Telemarketing Scum
Back in August, Dave Barry published
the toll-free number of the American Teleservices
Association. Thousands of folks called, wasting the
ATA’s time (can you imagine that?). It got so bad that the
telephone number was disconnected.
Well, he’s now published their new number. It is, at least for the moment, 317-816-9336 (I called it, and the guy at the end said it was the wrong number). So make sure to pick it up and see if they are interested in any of the fabulous offers you no doubt have.
This whole telemarketing business is much like the spam problem. It isn’t free to receive spam (some 1/3 or so of AOL’s) email storage space is spam, pure and simple), and nor is it free to receive a telemarketer’s call. It takes time and effort to answer the phone, time and effort which one would prefer not to expend. The solution, of course, is to waste the telemarketers’ time with phone calls, much as the solution to spam is to fill the mailboxes of spammers with every catalogue, subscription, junk mail &c. one possibly can. It doesn’t so much do good as make one feel good, which is good enough for me.
