h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Another occasional series.

Number 1

Yesterday I heard that a California law to try and prohibit spam is being challenged because 'it will hurt business'. Today I learn that someone else may be challenging the US government's federal 'No-Call' scheme which allows people to include their phone number on a list which should not be called by telemarketers, because 'it will hurt business' and 'jobs will be lost'.

Since just about everyone hates both spam and telemarketing calls, I have to ask - WTF?

qUITE.

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WTF stands for....World Trade Federation?

i should think the telemarketers would be glad to be out of work... it can't be fun to get yelled at and hung up on all day long no matter what they're paying you (which is actually crap wages, i know someone who used to do this).

I was once one of those annoying gits who called people around dinnertime and tried to sell them stuff.

The job itself wasn’t so bad. I made good money because I was good at selling stuff Of course I went home each night feeling bad for bothering people and developed a great loathing for all things related to the telephone (also because that is what I was selling)

The main problem was with the company I worked for. They had no scruples! They lied to us about what we were selling, and when we found out, they demanded that we keep lying to the customers or loose our jobs.

What we were told to say about the product: why don’t you buy this really nice shiny red apple. It is free, and there is no commitment to eat this apple. We will send it out to you in about a week to 10 days. If you don’t like the way the apple tastes you don’t have to finish it, you can send it back to us or you can do what you like with it. You will only be billed for how much of the apple you eat. Also it will save you money over your current apple provider.

What the customer received: A month later we’re sorry to take so long in sending you your apple. But here is a contract you can sign so that you are committed to eating our apple for 2 years, and we can start billing you now in advance because it costs money to get apples to you. Now that you have signed and sent in you are committed (more or less) so here, why don’t we send you this nice black squashed banana that doesn’t really save you money, and will probably cost you more money than your original. You are committed to eating this over ripe banana and have no choice because our fruit lawyers are really good.

Ebert

How I hate people who lie. They make me so very angry. That’s why I was only working for that company for 5 weeks. Looking back, I should have left sooner. (about 5 minuets would have sufficed.)

It was a good education for you in how certain parts
of the world are operated. That knowledge may come in
handy someday.

It seems that in both instances it's the Direct Marketing Federation who are raising the objections.

A few weeks ago I read a piece in the NY Times (I get a weekly newsletter from their Circuits column writer) about the head of the DMA's attitude towards spam. I wonder if I kept the mail...

Ah, here we go. He (the head of the DMA, Bob Wientzen) reckons that of course, porno and penis-growth spam is wrong, but genuine, sales-oriented spam is ok. His reasoning goes like this:

Commercial email from a traceable source should be allowed and any company should be free to send anybody one unsolicited email. There should be an opt-out link in the mail telling the company that 'I don't ever want to hear from you again', and it should be honoured by the company (yeah right).

Thing is, there are 24 million small businesses in the US alone. If just 1% of them send you just one email a year, that's 662 emails *every single day of the year* to be deleted from your inbox.

Sound like a plan to you? I wonder what Mr Wientzen's email address is and how much he'd like to delete 662 emails every day if we could all write to him?

Could we extend this to TV adverts? Or Magazine and Billboards? Is it possible to outlaw one type of advertising and not all others? Most constitutions would consider this predigest. Email is so in-expensive, it would leave it so only the rich, big businesses can sell their image to us.

Ebert (devils advocate)

I hear this morning that a US senator is backing the demands to have the federal no-call list abolished, claiming that it 'infringes the first amendment right to free speech of the telemarketers'.



Just tell that to the 50,000,000 people who have already signed up for it, as well all the others (like me) who have signed up for similar state laws.

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Trouble is, the opt-out links never work. Your reply to the
company that sent the spam always bounces back to you as
undeliverable.

...or it confirms to the company that your email is a valid address and then they can sell it to other lists.

Ebert

We have the added problem that Canada Post delivers unaddressed mass-mailings for companies. You know the sort... blanket mailings of pizza flyers, coupon envelopes, etc....

Because this is a paid service, those little stickers on one's mailbox, which read "No flyers" and "No junk mail", are ignored. There are times when my mail consists entirely of flyers and other junk mail, delivered by Canada Post.

You can complain all you want.... since it is "mail", Canada Post cannot NOT deliver it.

I usually save some of them, package them up in those postage-paid envelopes kindly provided by American Express and other companies and mail them. I include the identifier number from the company so that they know who sent the little parcel, along with a note telling them that I will continue to send these little mailings until they take me off their list.

American Express and another credit-card company took me off the list after two such mailings. Up until then, I was getting at least two from each company per month.

I would like to see those telemarketing firms stopped from calling me.

Actually, I would like to see their owners drawn, quartered, and their set out for the ants..... Nothing I LOVE more than having to race out of the bath or up from the basement only to find it is someone trying to sell me time-shares, asking me to donate to spurious charities, or trying to sign me up for a subscription to "The Sun".

Actually, I like telling the Sun sales person, when asked why I do not want to receive their fine paper, "...Because it is a big pile of sh!t. That's why!" or "I can buy toilet paper cheaper, thank you."

I forgot.

When I get calls for carpet-cleaning, I say "Sorry, I don't have any carpets."

They usually offer to clean my furniture upholstry, too, to which I say "Sorry, I don't have any furniture either." and hang up. I love to think what they must imagine I live like with no carpets and no furniture.

I also like to have fun with thos little questionnaires which are included with the warrantee for new appliances, or mailed by marketing firms.

I make up really weird answers to the questions.

Q: How much do you earn?
A: $100,000.00

Q: What is your occupation?
A: Worm picker for the food industry....

Q: How did you hear about the X190 Nose-hair Trimmer?
A: If you promise not to tell the CIA, I forgot to wear the tinfoil on my head one day, and "The Tower" told me to buy it.

Worm pickers are badly needed, which explains
why they would be paying you so much.

I just wish the food I bought had fewer worms
in it.

Someone we know started answering telemarketer calls by saying "How'd you get this number? I don't have a phone!!!"

Lady Scott you said ‘Someone we know started answering telemarketer calls by saying "How'd you get this number? I don't have a phone!!!"’

Back in the day when I was doing that sort of job to make ends meet (see above) I had a guy say that. Very funny, it makes me laugh just thinking about it. The only other thing that I remember from what people said on that job was once this old man was very confused and was convinced that my name was Ebert (thus my nick name).

One thing that they did in the call centre is if someone were rude to them they would set the dialler to call that person once a day for over a month, just to be rude back. The company had no control over it. I find the best way to get rid of callers is to just be calm and polite and say please when you ask them to go #*&£ them selves and stop calling your number

I'm not really sure how much they would understand
anyway. A lot of the callers I get nowadays speak
with such a heavy accent I can't tell what they
are saying. I'm not even sure what it is I'm
saying no to.

I don't get those calls any more since I signed up for the Texas No-Call scheme, but when I did, I found that very few of them had an answer when I asked 'Do your friends know you do this for a living?'. Of those who said yes, I told them how amazed I was at the human capacity for forgiveness, before hanging up.