A Call to End Telemarketing

A Call to End Telemarketing

There is one sure sign that the government is working against us and not for us. No, it's not high taxes. It isn't the funneling of billions of tax dollars to impoverished people like Bill Gates or on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy businesses like Mobil-Exxon. And, no, it isn't that schools aren't being built.

The one sure sign that the government is working against us is that telemarketing is still legal. Nothing has a worse helpful to annoying ratio than telemarketing. It helps virtually no one while it bothers and interrupts virtually everyone. How many times have you heard the phone ring and gotten up to get it only to discover it was just a telemarketer? Some days you can be interrupted five or more times. And the telemarketers seem as perturbed about calling you as you are about receiving the call. They drone on and read from scripts with the enthusiasm of a porcupine standing in line to get into a balloon factory.

Match that against ANYTHING else. Inheritance taxes? Only hurts a small percentage of the people while the money can be used to build the aforementioned schools. Guns? Protect people against attacks by Canada. Rush Limbaugh? Only harmful to people who actually believe a word he says (unless those people actually vote). Bill Clinton? Inspired some of the best Saturday Night Live bits in years!

Heck, even the plague created shorter lines at medieval Departments of Motor Vehicles.

What's worse now is that, quite often, no one is there when you answer. They have computers dial your number and connect to the telemarketer when you answer. The computers dial five or ten numbers at once. The first schmuck who answers gets connected to the telemarketer. The other four or nine people get a dead line.

What can we do? There are three common current thoughts: accept the intrusion as a fact of life, tell them to take you off of the calling list, or buy a telemarketer stopping gizmo.

Telling them to take you off the calling list doesn't work. I've tried it. I still get calls. Every ring is just taunting me: "You told us to stop calling you, but we're calling you anyway. Nothing can stop us! Muuuu-hahahahahahaaa!" (Actually, it's more of a ringing sound than a voice, but I think you get the idea.) Telling them to stop just doesn't work.

Buying one of those gizmos is wrong on a couple counts. First, it screens out telemarketers, but it also screens out legitimate calls. Anyone from a phone that cannot be traced won't get through. So if your main squeeze is calling you from an unidentifiable phone to see if you want to go to dinner and a movie, it won't go through. You end up spending the night watching old Newlywed Game episodes on the Gameshow Network.

Second, the businesses selling the call blockers are some of the same businesses profiting from telemarketers in the first place. You're essentially giving a mugger your wallet to try to get him to stop mugging you. Either way, you lose and they win.

All that is left is answering the phone. However, you don't have to accept it as a fact of life. Try a little phone-rage.

Ask to speak to the warden. Many of the telemarketers today are prison inmates trying to make a little money while they are incarcerated. It's cheaper for companies to use prison inmates than it is to hire people who have to actually pay bills. You might be literally giving your credit card information to a prison inmate! It's cheaper for companies to use prison inmates than it is to hire people off the street. So they hire prison inmates--who use this opportunity to hone their skill to swindle. (Remember the Corporate America slogan: Ethics before profits, unless profits are hindered by ethics.)

Put 'em on hold. "Hi, may I speak to Mark?" "Please hold." With that, put the person on hold. (Be certain, first, that this is a telemarketer and not the Oakland Raiders wondering if Mark would be willing to sign a million-dollar contract to sit on the bench.) If you don't have a hold button, just push the button to disconnect the caller. It all sounds the same on the other end. If you're really gutsy, give 'em the old "Your call is important to us; please stay on the line" before you hang up on them.

Use a popular catch phrase and hang up. For instance, use the popular new game show line, "You are the weakest link! Goodbye!" Then hang up. Make sure you use an appropriate one. Saying "where's the beef?" will only get them talking more as they try to explain the "beefy" part of the product they're conning you into buying. You end up in a worse predicament than you started--not only are these people still talking to you, but you invited them to talk to you. I'm just saying you should be careful. Be very, very careful!

Tell the telemarketer, "Actually, I don't need this product. But I think I know who would." Then tell the telemarketer the name and cell phone number of your congressional representative or senator or even the president. If they had to deal with these nuisances, I bet they would change some laws pretty darn quickly. Please DO NOT do this to anyone else--even to a mortal enemy. Nothing he or she did could be heinous enough for this cruelty.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, "Mark, the telemarketer is just trying to earn an honest living--your gripe is with the company, not the worker." Well, your thought is a fair one. However, there is nothing honest about telemarketing. Certainly, there are honest telemarketers, but the job of telemarketing is dishonest by its very nature. These people are trying to sell you something you don't think you need. If you thought you needed it, you would have called them. I'm sure a lot of people selling methamphetamines are simply trying to pay bills, but that doesn't it make it honorable employment. The difference between drug dealing and telemarketing is that drug dealing doesn't have a large lobbying effort in Washington, D.C. – yet.

By the way, I claim no responsibility for any repercussions that occur after anyone calls a prison inmate "the weakest link!" I've given you some options, but I'm not forcing any of them on you.

That's, after all, a telemarketer's job.

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If you have any constructive thoughts on my commentary, let me know. If, for some reason, you'd like my opinion on a certain topic and want to suggest a commentary topic, let me know that, too. My e-mail address for such endeavors is mark@wentzmania.com.