Larry Kilgallen
2004-12-08 18:36:42 UTC
I got called by a telemarketer recording 30 minutes ago, and was
invited to press 8 to be removed from their list and to press 9
for more information about their product. 8 would go against my
principles of not unsubscribing from something to which I had
not subscribed, so 9 seemed like the best choice. Naturally
I put the receiver down on the desk as I had no intention of
talking with them. But I turned up the volume on the radio
to make sure they continued to burn their telephone minutes
if they had any kind of automatic noise sensor.
After a while I noticed there were various tones and voices
coming out of the phone so I picked up. I heard people answering
their phone, first at various university offices from my area.
I first thought the call which Caller ID said was from Florida
might have been from inside a local university with ISDN used
to fake the caller id.
But then I noticed that I cannot talk to any of these people.
I can hear them answer, but they cannot hear me. It is possible
that they are hearing the telemarketer pitch, but their response
is more like they hear nothing on the line.
So my conclusion is that for at least one brand of telemarketing
machines my failure to hang up has prevent others from hearing the
telemarketer message. I think this is good, because although it
does not prevent people from being interrupted by a phone call,
it does prevent them from hearing the message and while the charge
for the call still goes to the telemarketer there is no chance that
any of the victims will violate whatever is the telephone equivalent
of the Boulder Pledge.
I suppose some time I might want to make a phone call, but for now
I can use the other line and folks who want to call me can use email.
invited to press 8 to be removed from their list and to press 9
for more information about their product. 8 would go against my
principles of not unsubscribing from something to which I had
not subscribed, so 9 seemed like the best choice. Naturally
I put the receiver down on the desk as I had no intention of
talking with them. But I turned up the volume on the radio
to make sure they continued to burn their telephone minutes
if they had any kind of automatic noise sensor.
After a while I noticed there were various tones and voices
coming out of the phone so I picked up. I heard people answering
their phone, first at various university offices from my area.
I first thought the call which Caller ID said was from Florida
might have been from inside a local university with ISDN used
to fake the caller id.
But then I noticed that I cannot talk to any of these people.
I can hear them answer, but they cannot hear me. It is possible
that they are hearing the telemarketer pitch, but their response
is more like they hear nothing on the line.
So my conclusion is that for at least one brand of telemarketing
machines my failure to hang up has prevent others from hearing the
telemarketer message. I think this is good, because although it
does not prevent people from being interrupted by a phone call,
it does prevent them from hearing the message and while the charge
for the call still goes to the telemarketer there is no chance that
any of the victims will violate whatever is the telephone equivalent
of the Boulder Pledge.
I suppose some time I might want to make a phone call, but for now
I can use the other line and folks who want to call me can use email.