Telemarketing Vultures
October 30, 2003
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
Now that I’ve moved into a new house and have a new phone number I feel a little bit like roadkill being eyed by a flock of vultures. I’ve entered my new number in both the Texas and national do-not-call lists, but being government-run entities they move slowly. It’ll be early next year before either list takes effect on the new number. In the meantime I’m getting 3 to 5 telemarketing calls per day and I’ve been forced to resort to caller-id screening.
I have noticed a few changes from the old telemarketing pitches that I used to get at the old number, though. They seem to be a lot more aggressive now, with one even leaving a message that was a bald-faced lie (claiming they were responding to my request for “vacation and resort information” or some such nonsense). I think part of it is that they market more aggressively to homeowners than they do to non-homeowners, thinking that we have more money. Perhaps I used to, but I’m a homeowner now. 
Anyway, I may start answering them, just to have the satisfaction of telling them that I never do business with telemarketers, and they’ve just put their business on my permanent shit-list. Especially those pushy bastards at Hawk Security, who have been very persistent about calling at least once a day.
Categories: Privacy
I know this will come as no satisfaction (because you have to pay for it), but you can pay a few dollars more to the phone company and add a call-screening feature.
What it does is require that any caller who has caller ID disabled announce themselves first (many telemarketers turn off Caller ID). When a call comes in that doesn’t have Caller ID enbaled, it gives them the opportunity to record their name (before you hear the phone ring on your end). If they leave a name (or the recordied sales call plays long enough to get past intercept), you have the option of taking the call (press 1) refusing it as a sales call (press 2) or sending them to voice mail (press 3). Hanging up works, too.
Most telemarketing folks just hang up and you never get the call.
I think it’s called “Call Intercept.”
We have multiple phone lines (because we work out of home) and we were getting several calls per day, per line, and it wasn’t cost effectice for us to continue to be distracted in this way.
I think it should be the default, and you shouldn’t have to pay for it (you should have to pay to have this “feature” turned off), but then, I also think that same rule should be true for listings in the phone book.
Or say “just a minute” and put the phone down and continue what you were doing. By the time they realize you’re never comming back and hang up you have prevented several other people from getting called. I once told a telemarketer from Fred Astair dance studios that I wasn’t a good prospect. When he asked why I said “well since you’re being so nosy its because I only have one leg.” You could hear the mortification on the other end.