[LINK] 'Do not call' phone list Bill shelved

[Greg Taylor]

On Sat, 5 Nov 2005 11:03:42 +1100, Craig Sanders wrote:
> usually they will just hang up as soon as you start quizzing them
> about themselves - they really don't want to answer any questions
> that would enable you to identify them.
>
> generally, they will persist in the lie that they are "from" the
> company that their employer is currently contracted by - rather
> than from the call centre that they are actually employed by and
> calling from.
>
> they do this because it is what they are trained to do...partly to
> avoid identification, and partly to quickly skip on to a more
> likely prospect.

They're also trained to cop abuse and move on.  I don't know what their "hit" rate is but I'd guess less than 5%, so they want to keep the failed calls as short as possible.  Abusing them and hanging up is actually doing them a favour.  A more effective strategy is to keep them talking, sound interested, keep asking questions about the product, and just when they think they're onto a prospect, give 'em the bad news ;-)

Yes, it takes time, it's nasty, but it gives a much better feeling of satisfaction that you've actually hit back where it hurts, by costing them real money.  Another strategy is to ask them to hold the phone for a sec, and forget to pick it up again.  They'll usually hang in there for a couple of minutes before giving up.

>...
> there's only a few dozen people i actually want to get phone calls
> from anyway - and nearly all of them have cable or adsl internet.
> in a few years it should be possible to get rid of the voice line
> entirely and rely on VOIP and asterisk. 

You could do that now.

> if telstra and/or the
> government won't enable me to identify and block marketing vermin,
> then i'll have to do it myself. it wouldn't be that difficult to
> set up asterisk as a private VOIP "exchange" and give everyone i
> know access to it....and perhaps set up some sort of gateway to one
> or more of the commercial VOIP services.

A silent number is also effective.  It costs about $36 per year (it should be free, but that's another issue).  In my experience, a silent number cuts out almost all telemarketing calls except the random diallers, although it takes a while for an existing number to disappear from databases.  I have one number that has never been listed and it gets about one unwanted call a year.

CND costs $72 per year according to this page:
  http://www.telstra.com.au/phones/homeservices/features_opt_cnd.htm

Using CND to block telemarketing calls also means you are demonising callers who prefer not to divulge their number, for perfectly reasonable and legitimate reasons.

Greg