Just A Theory
I've been getting a lot of phone calls trying to sell me something. They're far more annoying than email spam. Here's the part I don't get. Not only am I on the Do Not Call Registry, but at the end of these calls, they tell me to press a number to be taken off the list. Yet I keep getting more calls.
I have a theory that if you actually press the number, you're put on a list of people who wait till the end of the message and respond to what's said, and thus are perfect for further calls.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:39 AM
2 Comments:
Seems similar to the question of whether it's better or worse to click "unsubscribe" in response to spam. The better research I've seen seems to indicate -- for spam -- that it doesn't make a difference whether you respond or bin it. My guess is the same is true for phone calls. They operate by small margins on bulk -- any one recipient isn't worth focusing on.
If it's really annoying, there's a device you can buy that signals the auto-dialer that a human didn't pick up, so they just move on.
I wonder whether you can get money from their having violated the Do Not Call Registry the way you can get paid for reporting violations of the unsolicited fax law.
In Massachusetts at least (which has a state do not call registry) you can report them to the Attorney General's office and the offending telemarketer will get fined at least $11000 per call. I tried it once and it took a long time to report a complaint on line and I'm not sure it worked but its a little satisfying. It may not work on savvy national telemarketers but when I threatened to report the local yokel landscaping company who used to blast call the neighborhood on sunny saturday mornings, I was never blessed with another one.
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