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From: dpletche@jarthur.claremont.edu (David Pletcher)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Mercury Marketing Again
Message-ID: <13998@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 90 19:06:28 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 761, Message 1 of 10


In article <13946@accuvax.nwu.edu> cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan)
writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 757, Message 3 of 10

>I don't understand what's so difficult about getting rid of
>telemarketing calls.  I've never had more than two of them from an
>undesired source.

>[Moderator's Note: My sentiments exactly. I've always been amused by
>the messages both here and elsewhere on the net by folks who
>apparently are frightened to death that they might actually encounter
>one on the phone and have to say no ... so frigthened by telemarketers 
>are they that they go to such extremes: published lines where are
>never answered; non-pub lines which route through an answering machine
>for screening first, etc.  Do like Nancy: Just say no (and hang up).  PAT]

I don't know whether avoiding telemarketers and other unsolicited
calls merits some of the extreme measures that other readers use, but
I think that the two of you are forgetting the major reason that
telemarketers are a nuisance.  It is not that it is difficult to
disengage one once I pick up the phone, but merely that answering the
phone is often a great inconvenience.  Many times I have been in the
shower, or eating dinner, or doing something else I don't want to have
interrupted when the phone rings.  So when I pick up the phone after
having jumped out of the shower and run down the hallway, dripping
everyhere, I am not amused to hear an automated announcement
soliciting a piano tuning service (especially since I don't have a
piano).

When the phone rings, I assume it is because someone has something
marginally important, or at least interesting, to say; thus I drop
what I am doing to answer the phone.  That is why I do not appreciate
being interrupted by junk phone calls.


David Pletcher
dpletche@jarthur.claremont.edu