"David E. Bernholdt" <bernhold@red8> (04/06/91)
In article <telecom11.266.4@eecs.nwu.edu> I wrote: > I received a rather strange series of phone calls at my home last > night. I answered the phone and a synthesized female voice says > "Please hold the line, I have a call for this number." After a couple more of these calls the next day, I finally found out what it was. A call arrived at roughly the interval it had been retrying at from the holder of my student loan -- the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. After discussing the matter of my continued student deferrment, I asked if they used such a computerized system as had been bugging me. They do. The system is called Voicelink, and is produced by a company of the same name in Seattle, WA. A computer dials the phone number in question and listens for an answer. If an answering machine answers (recognized by a long speech, I imagine), it leaves a computerized message saying that the ISAC is trying to reach you and will call back. If a human answers it connects you immediately to a human to take the call (this transfer was unnoticable to me). The place I got caught is that there were no humans available to take the call, so the computer tried for a little while to find one, then apologized and hung up. All in all, there are a bunch of humans takining a bunch of automatically dialed calls at the same time. The obvious utility of this system for the _caller_ is that human time is expended only in talking to a human. Several people who responded to my original posting say that this is also being used in telemarketing. Someone mentioned that you can also employ a human to dial the numbers and connect in the computer if there are (legal) problems with computer-dialed calls. (Boy, what a job!) The person managing VoiceLink for the ISAC said that her Visa company uses such a system as well. She said she appreciates it. Apparently she only gets calls when she's away, so there is a message on the answering machine. She claimed that situations like mine, where no human was available to take the call were quite rare (though it happened to me five times in two days). I suggested that the computer should identify the call as being from the ISAC in such situations, and she promised that she would talk to the vendor to see if it could be done. She reacted quite calmly when I said that I would hang up on future calls which didn't identify the caller -- her only concern was to be sure that I _would_ speak to a human if everything worked as it was intended to. Of course now that I know who the caller (probably) is when it happens again, things are somewhat less bothersome. I must say that it was rather disconcerting, having never met such a system before -- and everyone has to have a first experience with it _sometime_. David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365
John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> (04/07/91)
"David E. Bernholdt" <bernhold@red8> writes: > She reacted quite calmly when I said that I would hang up on future > calls which didn't identify the caller -- her only concern was to be > sure that I _would_ speak to a human if everything worked as it was > intended to. At the risk of sounding exceedingly arrogant (too late, Higdon, the time for that concern is long past), I usually give very short shrift to people whose SECRETARIES place calls for them. Nothing, but nothing, is more annoying than, "Mr. Higdon, please." "Speaking." "Mr. Smith is calling. Can you hold please? [thunk/elevator music]" In such cases I hang up as quickly as possible. In my work it is a fact of life that a number of very busy people on very tight schedules call me routinely and somehow manage to place the calls using their own fingers on their own dials. Sometimes they even use their own voices to leave messages. Using a secretary to waste the time of the CALLEE ranks up toward the top of the rudeness scale. I might accept such a call from the President of the United States. Short of that, my time is just as valuable as that of anyone else. And on a related note: David Lesher <wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> writes: > We got hit by the {Miami Herald's} Telesleeze dialer yesterday. > Once you're on the list, unsolicited telephone sales calls can not be > made to you except ... by a newspaper publisher or his agent or employee > in connection with his business. Since I called Pac*Bell, threatened the {San Jose Mercury} with legal action, and generally promised a stink that would not clear for a long time, there have been no more calls from Harassment Central. But you can believe that if one single call does come in, I will do everything I can think of (including a few things that may not be mentioned here) to put those people out of business. > John Hignon, I suggest that you do NOT move to Florida. While I did some communications work in Jacksonville and had a very pleasant time, there are a number of reasons I would not move to Florida. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
Tom Reingold <tr@samadams.princeton.edu> (04/08/91)
Here are two anecdotes, if you care to read them. I worked at Bellcore where someone had built an experimental phone switch that ran on a UNIX system and was therefore programmable in the way I know best. For outgoing calls, it could read a text file and speak through a DECTALK. I used this to deal with a bureaucracy: I needed to call the state Department of Motor Vehicles, and as is so in every state, the line was eternally busy. After 5:00 pm on the dot, there was no answer. So I had the switch retry every three minutes or so. When it got through, it said, "Hello, hello? Is this the department of motor vehicles? I have someone on the line who wants to talk with you." Then it connected me. I usually find this practice -- even with secretaries -- rude, but I feel less guilt in dealing with the DMV. Everyone in my workgroup got an automated ad, saying that if we called a certain 800 number, we would win a free vacation. It was really obnoxious. This was before 900 numbers existed, though. So I had the phone switch call the 800 number every 90 seconds