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I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
61–70 of 150 posts
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks to Voice over IP, this is pretty much impossible to regulate any more. The telephone networks were built on a trust model that VoIP destroyed. Now, you can originate a call on the internet that's nearly impossible to trace.
The current caller ID system is incredibly broken- I'm getting 3 calls a day to my personal cell phone from the same scammers and have not been able to get their real contact info. After watching all these TV shows with the 'hang up within 10secs or you'll be traced!' I expected AT&T to be able to help me out. No dice. Unfortunately the phone #'s are always random and AT&T just wants to sell me a service that allows…
If you don't mind throwing more of your data to Google, you can port your number to google voice and block as many numbers as you like. It even has spam filtering for calls.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#63> Although manually dialing is very rare, many of these regulations do not apply to manually dialing. Followed by > I already had three violations on my hand, but I knew I could get two more pretty easily. The next day, I called the alarm company and asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list, and asked for a copy of their Do Not Call policy. A few days later, David called me again – violation number four. So…
Hi Corin. I asked to be on their internal DNC list, and several days later, they called me again. That's illegal. Don't you think companies should have to respect your requests to be put on their DNC lists? I mean, if you unsubscribed from an email list and kept getting emails, wouldn't you be upset?
My understanding of the law is that if they have established a business relationship with you (you express interest in their product), that "relationship" lasts for (I believe) 30 days, during which they can call you freely. Asking to be put on their DNC list should cut off your relationship, but I think had they gone to court they would have had a solid defense that you expressed interest in their product, and you would have likely won nothing.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#64I like this article. I worked in telemarketing for a while, and was probably one of the shittiest jobs I ever had. Not only did the companies not give a crap about the laws, they didn't care about their supposed customers. We sold worthless stuff trying to pursued them into using it over much better and more established companies. Example: AAA tow services. I found myself trying to be the good guy in the situation an…
"Shady shit, glad I don't do that anymore." But this also proves something. From what you've written you knew you were doing something that was wrong. As one example: "We sold worthless stuff trying to pursued (sic) them into using it over much better and more established companies" But you had to earn a living so you did that. Now I don't know what your particular situation was or how badly you needed the job (prove…
I was young and like stated, I needed a job and wasn't picky. Not to mention when I started I didn't know what exactly was going on, because I was part of another section that sold the Boston Globe newspaper before moving to the shady side.
I only worked there for 3 months, then I told my boss to go fuck herself and walked out.
Edit: and no offense taken, if you have any questions in regards to what little bit I do know about such a crappy industry let me know. I am somewhat knowledge in it.
Funny enough my current job is at a call center for a GPS company. I don't do any calling though.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#65"I believe that, done right, telemarketing is an effective, appreciated way to get people services they want, deliver important political messages, and raise money for non-profits" This make anyone else cringe?
Absolutely. There is no "right" way to perpetrate telemarketing. The only difference between this creep and the slime that he sued was that this guy is careful to adhere to the technical minutiae of laws that seem to have been partly written by the telemarketing industry themselves. This was just a sordid story of one antisocial jerk using the courts to extract money from a less savvy antisocial jerk. I especially li…
I disagree, it depends on the telemarketing, though I do agree that the vast majority is terrible, and that anything using an automated dialer is terrible.
Colleagues of mine in sales sometimes telemarket - in that they will cold call potential customers, but only people they have researched and genuinely think might want to advertise with us, and the track record of a.) people called who end up spending money with us and b.) of those people, the ones who are happy and become repeat customers, does show that in this situation telesales works great for both us and them.
On the other side of good telemarketing, I'm in a position to get plenty of cold calls / cold emails myself, business related, and it's not rare for me to get one that genuinely interests me, and sometimes leads to me spending money with them and getting good results from it. So I don't mind getting those calls/emails.
Outside of business I find them horrific, I've never had a good cold-call to my home landline or my mobile, presumably because for non-business sales it isn't worth doing any research into who I am and whether I'm a valid target.
(But yes, I agree with your judgement in this particular instance.)
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#66The solution to this is to put these people in prison. Phone harassment (and telemarketing is harrasement) is theft of attention and that ought to be as illegal as any other kind of theft.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you want the Phone Companies to get involved in policing the content of the calls that are made? When you order a phone line, should the Phone Company put you through a detailed and exhaustive screening process mandated by their lawyers because they've been sued for the contents of calls that some of their customers have made? Should they then be allowed to monitor your calls for violations of their AUP? I mean, i…
No I was thinking more non-batshit insane measures. For starters they could let you block calls from unknown numbers. Indeed, they could require some sort of licensing for numbers/entities originating large volumes of calls. They could also disallow caller id blocking. But the reality is abusive telemarketing tactics are a substantial revenue stream for them, so they dont give a shit.
"For starters they could let you block calls from unknown numbers."
They do but you have to call them for this.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#68> Although manually dialing is very rare, many of these regulations do not apply to manually dialing. Followed by > I already had three violations on my hand, but I knew I could get two more pretty easily. The next day, I called the alarm company and asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list, and asked for a copy of their Do Not Call policy. A few days later, David called me again – violation number four. So…
I don't understand why people are voting this guy down. That certainly wasn't a violation, ethically at least. You told him to call you back!
In general, comments with negative scores will get at least a few upvotes, and comments with high scores will get at least a few downvotes, so when a comment is young it's easy to see it voted the opposite direction it will end up on once more people have seen it.
So thanks for the concern, but plenty of the oh-so-valuable karma points heading my way by now, just a couple of people who disagreed right at the start!
Urgh, I hate Karma on HN. I'd much prefer to see other people's comment scores than not see them. And I'd much prefer not to see my own than see them. What irony.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#69> Although manually dialing is very rare, many of these regulations do not apply to manually dialing. Followed by > I already had three violations on my hand, but I knew I could get two more pretty easily. The next day, I called the alarm company and asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list, and asked for a copy of their Do Not Call policy. A few days later, David called me again – violation number four. So…
I think you just totally missed the point.
Either explain how/why, or just leave a downvote rather than a comment that says nothing.
Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000
#70The solution to this is to put these people in prison. Phone harassment (and telemarketing is harrasement) is theft of attention and that ought to be as illegal as any other kind of theft.
Prison should be for violent crimes.
This kind of thing should be settled in civil court - as it is.