaper subscriptions for example... when I was doing the Globe I would get about 10 per shift. 2 for 1 coupon books at Wheelchair Sports it was nothing to get 20-30 sales per night during the season. At $7./sale plus minimum wage that's a nice chunk of change.

The only thing was... Many a Friday night some lucky dancer at Diamonds in Ottawa would get most of it. <LOL>

 

[Incall]

(can't remember which comedian did this in his/her skit). From Indiana.
Its from Jerry Sinfield show.

Also this is sort of the same topic. I get emails from some stock broker every week ( they suggest some minor rising stock) with no reply and I can't get them to stop. I phoned my provider (Rogers) and they said we can't do anything. They change their name tag every time.

 

[LancsLad]

We have caller ID, so if its the long distance ring and I don't recognize the munber i let i go to call answer. Sometimes just because of what I am I will answer it. If its a "real" person I tell them I'm really glad they called and before they start the pitch I ask them if they've ever considered that they don't have enough life insurance. I talk till they hang up.

 

[great bear]

We have caller ID, so if its the long distance ring and I don't recognize the munber i let i go to call answer. Sometimes just because of what I am I will answer it. If its a "real" person I tell them I'm really glad they called and before they start the pitch I ask them if they've ever considered that they don't have enough life insurance. I talk till they hang up.

So you sell "term" or "whole" life insurance? Will you insurance my den?

 

[LancsLad]

So you sell "term" or "whole" life insurance? Will you insurance my den?

You might want "blanket" coverage for those long winter nights.

 

[TheNiteHwk]

... I ask them if they've ever considered that they don't have enough life insurance. ... .

LIFE INSURANCE!?

There is nothing more annoying then a life insurance sales person. Never give your number to one of these guys. You think your getting lots of calls now... just wait. These guys just never go away. They even show up in person sometimes. Like a wet T-shirt they are all over you... never giving up... till you sign on the dotted line just to make them go away. Who ever invented life insurance anyway? Somebody should shoot the SOB.

 

[jwmorrice]

OK so to you there are no good guys at all. All telemarketing people are bothersome if they call you at home.

When I said good guys I meant that there are legitimate business that sell products that people actually want. They are not all scam artists.

BTW... I think you would be surprised how many people don't mind getting calls at home and how many people buy products off the phone when called.

I have not worked in telemarketing per say for a number of years. Although as an advertising sales guy I do from time to time pick up competition newspapers and call through the ads to get more business for myself. Also I call my current advertisers to up sell them. That is a form of telemarketing in a way I guess. When I was years ago though selling to homeowners in the various places I worked over the years the complaints were really low. I could make anywhere from 60-100 calls per shift and maybe get one per month, yes one per month would say to me take me off your list or would just yell some profanities or something like that and hang up. So that’s about one in every 2000 calls. Not many at all. And number of sales was in some places very high. Newspaper subscriptions for example... when I was doing the Globe I would get about 10 per shift. 2 for 1 coupon books at Wheelchair Sports it was nothing to get 20-30 sales per night during the season. At $7./sale plus minimum wage that's a nice chunk of change.

The only thing was... Many a Friday night some lucky dancer at Diamonds in Ottawa would get most of it. <LOL>

A lot of folks are so polite and so unassertive, that you could probably sell them chocolate-covered horse balls and they wouldn't complain 'cause you don't talk with your mouth full.

Then too, old folks are suckers for all sorts of sales pitches. "Oh, a nice young man told me it would help..."

I don't think you can judge the morality of your actions by your sales successes.

And as for the guy who would just yell some profanities and then hang up... That was me!!

jwm