If you call and announce that you're from some sort of research firm, and then ask if you may speak to my B., whom you tellingly call by the formal form of her name which she never uses, my answer will invariably be, "No, you may not."
If you call to announce you're from some sort of research firm at this address you get asked why you have the number as it's ex-d and on the national opt out scheme and therefore your call is illegal!
In the US, the Do Not Call list, as it's known, only applies to commercial endeavors. Charitable schemes, political causes, and other pests are free to continue pestering. Whenever I've tried pointing out to these people that we're on it, they smugly point out that it doesn't apply to them, whereupon I reply that if they had any brains in their head, they would realize that people on a Do Not Call list Do Not Want to be Called, and that they're wasting their time exploiting their exemption.
This direct insult to their intelligence usually causes them to hang up in a huff. The only success I've had along these lines has been with callers from political candidates seeking support, to which I say, "We have a rule in this household: We will vote for no candidate who telephones us more than once." That scares them.
I occasionally will agree to answer survey callers directed at me, in hopes I will find the experience amusing. Sometimes it is. More often they give up on me upon finding that I'm over 35, or else the first substantive question is "Do you believe California is going in the right direction?" which I find unanswerable.
Thankfully, there are no exemptions here- opted out means just that.
I'd love to see cold calling and cold mailshotting/junkmailing (and our post office is by far the hugest culprit) banned as they strike me as a huge waste of resources. How many millions of those envelopes/fliers daily go straight into the recycling bin unopened, I wonder?
Anyone who sticks an unsolicited piece of gash though our door has simply ensured they will never get our trade under any circumstances.
I understand that such calls are often annoying, but the not-for-profit for which I work has benefited greatly from the work of our telemarketing firm. The difference means at least two people I don't have to lay off.
True, but since those are illegal here, we have to resort instead to using telemarketers to keep the theatre going. Switching firms last spring has helped get subscription numbers up for the first time in several years. (I should perhaps add that these calls are not entirely cold: we reach out to people who had previously purchased tickets for a single show, or who had been subscribers at some time in the past but lapsed.)
Illegal, meet immoral. I would hope a Tolkienist would see the relationship.
I should perhaps add that, when arts organizations from which I have bought one ticket start pestering me to become a subscriber, I find it profoundly irritating, but they do usually go away and leave me alone after I tell them to, forcefully. Although I have been unable to get the "unsubscribe" function on the San Francisco Ballet's e-mail list to work, though they did stop pestering me by phone after I told them I am absolutely not interested in a subscription.
I'm afraid I must insist that people understand that in my case my no means no. I will not buy goods or services or donate to any charity which cold phones, cold calls, cold mails me or buttonholes me in the street. Zilch.
I have reasons for finding this behaviour deeply threatening, believe me- I'm not a misanthrope.
That's if you're west of the San Andreas. I'm east of it; still, I have used that exact line a few times, but abandoned it when it was clear that the survey takers did not get the joke.
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-06 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-06 11:15 am (UTC)This direct insult to their intelligence usually causes them to hang up in a huff. The only success I've had along these lines has been with callers from political candidates seeking support, to which I say, "We have a rule in this household: We will vote for no candidate who telephones us more than once." That scares them.
I occasionally will agree to answer survey callers directed at me, in hopes I will find the experience amusing. Sometimes it is. More often they give up on me upon finding that I'm over 35, or else the first substantive question is "Do you believe California is going in the right direction?" which I find unanswerable.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-06 12:48 pm (UTC)I'd love to see cold calling and cold mailshotting/junkmailing (and our post office is by far the hugest culprit) banned as they strike me as a huge waste of resources. How many millions of those envelopes/fliers daily go straight into the recycling bin unopened, I wonder?
Anyone who sticks an unsolicited piece of gash though our door has simply ensured they will never get our trade under any circumstances.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-06 10:59 pm (UTC)-MTD/neb
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 04:37 am (UTC)-MTD/neb
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 05:04 am (UTC)I should perhaps add that, when arts organizations from which I have bought one ticket start pestering me to become a subscriber, I find it profoundly irritating, but they do usually go away and leave me alone after I tell them to, forcefully. Although I have been unable to get the "unsubscribe" function on the San Francisco Ballet's e-mail list to work, though they did stop pestering me by phone after I told them I am absolutely not interested in a subscription.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 08:38 am (UTC)I have reasons for finding this behaviour deeply threatening, believe me- I'm not a misanthrope.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-06 10:17 pm (UTC)North, at a few millimeters a year?
no subject
Date: 2014-03-07 03:42 am (UTC)