Don’t call me, I’ll call you
This morning before I left for work, a machine called our home phone, and when I answered, a recorded voice talked about how it was “urgent” I contact my credit card company to reduce my rate. We had received this call before on my machine, and I was annoyed. What if they’d woken up Sammy? So I pressed 1 to talk to an agent, and when one eventually picked up, I tried to get them to tell me what company they worked for and where they were based. He muttered something about “Credit Reduction Company” and that they were in Jacksonville, Tennessee. But the agent quickly realized I wasn’t actually a prospect and offered to transfer me to their complaints department, and when I agreed he hung up on me. Nice!
If I had more time, I’d try to track these weasels down, since automated calls like this are against the law.
In the dark days before the “Do Not Call” list, I probably used to get a dozen telemarketing calls a week. These days it’s very rare, so this one stood out all the more.
So let’s hear it for the Do Not Call list! And, please, take a moment to register or renew your registration with the National Do Not Call Registry. The list was created in June of 2003, and each registration is valid for five years, so you don’t really need to renew just yet. But it takes 31 days for numbers to be removed, so make sure you renew before May of 2008. May as well do it now while you’re thinking about it, and then not worry about until August of 2012.
While you’re at it, you may want to reduce junk snail mail with the DMA Mail Preference Service, but the DMA now wants a dollar from you to let you tell their affiliates not to send you junk. Doesn’t seem consumer-friendly to me.
A tip of the hat to Junkbusters.