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Hi Corin. I asked to be on their internal DNC list, and several days later, they called me again. That's illegal. Don't you think companies should have to respe

Hi Corin. I asked to be on their internal DNC list, and several days later, they called me again. That's illegal. Don't you think companies should have to respect your requests to be put on their DNC lists? I mean, if you unsubscribed from an email list and kept getting emails, wouldn't you be upset?

corin_ 14y ago
He was in the middle of legitimate conversations with you. You have a product yourself, if I contacted you and implied I was interested in becoming a customer, and we got to talking about it over the phone, would you look up your DNC list every single time before calling me just in case I had, since we last spoke, contacted a colleague of yours to be put on it?
- DanBC 14y ago
  Yes. That's the entire point of sanitising your lists. When someone asks you to stop calling them you remove their number and stop calling them.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    You don't understand how salesmen work at all, and I'm not talking about them being shady, I'm just talking about general business practices. Lists of names/numbers are for cold-calling, and yes, cold-calling should check any opt-outs first. Once you are actually having conversations with a specific person about an actual sale, lists are no longer part of the equation. There's not a salesman in the world who, if asked by a customer to call them back (as happened in this case) would check a list before calling them back. It just wouldn't happen, ever. And frankly it shouldn't be expected to happen, the only time it would ever be useful to check a list is the very rare occurrence where the customer is trying to catch you out by telling you he's interested but he actually isn't.
    - talmand 14y ago
      Didn't he state his preference was for him to call the salesman back and the salesman insisted he be the one to call?
      - corin_ 14y ago
        That's semantics about what happens, doesn't change the overall situation. Reword to "the salesman said he would call back and the customer didn't ask him not to but instead said it was fine".
        c0mpute 14y ago
        I think you are willing to give a lot of latitude to the sales person here. I think it is true that it is human psychology to trust a relationship that is established, but we would prefer a world where rules still have to apply, no matter what. Right? It is so much better if this incident sets a standard for their company and the telemarketers are forced to validate each time irrespective of their past association with the callers.
        corin_ 14y ago
        I don't think I am giving him latitude, if your job was selling to people and a customer had expressed interest in your product and had agreed to wait for you to call back would you in a million years stop to think "maybe he was lying to me, when he said he wanted to call me another type he wasn't telling the truth, I'd better check the database to see if he doesn't want me to call"? Other than random, unexpected cases of people trying to trick you, any customer in the world would, if they changed their mind about being interested, wait for the call back and say it then, not contact someone else at the company to be put on a do not call list.
        c0mpute 14y ago
        What you are saying is correct, in that what happened in this case was kinda gamed to mislead. One reason where I think the calling company stepped the line was, someone else calling him back when he did not return their call. I would hope that companies do more due diligence when a customer is not calling back. Maybe the customer changed their minds. The problem with telemarketers is that they don't care about what customers are thinking and so someone else went ahead and called him. What I would prefer is (and this is where I think I don't want to give any inch of room for the sales person) is that they constantly have to be aware of what the customer's latest situation is. I would prefer all telemarketers get trained this way and not intrude. Don't you think this is better?
- hermannj314 14y ago
