Why Do Not Call Does Not Work

From a business etiquette point of view, I would categorize SPAM as any communication that is unsolicited, unwanted and impersonal.  And it's not limited to e-mail.  Telemarketing calls are a particularly invasive form of SPAM, which are, by all accounts, universally hated.  

When I heard that the federal government was instituting a National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC) I was hopeful because our government was taking steps to protect the privacy of its citizens but concerned that it would end up being a toothless tiger due to the public sector's inability to take a hard line on things and the fact that it turned management of the list over to a Telecom giant with a spotty customer service record.

So, it was with mixed emotions that, I added our household to the list 16 months ago.  Could it possibly be that after the requisite 30-day clearance period, we could enjoy relaxing evenings free of interruptions from charities, newspapers and politicians?  Alas, no! For reasons not readily apparent, these groups are exempt from the NDNC registry.  Since they represented at least 75 per cent of the telemarketing calls we received before registering, things were not looking good.  I called the Canadian Radio & Television Commission to ask why they had chosen to allow some of the most prodigious telemarketers to continue their shenanigans but a recorded message informed me that all of their lines were busy and to leave a message.  I gave up. 

But it's important to stay positive right?  At least I'd finally be free of those endless calls from my bank and credit card providers with their "amazing, limited-time offers" to buy cheap life insurance or that pesky lawn aeration company I hired a year ago and didn't like.  Woops, wrong again! Frustratingly, organizations that I have done business with at any point in the past 18 months are also exempt from the list.  That meant I would continue to hear from any number of companies that I have a relationship with because, as a person participating in society, I need to have credit cards, put money in a bank, stay in  hotels, etc.

That second list of exemptions were responsible for another 20 per cent of our pre-NDNC registration calls, bringing the quantity of unwelcome calls I would continue to receive to around 95 per cent of the calls I was already receiving. It turns out the only calls that would truly disappear, were those from a random group of moving companies, landscapers and telephone fraudsters.  While those have decreased since we registered, we continue to receive a nightly call from an organization calling "on behalf of Microsoft" informing us that our computer is at risk and we need to immediately download $400 worth of software to protect our network from impending doom.  A quick Google search, revealed unsurprisingly, that this is a huge fraud and suprisingly that it has actually worked on many Canadians.

With this knowledge, I called the NDNC office to file a complaint.  Foiled again!  The nice person who answered the phone asked for the name and phone number of the telemarketer.  The funny thing about people operating telephone fraud scams is that they usually don't share this info.  I gave him the limited details I had and he told me that he would submit the complaint on my behalf but could not guarantee anything since it was likely outside of their jurisdiction. He suggested I call Phonebusters, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.  I called six times over the course of one day and got a busy signal every time.  Not, an opportunity to be placed on hold while waiting for a representative but an actual, old-fashioned busy signal.  Again, I gave up.

While fraud schemes seem to operate outside legal boundaries, I don't see why the Do Not Call registry can't provide Canadians with the option to eliminate all unwanted calls.  Since I haven't been able to get an answer from the CRTC, can anyone shed light on why so many organizations are exempt from the process? 

E-mail Marketing - Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my obsessive, sometimes futile attempts to have my e-mail address removed from marketing lists. In some cases the e-mails are from organizations I have done business with, but often they're not.

Today, after several unsuccessful unsubscribe attempts, I decided to call the customer service line of one such offender and see if a personal touch might do the trick. This organization is a frequent shopper reward program. I am a client and overall I am very happy with their services. It's just the two to three unsolicited, promotional e-mails a week that I find annoying.

My first point of contact, a friendly customer service rep, said she had "no clue" why I was getting the e-mails because my account confirmed that I chose not to receive them. When I referred to the company's privacy policy, she immediately transferred me to a supervisor, another pleasant representative who was equally baffled and assured me she had never heard of this happening before.

She promised to forward my question to the I.T. department but declined my request to have someone follow up with a status report because they just don't do that. I asked if she could take responsibility for calling me back when the problem is fixed and, after about ten minutes of begging, finally said that she personally doesn't call customers back but would have someone else do it within five to ten business days.

This seemed like a long time to look into a problem but she assured me it was fair. I asked if I could have her extension in case by chance, the follow-up call never came and she said she didn't have one. When I queried how someone gets a hold of her in an emergency, she said they call reception and leave a message so I asked if I could have the reception phone number. Her answer: they are not allowed to give out that number.

How weak is an organization's confidence in its ability to handle customer complaints if they are afraid to give out the main phone number? I know my own business is nowhere near the size of this corporation but if a client called me with a problem, I would do everything in my power to fix it and provide a solution within hours and I would take pride in personally following up to make sure they were satisfied.

How hard is it to apologize, investigate and follow up? I'll let you know in five to ten business days.

Growing "list-less" with e-mail mailing lists

subscribe: v. 1 intr. (often foll by to) arrange to receive a periodical, service or a series of tickets in exchange for payment

unsubscribe: v.intr: remove oneself from a mailing list, esp. computer, etc.

I looked up these two words in the dictionary this morning because I am slowly going mad due to an upsurge in the volume of unsolicited marketing e-mails, newsletters, promotional offers, updates, etc. I receive.

This is not garden-variety SPAM. There are real people and organizations behind these online sales pitches and for some reason, they are labouring under the misconception that I am interested in their particular product or service. I could be, but the fact that they're sending it to me in bulk format with no personalization, tells me that they have not bothered to find out anything about me and are just playing the odds. Just this week I've been encouraged to redeem my frequent flier miles at an exciting new tropical destination, directed to a career website where I will find a fabulous new employee and invited to attend a marketing conference at Disneyworld.

I am a fanatical unsubscriber. If someone takes the time to send me a personal e-mail marketing their services, I will usually always respond but if I am the unwitting recipient of a bulk e-mail, I usually search for the unsubscribe button right away.

But this brings me back to my original point. In order to UN-subscribe from something, would I not need to have SUBscribed in the first place? Any time I am involved in any sort of transaction, via the Internet or snail mail, I fervently request not to receive any kind of follow-up promotional material. I scan the pages for the little box that indicates that I don't want to receive anything. I check it and then, just to be safe, I add a note reiterating my desire to be left alone. I never give personal information at a store check-out and I politely decline offers for those customer cards that entitle me to a free coffee after I buy 12 or some such thing.

But it doesn't work. Through a legal loophole in the privacy laws or flagrant disregard of them, they send me stuff anyway. I am currently receiving e-mail from some organizations from which I have unsubscribed several times. Each time I receive a pleasant follow-up e-mail telling me that while they're sad to see me go, my name will be removed from the list. Alas, no.

What's a girl to do? Any e-mail marketing experts out there who have a recommendation on how I can ebb the flow?