In weighing the costs of
phone sales, telesellers and
telesales industry groups do not
consider the costs that are
imposed on telephone
subscribers, such as the expense
incurred from lost time, the
monthly cost of caller ID or
privacy manager services, the
purchase of answering machines
to screen calls, and the monthly
cost of maintaining an unlisted
phone number.
Chances are, your bank or credit
card company either sells your
personal information to
telesellers or operates a
telesales business with your
personal information through an
affiliate. Thousands of
telesales sales calls are made
to defraud consumers. In 1999,
Minnesota Attorney General Mike
Hatch brought suit against US
Bancorp for selling customer
account information to Member
Works, a telesales company.
However, it is sometimes
difficult to identify telesales
scams from legitimate offers. A
telesales fraud scheme generally
begins when you receive a
postcard or letter in the mail
detailing an appealing offer.
Some criminals use telesales
techniques to get information
for theft purposes. One of the
most common types of fraud
involves telesales schemes that
misrepresent the value, the
terms of sale, or the use of the
goods or services being sold.
Most telesales firms use a
tactic called predictive dialing
so as not to waste the
telesellers valuable time while
waiting for you to pick up.
Consumers experience telesales
from a completely different
point of view: more than 92%
perceive commercial telephone
calls as a violation of privacy.
Registering your telephone
number on the Do Not Call
Register will not stop all
telesales calls to your number.
Privacy advocates argue that
outbound telesales invades the
sanctity of an individual s home
and should be limited.
Source: Richard Heap