How To Profit From Telemarketing 329
jsprat writes: "From the Seattle PI: A man gets an automated message from a telemarketer. He complains. Two weeks later, he gets a check and an apology! In the article, another man is mentioned who claims to have collected $2650 dollars over the last year for illegal spam, faxes and automated calls. Another weapon to fight these clowns?" What's your personal cash-won record?
Ben Livingston's success (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, about $3250 (Score:5, Interesting)
The key here is persistance. Its amazing how almost anyone will crumble when faced with a legal threat. Think about the way Scientologists went after slashdot, thats how I go after spammers. I may even be on thin legal ice so to speak, but the mere threat of the law usually sees these guys settle. At the moment, its cheaper for them to do this.
Its also worth noting that I am Canadian which makes it a whole lot more complicated (and therefore expensive) from a legal perspective.
I would urge slashdotters to take up my hobby, it takes about 1hr/week and can be very lucrative.
$500 (Score:4, Interesting)
They get PR (and all PR is good PR), come across as "ok, we did something wrong but we're good upstanding people who are willing to be good members of the community and make amends." They come out smelling like roses for a fairly paltry sum. It's a wonderful thought.
=Blue(23)
Telemarketers have evolved... (Score:5, Interesting)
I received a phone call a few months ago. The call rang once and ended before I could pick it up. When I checked the Caller ID (never go home without it) it had a number outside of my area code with a label, "Prize Claim Dept" attached.
When I checked the area code it was somewhere in the Carribean. I have seen more than a few jobs listed in the classifieds that had similar numbers, charging $20 a minute (legally) without warning.
This was pretty crafty, though. First, they get you to initiate the call, making it much easier for them to get your money. Second, if there ever was a problem, they could easily argue that they dialed the wrong number, realized it, then hung up. They didn't expect you to call them.
Ethically lacking, but pretty crafty.
PS (Score:2, Interesting)
Telemarketing Calls (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically, it just asks the caller for their name, and then prompts me whether I wanna accept or deny (similar to collect calls). I notice that nowadays I have 0 messages on my answering machine, whereas before, I'd get 2-3 junk calls a day.
Also, whenever I sign up for "advertising" promotions (kroger plus card, big bear card, etc) I use my modem line. I've actually heard someone call it, probably to the tune of once a month. I can imagine their suprise when they hear the modem on the other end.....
Do you have somewhere we can read this law? (Score:2, Interesting)
Auto Dialer Delete? Telezapper (Score:3, Interesting)
As I recall it was called the telezapper. And costs around 50 bucks.
http://www.telezapper.com/
From their website:
The TeleZapper is designed to "zap" calls made by predictive dialer computers by doing two things: first, by disconnecting predictive-dialed calls before you can be connected to a live telemarketer and second, by deleting your phone number from telemarketing computer lists. Whether the TeleZapper will affect computer-dialed calls from other sources depends on the type of computer equipment and how that equipment is being used. Therefore, it may also "zap" calls from other organizations that use predictive dialer computers, such as charitable organizations, blood banks, public safety and service organizations, market researchers, opinion and political pollsters, and academic institutions.
They "delete" you from the database by sending a line disconect signal. I don't know of anyone who has used this device so I can't attest to how well it works.
What about Canada? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Destroying the telemarketing industry. (Score:2, Interesting)
I even managed to get some form of sweet revenge with the Lexington, KY newspaper. I was called one evening, at home, and told about some special weekend offer for home-delivery. Understand that ordinarily I would refuse, simply on principle. The irony is that I had *just* finished looking up the number for home-delivery, so that I could take it with me to work the next day and order home-delivery. I figured that in this ONE case, they actually had good timing, and a service that I was going to buy *anyway*, so... fine: I'd order the paper. One problem: the woman that called me could *ONLY* sell me their weekend package, and I wanted the full-blown, 7-day-a-week, normal-price service. I was dumbfounded.
So, the next day, I gave the paper a telephone call and asked to be connected to new subscriptions. I was connected to a very helpful gentleman who explained the whole subscription plan to me about seven or eight times and then I told him the story that I just related. I explained to him that I was a customer that was ready to buy -- all they had to do was take my money. I then told him that because of that experience I was no longer interested in receiving the paper, and that I would be buying the Cincinnati newspaper at my local Kroger instead. He got rather offended at this, and accused me of calling just to waste their valuable time. I somehow supressed a laugh and told him that I knew *EXACTLY* how he felt, since that's the feeling I had after their telemarketing call.
