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From: tuba@ur-tut.UUCP (Jon Krueger)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Telephone mailing lists
Message-ID: <205@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 22:58:59 EST
Article-I.D.: ur-tut.205
Posted: Mon Nov  4 22:58:59 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 05:11:53 EST
References: <328@aoa.UUCP> <76@birtch.UUCP>
Reply-To: tuba@ur-tut.UUCP (Jon Krueger)
Distribution: net
Organization: Univ. of Rochester Computing Center
Lines: 56

>>A particularly insidious kind of sales call now appearing in several
>>cities is one which is initiated by computer . . .
>>These machines are especially obnoxious since they refuse to release your
>>phone line until they are done with you. 

>I agree.  One of these machines called the number where I work (my boss
>had a private line to his office, and he was away).  It started the
>recording, and I hung up.  IT CALLED BACK!!  and started the recording
>over again.  Again, I hung up, and, yes, it called back.  The thing
>would not let me (the phone line) go until it had played the whole
>message (about two minutes worth).

In beautiful Rochester, New York, a photo shop called Camera Castle bought
some autodialers and turned them loose.  I received two calls from them,
both starting with a taped message saying "you may have already won a
Commodore 64 Color Computer!"  Imagine my delight.  I was able to hang up on
both calls.  But I felt that hanging up the first call should have told
Camera Castle I wasn't interested.

I decided I don't pay Rochester Telephone $14 per month to receive
unsolicited advertising.  In my view, private phone lines simply are not an
acceptable medium for commercial advertising.  I can turn off the TV or
radio if the ads get too bad, I can stop a newspaper or magazine
subscription, but I can't unplug the phone.  Any time it rings, it might be
IMPORTANT.  So any time it rings, it interrupts my life.  I pay my monthly
phone bill for the service of a private and dependable communications
medium.  I feel it's worth my bucks so that people can reach me.  Camera
Castle and their ilk have no right to interrupt my life and steal my time
and my phone service.

I called Camera Castle and requested that they stop calling me.  I also
asked them to stop calling anyone.  They refused.  I called Roch Tel, got
their annoyance call complaint, and sent it in.  At their suggestion, I
called the NYS attorney general and filled out a consumer complaint.  Both
Roch Tel and the attorney general's office told me that unsolicited automated
phone advertising is legal, but many consumers are pissed about it.

Most of the discussion in this newsgroup has centered around getting calls
from people.  I was once a telephone solicitor myself.  I didn't like my
work, but I needed the money at the time.  So I tolerate a few calls from
people.  Some employment is being generated, and the cost of that employment
limits the amount of advertising that will be done this way.  Of course,
neither is true when an automated system makes the calls.  As an added
danger, there are some circumstances where the receiving end can't break the
connection.  I have never known this to be true when people make the calls.

-- 

-- Jon Krueger
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