for about 90 minutes. I had it say something to the effect that the purpose of the call was to make them realize how annoying automated phone calls are and that I sincerely hope that the proprietor consider another line of business. I also implied that his offer was not legitimate. After the 90 minutes, I called and got a woman's voice. She sounded tired. I asked, "Have you been getting my automated messages?" She paused silently, then said sharply, "Hold on a minute." I got a man who cursed me out in the most vile and obscene language you can imagine. He claimed that his business was legitimate and that he was having the phone company trace the calls. Wouldn't it have been funny if he had found out that the "phone company" had made the calls? He also tried to point out that I had only been called once. Of course I pointed out that the total accumulated inconvenience he had caused to many people was probably quite large, so his argument wasn't very strong. It's sort of like stealing a tenth of a penny from everyone's bank account and making millions of dollars. Can you argue that it cost no one a significant amount therefore your deed is insignificant? Anyway, nothing was resolved, and my mean streak was satisfied, for better or worse. Tom Reingold tr@samadams.princeton.edu OR ...!princeton!samadams!tr [Moderator's Note: Would it have been funny if he found out the phone company was making the calls? No, I think not. Your employer might well have gotten sued and you might well have gotten fired, especially if your employer got sued. Out the door on your ass in a manner of speaking. His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal. People who do these things always lose in court. Do you remember the case involving the very hostile fellow a few years ago who set his computer and modem to call Jerry Falwell's 800 number once a minute for about a month? Once a minute, around the clock, Falwell's automatic call distributor would hand out a call to a 'counselor standing by to speak with you' which was nothing but dead silence. Modems, after all, have nothing to say to anyone, and they don't even start squealing until they hear another of their kind on the line. Some 43,000 calls and about $12,000 - $15,000 later, when the problem was identified (the local Bell and the director of telecom for Falwell's organization both originally thought the problem was a faulty circuit in the ACD or a piece of bad equipment in the CO), they traced the calls and caught the turkey .... he got sued for $50,000 (actual plus punitive) and Falwell won the case. Telco wound up writing it off as goodwill, but they were screaming for blood also where the 'mad dialer' was concerned. I'd take care if I were you. It could get messy. PAT]
Julian Macassey <julian%bongo.UUCP@nosc.mil> (04/08/91)
In article <telecom11.273.9@eecs.nwu.edu> John Higdon <john@zygot.ati. com> writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 273, Message 9 of 9 > At the risk of sounding exceedingly arrogant (too late, Higdon, the > time for that concern is long past), I usually give very short shrift > to people whose SECRETARIES place calls for them. Nothing, but nothing, > is more annoying than, "Mr. Higdon, please." "Speaking." "Mr. Smith is > calling. Can you hold please? [thunk/elevator music]" > In such cases I hang up as quickly as possible. In my work it is a fact > of life that a number of very busy people on very tight schedules call > me routinely and somehow manage to place the calls using their own > fingers on their own dials. Sometimes they even use their own voices to > leave messages. Using a secretary to waste the time of the CALLEE ranks > up toward the top of the rudeness scale. I couldn't agree more. My opinion of these people who inflate their self importance by having minions dial is way down there with pimps. I once did some work for a quadraplegic business executive. He dialled his own calls. He lays on his back and with a head set on his head, uses a "suck and piff" tube to select lines and dial numbers. But for me the final indication that people waste everyone's time by getting minions to dial was witnessed at Paramount Studios. An, "Entertainment Industry Executive", shouted from his office to the secretary's ante-room to "Call Harry Dash". The secretary dialed the call and put the poor bugger on the other end on hold. Then she told Mr. "Executive" that the call was "On line three". So what did Mr. busy, important executive do? He stopped playing with his yo-yo and picked up the phone. I could go on for days about waste, stupidity, ignorance and bad manners on the phone but won't bore anyone further. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian 742 1/2 North Hayworth Avenue Hollywood CA 90046-7142 voice (213) 653-4495
Bill Martens <billm@tokyo07.info.com> (04/13/91)
Well, the bad calls from the secretary are almost as bad as my situation. I called a hotline of a major publishing company which operates in the U.S. and also in Japan which was answered by an English speaking person (amazing!). I told them I wanted a catalog on some of the books which they carry (computer and other technical books). I was told that a person who spoke English would call me back concerning the catalogs I requested (no problem). About 15 minutes later (while talking to the vice-president of the largest publishing company in Japan) a guy calls me from the previous company. (Great!) My next task was to ask this guy for the information (catalogs) which I needed for my company. But everytime I said something to him, he would come back with something in Japanese. So I finally asked him (in Japanese of course) if he speaks English to which he promptly said iie (no in Japanese). Well, that was the biggest waste of my time (and as it turns out the guy isn't even in the department which handles retail questions!) and I had put the poor vice-president of the other company on hold for this guy! Bill Martens Kioityo 3-12 Tokyo Japan
Peter da Silva <peter@taronga.hackercorp.com> (04/13/91)
tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes: > It's sort of like stealing a tenth of a penny from everyone's > bank account and making millions of dollars. Can you argue that it > cost no one a significant amount therefore your deed is insignificant? The Moderator replies: > His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well > have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated > telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal. Of course this gap between legal and illegal calls, one causing X amount of grief to one individual, the other causing (X+delta)/N grief to N individuals, is a wonderful example of how complex a society can get without being civilised. Why should *anyone* have more of a right than anyone else to make unsolicited and annoying phone calls? What if Tom had set his autodialler to call a few hundred households and given them that same message? peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com
Mitch Wagner <wagner@utoday.com> (04/17/91)
In article <telecom11.276.2@eecs.nwu.edu> tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes: > I worked at Bellcore where someone had built an experimental phone > switch that ran on a UNIX system and was therefore programmable in the > way I know best. For outgoing calls, it could read a text file and > speak through a DECTALK. > Everyone in my workgroup got an automated ad, saying that if we called > a certain 800 number, we would win a free vacation. It was really > obnoxious. This was before 900 numbers existed, though. So I had the > phone switch call the 800 number every 90 seconds for about 90 > minutes... > He claimed that his business was legitimate and that he was > having the phone company trace the calls. Wouldn't it have been funny > if he had found out that the "phone company" had made the calls? > [Moderator's Note: Would it have been funny if he found out the phone > company was making the calls? No, I think not. Your employer might > well have gotten sued and you might well have gotten fired, especially > if your employer got sued. Out the door on your ass in a manner of > speaking. His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well > have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated > telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal.... Oh, I suppose you're right, but it's hard to get too worked up about what Mr. Reingold did. I'm one of those who find telemarketing to be pestilent, this despite the fact that I've often found myself working for firms that employ telemarketers. When I worked as a reporter for the (now defunct) DAILY ADVANCE in Flanders, N.J., I got bitten by our own telemarketers. We were a small community newspaper, and I got hand-written letter from a couple who were looking for publicity for some school event or another. I put the letter aside and, a couple of months later, picked it up to do a short write-up. I picked up the phone, called in, identified myself -- "Hi, this is Mitch Wagner from the Daily Advance" -- and the woman said, "Hold on, let me have you speak to my husband." I heard a silence, then a man came on and said, "Listen to me. I have told you people and told you people that I am not interested, and I want you to stop harassing me. Now let me talk to your supervisor right now." Well, I was having a bad day, so I lit into him. I said, "LISTEN YOU NEANDERTHAL! I'VE ABOUT HAD IT WITH PEOPLE WHO SEND IN PRESS RELEASES AND THEN JERK US AROUND ABOUT DOING AN ARTICLE! IF YOU DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR FROM US, WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU SEND ME THAT LETTER FOR?! I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN TO PANDER TO SOME IDIOT'S HARASSMENT FANTASIES, AND--- " "Oh," said a small voice on the other end. "You're calling about the letter about the school?" "WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS CALLING ABOUT?!" "We forgot about the letter. See, we've been getting these calls from your telemarketing folks every night for a week, and.... " The article turned out nicely. So far as I know, the couple stopped getting calls. About that time, I lived at the end of a long dirt driveway -- a private road, actually, about a half-mile long. I got a call from the subscription department at the Newark STAR-LEDGER asking if we wanted home delivery. I said, "Sure," and they gave me a complimentary three-week subscription. At the end of the three weeks, I called to renew, and they renewed, but never delivered. Well, I figured that the paperboy just got sick of going all that way out of his way just to drop off one paper, and since no money had ever changed hands, I forgot about it. But the STAR LEDGER didn't. I continued getting calls about once a month, asking whether I'd be interested in subscribing. I'd explain the situation, offer my conjecture as to why the subscription stopped, and say that under the circumstances, I could certainly understand why they wouldn't want to deliver my paper to me. But the representatives always appeared to be pretty flustered by all of this, and they'd apologize profusely and offer me a free three week's subscription to sign up. I would, and I'd get the paper for a day or two, and then it'd stop. Mitch Wagner VOICE: 516/562-5758 GEnie: MITCH.WAGNER UUCP: wagner@utoday.com [Moderator's Note: Interesting ... almost the same thing happened to me with the {Chicago Tribune}. A high school boy came to my home one day soliciting subscriptions on behalf of some school organization which got a couple bucks for each new subscription obtained. I gave him my order plus an advance payment, and the papers started coming. When the first subscription term expired, the Tribune started billing me, but I would only get the papers about half the time. Two or three days per week they would not show up. I called to complain, and the Tribune would offer me a month free as goodwill. About half of those would arrive; the others would never show up. Each month I complained, and each month the Tribune customer service people would write off the bill and set up another month of complimentary service. After about six months of me paying nothing and the papers getting delivered about half the time, they finally quit bringing them entirely. PAT]