  In his post he links to the Code of Federal Regulations. It allows for mistakes to be made by the business. This is what I read: It says: you can't call someone that says "Don't call me" However, if you have a written policy to try your best and follow the law and generally your business follows the policy, then you are not liable for violating this rule if it was a simple mistake. So the case of David calling him back a few days later may have been an honest mistake. But the if the business did not have a written policy in place, have training of the policy, maintain a list of DNC numbers, etc. then they are liable for the mistake. That's how I understand it. So it seems the law is forgiving for businesses that are trying to follow the law. But I am not a lawyer, so my reading comprehension skills are worth very little.
  - michaelrkn 14y ago
    I couldn't have said it better. I believe this business was not trying to follow the law, so I sued them for everything I could. I mentioned in another reply that there was another company who called me illegally, and I found out that they fired the person who set up the calls I got. I didn't sue them.
    - tjoff 14y ago
      Well, you just turned this into a demonstration of a typical sue-happy american and their crappy juridical system (a prejudice that a lot of europeans have against america), you should have been thrown of court for that.
thesis 14y ago
I unsubscribe from email occasionally, and every once in a while it'll say something along the lines of: "You will be opt'd out of our list within 1-2 weeks." When I receive another email I just delete it. I'd rather go on with my day and do productive things then getting all bent of of shape about it. BUT! I agree some telephone marketing campaigns can be down right harassing. But 4 calls over 2 months? I would have just sent them to voicemail and deleted them without listening. To each his own, I suppose.
TwiztidK 14y ago
It's not the same as a mailing list at all. It was person-to-person contact between David and yourself. Although it appears that the law was violated when you were called by David, he was simply following up on your interest in his company's products. Honestly, I feel like you are totally abusing the law in this situation. At the first available opportunity, you should've asked to be placed on their DNC list without expressing false interest in their products. Then you would've been in the right by sueing for the first an all subsequent calls. It seems that you went about this in the most malicious way possible, even going so far as to essentially trick them into violating the law.
- modeless 14y ago
  How do you suggest he find out who to sue without expressing interest in their product? It's really the company who is abusing the law by not disclosing who they are to avoid retaliation.
  - jtheory 14y ago
    That's the thing -- the telemarketing company knew perfectly well they were breaking the law, and thus took pains to hide their own identifying info even when the person did seem interested. Sure, the fact that the bad guys are "playing dirty" doesn't mean it's moral for the good guys to do the same. But in this case, simply lying that "that sounds interesting" before telling them he wasn't interested any more doesn't seem too serious. It's certainly not illegal.
lps41 14y ago
My understanding of the law is that if they have established a business relationship with you (you express interest in their product), that "relationship" lasts for (I believe) 30 days, during which they can call you freely. Asking to be put on their DNC list should cut off your relationship, but I think had they gone to court they would have had a solid defense that you expressed interest in their product, and you would have likely won nothing.
- mitchty 14y ago
  Doesn't that assume that he wanted the relationship in the first place? He tried getting on their do not call list originally. By my count that makes any further relationships null and void as one party was acting in poor faith (IANAL no idea what the legal term might be). Basically the fact that they called him without reason and avoided providing their actual contact information would seem to make a judge question the relationship they might have.
- jtheory 14y ago
  One probably-very-relevant thing you aren't addressing -- the "business relationship" started with a very clearly illegal cold call to a Do-Not-Call listed mobile phone number. I also suspect that the company actively breaking the law as part of their business model must know something about the laws they're tangling with, and they settled with him for $4K rather than actually to go to small claims court over $7500.