All in all, I doubt that anyone there will ever notice, or even know how I felt about the whole thing... but, still, making an unsolicited call to a telemarketer (yeah, I know, it was just to the company that contracted a telemarketer, but, still) just seemed to drip with delicious irony.
META Spam anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you want to get rid of all those spammers? You can earn BIG MONEY by suing them.. bla bla bla...
Just click here to buy the unique 'How to sue the bad guys' whitepaper for just 9.99!
This is a one time opportunity! Request it now and get instant access to our pr0n affiliates for free!"
Re:Destroying the telemarketing industry. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm... imagine what could be done with this technique given:
Useful links if you are in the UK (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.tps-online.org.uk/
http://www.fps-online.org.uk/
These are the links to the telephone preference service and fax preference service.
Telemarketeers are not allowed to call you by law if you are signed up to these services. And any half decent telemarketeer with respect them (I know that's an oxymoron) otherwise they won't be in business for long.
Re:Telemarketers have evolved... (Score:5, Interesting)
I used one of the 10-10 numbers once, and I got a bill from AT&T mailled to me, addressed to one of my aliases. Obviously they'd pulled the name from some marketting database and managed to match up my phone number that way, but they obviously didn't have any actual evidence to force me to pay that bill, or ruin my aliases credit.
Re:pennsylvania law (Score:2, Interesting)
You can also tell the telemarketer (calmly) "please place me on the do not call list" and they will stop calling you (trust me, it works. They aern't idoits and they will put you on a DNC list). If you don't say the word list they are NOT legally required to stop calling you, so "please stop calling me" or "don't call here again" or "I dont take these kind of calls" will all be ignored, and you will probably be laughed at for being an idoit.
If you spaz on a telemarketer, they probably mute you and start laughing at your idocy. It requires no effort to get off of all telemarketing lists, forever, yet people like you seem to think that its a huge thing.
TCPA was passed in '92, why don't you learn a little more about it if you hate telemarketers so much. It's the law you should be worried about, and it only requires a quick call to the FCC to get everything rolling.
If you think I'm just making stuff up, I used to work at a telemarketing house in college, with alot of other college kids who were trying to make money. In general, there are some fuckups (I know one kid who lied to about everyone he called) but most telemarketers are just doing thier job. If you don't want them to, just say "Put me on the do not call list please", wait for them to say "goodbye" after rattling a little speech, and hang up. It's not hard, and it's idoits like you who give telemarkters a bad name, because your too stupid to learn your own rights.
(It's also interesting that the same people who hate telemarketers are the ones who think that telephone CSR's owe them something, the amusing part is most often they work for the same outsourcing company -- and often will call one day and take calls the next)
Wasting their time is easy (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Say "One moment please."
3. Put the phone down and go about your business for 5-10 minutes.
4. Pick up the phone, say cheerfully "Hello!", (telemarketer reminds you), say cheerfully "Sorry, of course! Just a sec."
5. GOTO 3.
I watched a friend's mother waste someone's time for close to an hour this way...
Re:Destroying the telemarketing industry. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How about $10000? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not quite true.
The Federal law is one-party. That means that a call can be recorded at the consent of any one party. Most of the states are also one-party, including my home state of Colorado.
Check your own state law to be sure, but you're usually pretty safe taping incoming calls.
Re:How about $10000? (Score:2, Interesting)
As the guy says, it's your conversation, you can record it. You don't even need to tell the person you're recording the call.
Of course, it doesn't really affect me much what's illegal in America, but here in the UK it seems that BT have backed down (or been legislated down) against their "thou shalt not connect unapproved equipment to our phone lines" stance, and there's been a flurry of new recording kit for phones on the market.
In my standard electronics catalog, there's everything from simple phone-jack-to-3.5mm adapters to recording kits, inductive couplers, digital voice recorders, and even sticky microphones to record mobile phone conversations.
Personally, I just use an old tape recorder, and find it a great help when my landlord claims not to have agreed something.