I Hate Telemarketers! I Hate Useless Tools Even More!
I was working on my bike this afternoon when I got a call from a telemarketer representing Rogers. After first asking for my wife and then figuring out that I was also responsible for our Rogers account, the telemarketer tried to first pitch me Rogers Home Phone and then Rogers High Speed Internet. When I indicated I wasn’t interested, the telemarketer just got aggressive. She tried to find different price points for Home Phone and Internet that would entice me to switch, but she failed. The total amount of time that the call took was about 6 minutes.
Here’s why I’m ticked off enough to bother typing this out in my blog. I signed up for the do-not-call list a while ago with the expectation that it would cut down on calls like these. For the most part it has. But according to Wikipedia this list has some serious loopholes including this one in bold:
The Do Not Call List exempts Canadian registered charities, political parties, riding associations, candidates, and newspapers of general circulation for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions. Telemarketing calls from organizations with whom residents have an existing business relationship are also exempt. Telemarketers may also still call if a resident gave them permission in a written form or verbally. This law also does not extend its protections to non-Canadian phone numbers.
Rogers has an existing relationship with me. Thus the reason why Rogers was able to call me. That loophole among among the others listed makes this do not call list useless.
Now am I ticked that Rogers called me and took six minutes away from my life that I will never get back? Yes. I really wasn’t impressed with the tactics that this Rogers telemarketer used. It truly does not reflect well on Rogers and they should perhaps look into changing that. One thing we plan on doing is to sign into our Rogers account and opt out of their marketing. I got the idea from this page which I found via Google. A suggestion that I would have for Rogers would be to make this page easier to find as I browsed their website and couldn’t find it.
But I am more ticked off about the fact that this country needs is a do not call list that actually means something. I shouldn’t get calls like these if I do not want them. It’s time for Canadians to demand better, starting with a do not call list with no exemptions whatsoever. That’s the only way to stop this sort of nonsense.
May 2, 2010 at 6:15 am
I have been called by companies on behalf of Bell (not actual Bell call centres – this is another loophole) about 6 times in the past week. Some were for TV others for Mobility.
January 13, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Because they refuse to honour the Do-Not-Call list, we have started using a great response… We let them make the appointment, then when they show up at our door we tell them since you keep wasting our time we thought it only fair we waste yours and shut the door. We now do it with all of them. Maybe if more people do this the companies that use those annoying overseas telemarketers that do not honour the no call list will begin to use local telemarketing firms. We just love it.