corin_ 14y ago

He was in the middle of legitimate conversations with you. You have a product yourself, if I contacted you and implied I was interested in becoming a customer, and we got to talking about it over the phone, would you look up your DNC list every single time before calling me just in case I had, since we last spoke, contacted a colleague of yours to be put on it?

DanBC 14y ago
Yes. That's the entire point of sanitising your lists. When someone asks you to stop calling them you remove their number and stop calling them.
- corin_ 14y ago
  You don't understand how salesmen work at all, and I'm not talking about them being shady, I'm just talking about general business practices. Lists of names/numbers are for cold-calling, and yes, cold-calling should check any opt-outs first. Once you are actually having conversations with a specific person about an actual sale, lists are no longer part of the equation. There's not a salesman in the world who, if asked by a customer to call them back (as happened in this case) would check a list before calling them back. It just wouldn't happen, ever. And frankly it shouldn't be expected to happen, the only time it would ever be useful to check a list is the very rare occurrence where the customer is trying to catch you out by telling you he's interested but he actually isn't.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Didn't he state his preference was for him to call the salesman back and the salesman insisted he be the one to call?
    - corin_ 14y ago
      That's semantics about what happens, doesn't change the overall situation. Reword to "the salesman said he would call back and the customer didn't ask him not to but instead said it was fine".
      - c0mpute 14y ago
        I think you are willing to give a lot of latitude to the sales person here. I think it is true that it is human psychology to trust a relationship that is established, but we would prefer a world where rules still have to apply, no matter what. Right? It is so much better if this incident sets a standard for their company and the telemarketers are forced to validate each time irrespective of their past association with the callers.
        corin_ 14y ago
        I don't think I am giving him latitude, if your job was selling to people and a customer had expressed interest in your product and had agreed to wait for you to call back would you in a million years stop to think "maybe he was lying to me, when he said he wanted to call me another type he wasn't telling the truth, I'd better check the database to see if he doesn't want me to call"? Other than random, unexpected cases of people trying to trick you, any customer in the world would, if they changed their mind about being interested, wait for the call back and say it then, not contact someone else at the company to be put on a do not call list.
        c0mpute 14y ago
        What you are saying is correct, in that what happened in this case was kinda gamed to mislead. One reason where I think the calling company stepped the line was, someone else calling him back when he did not return their call. I would hope that companies do more due diligence when a customer is not calling back. Maybe the customer changed their minds. The problem with telemarketers is that they don't care about what customers are thinking and so someone else went ahead and called him. What I would prefer is (and this is where I think I don't want to give any inch of room for the sales person) is that they constantly have to be aware of what the customer's latest situation is. I would prefer all telemarketers get trained this way and not intrude. Don't you think this is better?
hermannj314 14y ago
In his post he links to the Code of Federal Regulations. It allows for mistakes to be made by the business. This is what I read: It says: you can't call someone that says "Don't call me" However, if you have a written policy to try your best and follow the law and generally your business follows the policy, then you are not liable for violating this rule if it was a simple mistake. So the case of David calling him back a few days later may have been an honest mistake. But the if the business did not have a written policy in place, have training of the policy, maintain a list of DNC numbers, etc. then they are liable for the mistake. That's how I understand it. So it seems the law is forgiving for businesses that are trying to follow the law. But I am not a lawyer, so my reading comprehension skills are worth very little.
- michaelrkn 14y ago
  I couldn't have said it better. I believe this business was not trying to follow the law, so I sued them for everything I could. I mentioned in another reply that there was another company who called me illegally, and I found out that they fired the person who set up the calls I got. I didn't sue them.
  - tjoff 14y ago
    Well, you just turned this into a demonstration of a typical sue-happy american and their crappy juridical system (a prejudice that a lot of europeans have against america), you should have been thrown of court for that.

thesis 14y ago

I unsubscribe from email occasionally, and every once in a while it'll say something along the lines of: "You will be opt'd out of our list within 1-2 weeks." When I receive another email I just delete it. I'd rather go on with my day and do productive things then getting all bent of of shape about it. BUT! I agree some telephone marketing campaigns can be down right harassing. But 4 calls over 2 months? I would have just sent them to voicemail and deleted them without listening. To each his own, I suppose.

TwiztidK 14y ago

It's not the same as a mailing list at all. It was person-to-person contact between David and yourself. Although it appears that the law was violated when you were called by David, he was simply following up on your interest in his company's products. Honestly, I feel like you are totally abusing the law in this situation. At the first available opportunity, you should've asked to be placed on their DNC list without expressing false interest in their products. Then you would've been in the right by sueing for the first an all subsequent calls. It seems that you went about this in the most malicious way possible, even going so far as to essentially trick them into violating the law.

modeless 14y ago
How do you suggest he find out who to sue without expressing interest in their product? It's really the company who is abusing the law by not disclosing who they are to avoid retaliation.
- jtheory 14y ago
  That's the thing -- the telemarketing company knew perfectly well they were breaking the law, and thus took pains to hide their own identifying info even when the person did seem interested. Sure, the fact that the bad guys are "playing dirty" doesn't mean it's moral for the good guys to do the same. But in this case, simply lying that "that sounds interesting" before telling them he wasn't interested any more doesn't seem too serious. It's certainly not illegal.

lps41 14y ago

My understanding of the law is that if they have established a business relationship with you (you express interest in their product), that "relationship" lasts for (I believe) 30 days, during which they can call you freely. Asking to be put on their DNC list should cut off your relationship, but I think had they gone to court they would have had a solid defense that you expressed interest in their product, and you would have likely won nothing.

mitchty 14y ago
Doesn't that assume that he wanted the relationship in the first place? He tried getting on their do not call list originally. By my count that makes any further relationships null and void as one party was acting in poor faith (IANAL no idea what the legal term might be). Basically the fact that they called him without reason and avoided providing their actual contact information would seem to make a judge question the relationship they might have.
jtheory 14y ago
One probably-very-relevant thing you aren't addressing -- the "business relationship" started with a very clearly illegal cold call to a Do-Not-Call listed mobile phone number. I also suspect that the company actively breaking the law as part of their business model must know something about the laws they're tangling with, and they settled with him for $4K rather than actually to go to small claims court over $7500.