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activism
This page considers consumer activism regarding telemarketing.
It covers -
consumer activism
Consumer responses when confronted by unsolicited commercial
calls occupy a continuum from guerilla activity to polite
requests to desist.
Arguably the best response is to ask the caller to remove
the number from the marketer's database, taking a note
of details so that the recipient can take action if there
is no follow up.
That action might include a letter of complaint to the
marketer, advice to a regulator or industry organisation
or consumer advocacy body, or a letter to a newspaper
or online forum.
Some recipients have been less positive, with numerous
anecdotes about abusing callcentre staff, blowing whistles
or otherwise expressing their ire. Some put the caller
'on hold' indefinitely, on the assumption that the caller's
time is money.
Those with a taste for theatre may instead provide what
the caller would regard as inappropriate responses, ranging
from complaints that security agencies are beaming coded
messages into the recipient's alfoil
hat to requests for a personal relationship.
Others play 'guess the callcentre', particularly where
there is a suspicion that the caller is not - as claimed
- ringing from an adjacent city but is in fact sitting
with 500 other teleslaves in a boilershop in Mumbai.
Some seek to subvert survey calls by supplying incorrect
data, which may be one reason for the ineffectiveness
of many marketing campaigns.
mail
Governments in Australia and elsewhere have not established
'do not mail' registers, although some national direct
marketing organisations such as ADMA operate private schemes
of varying comprehensiveness.
It has been estimated that around 9 billion items of junk
mail (supposedly over 1,000 items per household) are received
in Australia each year. Most of that letterbox litter
is unaddressed.
The ADMA national Do Not Mail database supposedly featured
some 222,000 individuals as of mid-2005, with critics
commenting that the list would be significantly higher
if more people were aware of the database.
next page (a DNE registry?)
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