Telemarketers have become a fungus on the planet, a disease with no cure. A Toxin in the culture of every nation, not just America the Incredibly Gullible.
Ok, that’s harsh, maybe [and maybe not], but let me explain.
Everyone of you who calls someone uninvited (there’s the key word) can not be trusted. Even the few who are honest (or might be, or think you are) about what you are selling / offering / extorting have invaded the some one’s home uninvited. Breaking and Entering by Phone.
Home? What you mean home? It’s just a telephone call?
No, it’s not. It’s a home invasion, because your purpose is profit, not service.
You are invading a private space without invitation. For the majority of phone numbers called randomly, the call comes in on a [so-called] smart phone, meaning caller ID can be seen, but many of you “get around that” by forging the ID on the call, meaning that even for the honest few, the origin of the call can never be trusted.
The Scam Industry (and it *is* an industry) is
teaching people to fear all unknown phone numbers
and calls that come in on their phones.
Nice, one… shame on you all!
Then the person has to look at the phone to determine if it’s something to be answered or not. This likely entails having to go get the phone first, from where ever it was last put down. You have interrupted the person in question with something in all likelihood the person doesn’t even want, even if you are really just trying to sell something.
So even if the phone call is not answered, you have stolen something
from the person: his time, the most limited coin any of us has.
It’s the old “foot in the door” philosophy started by (or popularized by) the Fuller Brush(1) company, but now made uber-aggressive salesmanship, and it stinks.
My phones are all listed on the national Do Not Call database, yet I get several spam and garbage calls every single day. Technically, it’s a felony to make a marketing cold call to anyone listed on that database. The problem with that law is it’s unenforceable, so y’all feel ok about shoving your wares through someone’s telephone front door and demanding payment anyway. Or scaring the H*** out of them with a fake warning about Child Porn and/or Identity Theft and threats to have “the cops” show up within 24 hours or to destroy someone’s “reputation” if they don’t follow your exact words, or with how their computer is seriously holding down the entire internet right now, “I just need a few moments on your computer to fix this” and so on. (There’s really no gradation of crime here; selling them a new roof when they didn’t ask for one, or running a complicated sting on the Mark, it’s all despicable.
“It’s just a phone call,” you say again?
Bull. It’s uninvited, an invasion into the person’s private space. In my case, and in the case of anyone who took the effort to apply to the Do Not Call database, you were specifically uninvited, in fact. So besides engaging in a felony, you are also being Rude. (Let me explain that.)
Robert Heinlein (the true father of modern Science-Fiction, as well as a powerful commentator on the American culture and political system, and a Futurist of some note) cited Bad Manners as possibly the only justifiable Capital Crime. The more experienced I get with Life, the more I agree with him.
Open Statement to all Telemarketers:
Go get a real job.
Even the few of you that are honest about it, polite and selling a real product, are working in an industry that has been hopelessly tainted by millions(2) of Fakers and Takers, by sellers of the Brooklyn Bridge, by identity thieves, purse snatchers, vendors of panic and fear, stealers of candy from babies, and worse. Get out of it while you still have some self-respect — and if your self-respect is gone or really low, get of it so can start to grow some. There are many-times-many other ways to make a living than by ripping off your fellow Earthling, who also is just trying to get by.
For those of you who are the Fakers and Takers: just go away. Go rip each other off, if you must remain a parasite, and leave the rest of us alone. You are uninvited.
This applies equally to the fake tech support calls, the fake social security calls, the fake… well, all of it.
If you are not contributing to the global welfare and upliftment of the Human Species (and all the life on this planet that we are the self-appointed stewards of) then you are a parasite, at best a benign one, but still a parasite.
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(1) I am not saying anything against the Fuller Brush company (owners of Stanley Home Products and in turn owned by Sara Lee, as it turns out). There’s a difference between going door to door and having a piece of computer software randomly dial phone numbers until it gets an answer then shoving that call to the next available “agent.” In going door to door, the salesman (or con artist — actually an even higher level of skill way back then) had to look each person in the eye. He had to go to the effort of walking door-to-door, he had to have a polished face-to-face presentation style. In other words, he had to be a professional, certainly to make a living at it. The modern telemarketer — like far too many of our “professions” now — does not have to be a professional to the same degree. It’s more impersonal, for one thing, nothing face-to-face, most likely not even a real name. Reminds me of when the Gatling gun was used in Japan to wipe out the last of the Samurai… automation and a low-level of skill doing away with a high level of Mastery and a true service to the Emperor [complicated moment in history — the Tom Cruise movie is fairly accurate in overview, though highly condensed on actual events]. Waste of Skill and true Human Talent. Automation frequently seems to lower the Human Condition. It “automates” things to a lower standard, rather than raising the standard. So, those with a higher level of professionalism / skill / ethics end up getting out-shouted by the Rabble, and dwindle. The Samurai who has spent literally his entire life learning his trade and a code of ethics is done in by a soldier with a few months training and a Gatling gun. Website Designers who can’t write any HTML, but only knows WordPress, yet dare call themselves professional website designers anyway (often not their fault — they’ve actually been told knowing WordPress makes them “professional”… <Sigh>). The door to door salesman is outshouted by the Telemarketer and that telemarketer’s automated phone system. For those engaged in Telephone Scam, they get to enjoy the Automation of Crime… what a concept, eh?
(2) “Millions” — that’s a guess, educated one, but still a guess. Might be only 100s of thousands world wide, but I suspect it’s actually more like 10s of millions. No one knows; it’s an impossible statistic to rummage up in any accuracy.