Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 17:12:17 GMT From: Mitch Wagner Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Mystery Solved (was: Strange Phone Calls) Message-ID: Organization: UNIX Today! Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 298, Message 2 of 3 Lines: 107 In article tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes: > I worked at Bellcore where someone had built an experimental phone > switch that ran on a UNIX system and was therefore programmable in the > way I know best. For outgoing calls, it could read a text file and > speak through a DECTALK. > Everyone in my workgroup got an automated ad, saying that if we called > a certain 800 number, we would win a free vacation. It was really > obnoxious. This was before 900 numbers existed, though. So I had the > phone switch call the 800 number every 90 seconds for about 90 > minutes... > He claimed that his business was legitimate and that he was > having the phone company trace the calls. Wouldn't it have been funny > if he had found out that the "phone company" had made the calls? > [Moderator's Note: Would it have been funny if he found out the phone > company was making the calls? No, I think not. Your employer might > well have gotten sued and you might well have gotten fired, especially > if your employer got sued. Out the door on your ass in a manner of > speaking. His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well > have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated > telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal.... Oh, I suppose you're right, but it's hard to get too worked up about what Mr. Reingold did. I'm one of those who find telemarketing to be pestilent, this despite the fact that I've often found myself working for firms that employ telemarketers. When I worked as a reporter for the (now defunct) DAILY ADVANCE in Flanders, N.J., I got bitten by our own telemarketers. We were a small community newspaper, and I got hand-written letter from a couple who were looking for publicity for some school event or another. I put the letter aside and, a couple of months later, picked it up to do a short write-up. I picked up the phone, called in, identified myself -- "Hi, this is Mitch Wagner from the Daily Advance" -- and the woman said, "Hold on, let me have you speak to my husband." I heard a silence, then a man came on and said, "Listen to me. I have told you people and told you people that I am not interested, and I want you to stop harassing me. Now let me talk to your supervisor right now." Well, I was having a bad day, so I lit into him. I said, "LISTEN YOU NEANDERTHAL! I'VE ABOUT HAD IT WITH PEOPLE WHO SEND IN PRESS RELEASES AND THEN JERK US AROUND ABOUT DOING AN ARTICLE! IF YOU DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR FROM US, WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU SEND ME THAT LETTER FOR?! I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN TO PANDER TO SOME IDIOT'S HARASSMENT FANTASIES, AND--- " "Oh," said a small voice on the other end. "You're calling about the letter about the school?" "WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS CALLING ABOUT?!" "We forgot about the letter. See, we've been getting these calls from your telemarketing folks every night for a week, and.... " The article turned out nicely. So far as I know, the couple stopped getting calls. About that time, I lived at the end of a long dirt driveway -- a private road, actually, about a half-mile long. I got a call from the subscription department at the Newark STAR-LEDGER asking if we wanted home delivery. I said, "Sure," and they gave me a complimentary three-week subscription. At the end of the three weeks, I called to renew, and they renewed, but never delivered. Well, I figured that the paperboy just got sick of going all that way out of his way just to drop off one paper, and since no money had ever changed hands, I forgot about it. But the STAR LEDGER didn't. I continued getting calls about once a month, asking whether I'd be interested in subscribing. I'd explain the situation, offer my conjecture as to why the subscription stopped, and say that under the circumstances, I could certainly understand why they wouldn't want to deliver my paper to me. But the representatives always appeared to be pretty flustered by all of this, and they'd apologize profusely and offer me a free three week's subscription to sign up. I would, and I'd get the paper for a day or two, and then it'd stop. Mitch Wagner VOICE: 516/562-5758 GEnie: MITCH.WAGNER UUCP: wagner@utoday.com [Moderator's Note: Interesting ... almost the same thing happened to me with the {Chicago Tribune}. A high school boy came to my home one day soliciting subscriptions on behalf of some school organization which got a couple bucks for each new subscription obtained. I gave him my order plus an advance payment, and the papers started coming. When the first subscription term expired, the Tribune started billing me, but I would only get the papers about half the time. Two or three days per week they would not show up. I called to complain, and the Tribune would offer me a month free as goodwill. About half of those would arrive; the others would never show up. Each month I complained, and each month the Tribune customer service people would write off the bill and set up another month of complimentary service. After about six months of me paying nothing and the papers getting delivered about half the time, they finally quit bringing them entirely. PAT]