* Your tales from the telemarketing front lines
In a recent issue of the ISP News Report, I complained about excessive telemarketing calls that I was receiving at home from AT&T Wireless. During September, representatives of AT&T Wireless called me 15 times -usually during dinner or when my children were in the bathtub – to hawk the company’s latest promotion.
This annoying experience prompted me to ask readers if they, too, were being flooded with telemarketing calls from carriers such as AT&T Wireless. Would frustration with telemarketing calls affect their purchasing decisions for voice or data services for their companies, I wondered. Here’s what I heard:
A dozen readers sent me their tales from the telemarketing front lines. One reader complained that telemarketing was an inappropriate topic for this newsletter. “For every person that has a phone, telemarketing is an inconvenience,” this reader urged. “Get over it.”
The other 11 readers vented about their own experiences with excessive telemarketing calls.
Six readers complained that they had recently been inundated with telemarketing calls from AT&T Wireless.
“I have gotten so many calls from AT&T [Wireless] I am starting to climb the walls,” wrote one reader. “Not only do they call around dinner time, they call on Sunday mornings between 9 and noon and in the evenings after 9 p.m….This type of calling gets more people angry to the point that they will not use AT&T Wireless no matter what the deal is.”
“I have also been bombarded with dinnertime calls hawking AT&T Wireless and AT&T long distance,” another reader shared. “One night, while I was already on the receiving end of a nightly AT&T sales call, another one of my phone lines rang. Amazingly or not, an AT&T rep was on the second line. I conferenced the two sales reps together, hung up the phone and went back to dinner. Both lines stayed lit for about five minutes. I can only imagine what went on while those two tried to figure out how they ended up talking to each other. We got a laugh out of it, but they still keep calling.”
Other readers complained about similar experiences with endless telemarketing calls from Verizon Wireless, Cable & Wireless and MCI WorldCom.
“Not only would an aggressive telemarketing strategy affect my buying decisions, it has!” wrote another reader. “Many years ago, Cable & Wireless had such a marketing attack, and I finally told each representative who called that because of the calling I would go out of my way to avoid business with the company just on principle. The calls finally stopped, and I never have given any business to C&W.”
Some readers offered advice for eliminating the hassle of telemarketing calls. Use Caller ID to screen your calls, suggested one reader. If your state has a Do Not Call Registry, sign up pronto, suggested another reader. One creative reader suggested that I play “weird outer-space noises” until the caller hangs up.
The good news is that since I called the PR department of AT&T Wireless to research my original column, my telemarketing calls have stopped. For now, anyways…
