Dear Charitable Phone Solicitor

[hrj]

Yes, I am on the national "do not call" list. Yes, you are legally exempt from the restrictions of the national "do not call" list. But why in the world would you want to waste your time trying to solicit money from someone who has already expressed hostility to phone solicitation? Just because you can? If the ethics don't bother you, at least pay attention to the economics!

No love,
HRJ

Comments

[anghara.livejournal.com]

My utterly beyond-the-pale story is the one time, back when I was an ACTIVE freelancer, I came home to a phone message which was just a request to phone this person back, a name, and a phone number. Well, like I said, I was freelancing - and this person might have been a client, might have been potential money in the bank. SO I phoned back, and the phone got picked up on the other end by someone identifying the place as some sort of heart research foundation. A little bit mystified - but hey, okay, they might need stuff written - I asked for the name on my message, and got passed on to this woman, and said, "You left a message for me to phoneyou back...?"

"Oh, yes," she said brightly. "We are soliciting donations for our very important research. You weren't home when I called, so I left a message for you to contact us..."

I'm afraid I lost it. It's bad enough having people phone me (usually at inconvenient or awkward hours, usually when I'm doiong something else that I consider to be important) and ask for money - but for them to ask me to call them back on my own nickel and in my own time so that they could ask me for money was just AAAARGH. Needless to say she got an earful and a promise that she would NEVER get any money from me no matter how noble her cause.

I HATE telemarketers. WIth a passion. And frankly, I don't care that they're doing a thankless job - or at least I don't care if they continue talking after I politely said no thanks. If their first words after I said "no" aren't "I'm sorry I bothered you, good night" they just get the phone put down on them midstream. Sorry. I have no time for this.

[madfilkentist]

There's even worse than that.

If you ever get a call from "CBCS", don't return the call. Think of it as the telephone equivalent of malware.