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As someone trying to initiate new business over the phone as an insurance producer this is both reasonable and worrisome. As someone who isn't trying to scam an

As someone trying to initiate new business over the phone as an insurance producer this is both reasonable and worrisome. As someone who isn't trying to scam anyone it concerns me that scams are so pervasive this may continue to be incredibly difficult by less legitimate actors. I'm experiencing difficulties in even contact people who have expressed interest because they have expressed a broader interest than me eg they expressed an interest in foo and are now getting contacted by bar who has a relationship with foo but is not in fact foo and the contact could have occurred weeks ago. I could stand up a website and plaster it with verifiable information but much of that info like say professional license is itself by dint of being public not entirely verifiable eg I could put up a website for Sam Spade with his license info. For the same reason you are able to verify his license number—its public—its not an actual verification that you are speaking to the right person. Perhaps more relevant its easy to just never get to speak to the person in the first place because their defenses are rightfully up. I wish there was an easier way to authenticate as legit.

ryandrake 3y ago
I think in this case, it counts as spam rather than a scam, which is why I mentioned both.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  If you click a link, fill out a web form, send in a physical letter, or make a phone call and effectively say I want to get info on <product> and the company gives your name to an affiliate who is a licensed professional to try to sell you <product> I don't think it counts as spam either. I wish your phone had a standardized way to link your expressed intent, the nature of the caller, and official nature/licensing or professional affiliation and show this data on your phone during receipt or during call kind of like you can click on an icon and get information about the legitimacy of a website. EG when you express the interest in <product> a singular number is created on your end and carried through to anyone who is actually acting such request whether it was asking someone to fix your cable or sell you life insurance and you could then verifiably see beyond caller idea and absolutely verifiable and relevant info in order to ascertain more data than is available via caller ID On September 2nd 2005 you told comcast their bad equipment was making you consider rage stomping said equipment. You are receiving a phone call from agent 34534 in the <country> who is officially employed by Comcast domain: xfinity.com to handle tech support regarding this issue. OR On December 10th 2012 you requested information re: life insurance from <Company>. You are receiving a call from <agent> who is a licensed insurance producer license #asdfasdf who has been an insurance producer for n years and has zero complaints regarding this request. It would be great if you could even address this request online via some standard like canceling it so nobody bugs you or attaching metadata
  - mindslight 3y ago
    If someone fills out a web form looking for quotes, and that form pushes them into entering their phone number, and you use that number to call them instead of responding with an emailed quote, that is most certainly spam.
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      Insofar as I'm aware they literally expected to be contacted by a person. The majority haven't provided an email nor sufficient information that would allow anyone to reasonably provide anything beyond a table of values that they may or may not qualify for. I'd love to collect my own data and converse over email. I would be overjoyed in fact but I don't think people will put their personal medical history in a web page that isn't their doctors and I don't really blame them.
      - mindslight 3y ago
        My experience is the consumer side of home/auto/moving/storage with web pages promising online quotes, but are actually just leadgen funnels that hand off phone numbers to traditional high-touch sales processes. I'm sure the sales reps that receive those lists believe the targets actually want to be called, but that's obviously a convenient fiction with the way the web pages are set up. I've also gotten spam calls that are similar leadgen funnels, where the frontend is obviously robocall spam, and then you're transferred to sales reps at what is likely a different company who clearly expect to be speaking to bona fide interested customers rather than perturbed spam victims just looking to mess with them. In general I've got to question the impedance mismatch of turning a web form into a phone call regardless of whether it's necessary. To me they're much different head spaces, and just because evening/night me is preliminarily looking into a topic doesn't necessarily mean that daytime me wanted to add it to the in-process run queue. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of your rejection is based on this dynamic where people wanted the interaction/information at the time they requested it, but not later when you're interrupting them doing something else.
        3y ago

ryandrake 3y ago

I think in this case, it counts as spam rather than a scam, which is why I mentioned both.

michaelmrose 3y ago
If you click a link, fill out a web form, send in a physical letter, or make a phone call and effectively say I want to get info on <product> and the company gives your name to an affiliate who is a licensed professional to try to sell you <product> I don't think it counts as spam either. I wish your phone had a standardized way to link your expressed intent, the nature of the caller, and official nature/licensing or professional affiliation and show this data on your phone during receipt or during call kind of like you can click on an icon and get information about the legitimacy of a website. EG when you express the interest in <product> a singular number is created on your end and carried through to anyone who is actually acting such request whether it was asking someone to fix your cable or sell you life insurance and you could then verifiably see beyond caller idea and absolutely verifiable and relevant info in order to ascertain more data than is available via caller ID On September 2nd 2005 you told comcast their bad equipment was making you consider rage stomping said equipment. You are receiving a phone call from agent 34534 in the <country> who is officially employed by Comcast domain: xfinity.com to handle tech support regarding this issue. OR On December 10th 2012 you requested information re: life insurance from <Company>. You are receiving a call from <agent> who is a licensed insurance producer license #asdfasdf who has been an insurance producer for n years and has zero complaints regarding this request. It would be great if you could even address this request online via some standard like canceling it so nobody bugs you or attaching metadata
- mindslight 3y ago
  If someone fills out a web form looking for quotes, and that form pushes them into entering their phone number, and you use that number to call them instead of responding with an emailed quote, that is most certainly spam.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    Insofar as I'm aware they literally expected to be contacted by a person. The majority haven't provided an email nor sufficient information that would allow anyone to reasonably provide anything beyond a table of values that they may or may not qualify for. I'd love to collect my own data and converse over email. I would be overjoyed in fact but I don't think people will put their personal medical history in a web page that isn't their doctors and I don't really blame them.
    - mindslight 3y ago
      My experience is the consumer side of home/auto/moving/storage with web pages promising online quotes, but are actually just leadgen funnels that hand off phone numbers to traditional high-touch sales processes. I'm sure the sales reps that receive those lists believe the targets actually want to be called, but that's obviously a convenient fiction with the way the web pages are set up. I've also gotten spam calls that are similar leadgen funnels, where the frontend is obviously robocall spam, and then you're transferred to sales reps at what is likely a different company who clearly expect to be speaking to bona fide interested customers rather than perturbed spam victims just looking to mess with them. In general I've got to question the impedance mismatch of turning a web form into a phone call regardless of whether it's necessary. To me they're much different head spaces, and just because evening/night me is preliminarily looking into a topic doesn't necessarily mean that daytime me wanted to add it to the in-process run queue. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of your rejection is based on this dynamic where people wanted the interaction/information at the time they requested it, but not later when you're interrupting them doing something else.
      - 3y ago