Welcome to Orcmid's Lair, the playground for family connections, pastimes, and scholarly vocation -- the collected professional and recreational work of Dennis E. Hamilton

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brrreeeport

Help Stamp Out Telephone Surveys

Weeks ago my phone started ringing with automated surveys.  I would hang up and they’d call back again in a short while.

{tags: orcmid phone surveys do-not-call registry}

I went through one of the surveys to find out who it was and I was given a phone number at the end of the call.  I called that (long-distance-, not 800-) number using excess free minutes and received yet-another automated system that reportedly would take my number off their list.  Well, I had to hang up on a few more calls and then things got quiet.

Today, it started again.  I don’t know who it was.  The first call was about real-estate agents.  I hung up.  The second call said it was a survey being conducted by DAW Marketing.  Interesting.  (The name of a competitor perhaps?  Who cares.)  So I gave the worst-possible answers to the survey, quickly getting to the end of the message.  Yes, I did think the officiating at the Super Bowl was superb (I didn’t even watch it but I live in Seattle, dig?).  Yes, I think the NFL should continue to hire rent-an-umpire officials.  Like that.  Then I got the number at the end of the message.

After I wrote down the number, I looked up the on-line do-not-call registry and reported the number and the company name for abuse.  I don’t care if survey firms are exempt.  I don’t care if people who claim they are charitable organizations are exempt.  Get off my phone.  And if you are using an automated calling and survey system, I am going to give the worst possible responses I can think of.  And I am going to do that until your survey accuracy and quality is so bad that you stop doing this.  And if not, I am happy that the bozos who pay for the results are thinking they get something valuable.  They deserve to pay big bucks for the crap that will be served up as people get wise and start systematically lying.

So there.  I think I’ll print up T-shirts.  “Lies on Phone Surveys.”

And proud of it.  Let’s create a national organization and deny these folks their ill-deserved livelihood.

[update: I receive e-mail notification of all comments posted on this blog, and I just now received notice of an unbelievable spam comment on an old post.  It listed 30-40, poker games, and whatnot.  It was easy to delete, as explained there.  It is almost as if it was posted in the comments there (about how to delete comments) as a challenge.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with the current post, but the coincidence is wonderful.  I have an e-mail copy, if you’re curious, but the post is gone.] 

posted by orcmid at 3/16/2006 03:31:04 PM