Years ago we put our home phone on the do-not-call list. This has worked well for quite a while. However recently, we have started to get numerous junk phone calls (which should be forbidden by this previous ukase) ... just a few minutes ago one from the Home Security Network. And it seems that just about every mortgage financing company seems to know exactly what time we sit down to dinner. How does this happen? May I suggest that government regulations mean bupkus unless they are enforced ... just like our minimum-gas-mileage laws, mortgage-finance laws, and off-shore-drilling regulations haven't been.
So when things go wrong, our buffoons in Washington blame "deregulation," pass another 900-page law, create another agency, and fill it with high-priced bureaucrats (who watch porn on the Internet all day) ... all to no avail. Why can't our government do what it is decreed to do? The answer my friend is written in the windbags that populate all the marble buildings in the District of Columbia ... and I doubt that anything will change unless and until there is a real downside to such failings. In China, bureaucrats who fail (like the one who allowed melamine in infant formula and sickened or killed numerous babies) have the good sense to attempt suicide. Perhaps we could encourage such results in our country?
4 comments:
There you go again… There are only two parties involved in nuisance calls, the caller and you. The caller is not motivated to stop and, if you do not report them, nobody knows. Figuring out HOW to complain is part of the problem.
So the first recommendation is that the callers cannot be RESTRICTED. You must identify who you are and where you are calling from.
The second recommendation is the more overt technique of the blistering response (one of the following):
• (sadly) “I’m restricted from taking calls from RESTRICTED callers.” Click.
• (sadly) “Darling is that you? Are you reaching out to me in this special way?” Click.
• (excitedly) “No. Never. Not in a million years. Now I loath you.” Click.
• (dyspeptically) “I want your full name and your business address. Now. “ Wait… Click.
• (The Seinfeld) “Give me your home phone number and I’ll call you later.”
• (babbling into the mouthpiece with the earpiece covered) “I used to make phone calls before the war. Raising money through war bonds. The great war, not these vague wars that have no defined leaders and no defined end. Then you had big heavy Bakelite phones, and exchanges had names like HUntley and BEacon and BUtterfield and they meant something, something interesting. So on… So on… So on… So on… So on… So on…”
• (firmly) “Where did you get my name? Am I on a list.. besides the no call list?” Click.
• (breezily) “Hey! Good luck with that! “ Click.
• (softly) “You have a nice voice. What are you wearing?”
• (rhetorically) “Do you really think that I am going to give money (that is ultimately what you want, money, isn’t it?) to some total stranger because they dialed my number? Do you fall for this cheap tactic?” Listen for the answer.
• (authoratively) “Oh dear. Is this the best job you could get, annoying 98% of the people you call to get the benefit of the 2% who cannot resist you?” Listen for the answer.
• (pedantically) “That was not a bad opener but you failed to confirm that you engaged my interest before you went into the appeal. If you do not get my interest then you fade further from being able to make the one-stop telephone close. And that is what you want, isn’t it? Because if isn’t, then what the hell are you doing pretending to be a telemarketer, you’ll never make your numbers. And dialing for dollars is purely a numbers game isn’t it? Don’t you wish you had the really good leads like those dickjaws over there in their private offices, making their quota by the 20th of the month and always getting bonuses? But no, you get to call annoying pissants like me where one score a day is a BFD…”
How often do you get the opportunity to goof on a total stranger? And they called you!
A old friend (Fairfield), now deceased, once handled this way:
Telemarketer: Hello Fairfield. Because we care about you we would like to offer you this special rate on a new credit card.
Fairfield: You don't care about me. You don't even know me.
Telemarketer: Yes, Fairfield, we care about you. You are very special to us and we want to reward you for your good credit rating.
Fairfield: You don't care about me. I am just a name on a call list to you. I could be an ax murderer as far as you know. And I don't have a particularly good credit rating.
Telemarketer: No, Fairfield, we know you aren't an ax murderer and we DO care about you. We care enough to make this special offer to you. Aren't you interested in getting a special interest rate on your outstanding credit card balances?
Fairfield: No, I am not interested in your stupid offer and I am not your friend. And you don't care about me. Come on, admit it.
Telemarketer: OK, we don't care about you ...
Third voice: YOU'RE FIRED!!!
You're funny...
Less government interference, except when the mortgage broker calls at supper....
I smell pants burning...
Terry
All I ask of our bureaucrats is, when there are regulations, get off that porn site and enforce them. Otherwise don't pass any more regulations. Recently, we were in the process of refinincing our mortgage and, given our legislators just passed a 5 million page Financial Reform Law, you would think that the amount of misrepresentation and shady practices here would have been eliminated. No such luck.
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