TeleMischief

As I struggled with the thrust of my sermon today, mental cogs graunching as competing concepts ground against one another, the phone rang on the desk of my home office. I picked it up.

There was a pause, that cursed pause that comes as a computer assesses whether or not it's got you. I did what I never do, and waited. "This is Credit Card Services, with an important alert. We've determined that you're paying too much interest on your current balance, and need you to call us immediately so that we can adjust your rate. Please press 6 to speak with a customer service representative."

I have no credit card balance. I never do. Not that they know or care. They're just trolling for suckers. Wanting to get off their list, I pressed six. There was a pause, then a woman spoke in a bored drawl that could only come from a small cubicle in a large, overlit room.

"This is Credit Card Services. Did you press six to reduce your interest rate?"

"No, I wanted to talk to someone about being taken off your call list." There was a click, and silence. She'd hung up on me. I was amazed. That's actually not legal. At least, I don't think it is. As I sat there, wondering how I might follow up on this amazingly annoying firm, the sound of a ring came through on the other end, as if I'd just called someone. The same bored drawl came through the phone.

"This is Credit Card Services. Did you press six to reduce your interest rate?"

"Um, no, I, uh wanted to talk with someone about you not calling me again, and..." There was a click, and silence. Huh, thought I. I stayed on the line. There was a ring on the other end again, and a different voice answered. It was a man, youngish, also bored.

"This is Credit Card Services. Did you press six to reduce your interest rate?"

"No, I was hoping to speak with someone about getting off your call list. If there's a manager I..." There was a click, and silence. Then a ring, and a woman answered, in a tone that told me she was a young African American.

"This is Credit Card Services. Did you press six to reduce your interest rate?"

Then it dawned on me like the rising of the morning sun over Bangalore: They couldn't hang up. They had clearly been instructed by their hellish quasi-criminal social pariah TelemarkeBoss to simply hang up on anyone who asked that question. But the message hadn't gotten to their phone system. The computer that dialed for them would cut you off when they hung up...but it wouldn't disconnect until I hung up. They were trapped. I had them. I switched to speakerphone.

"I did press six," I said. "But not for that reason." "Do you have more than $4,000 in credit card debt," she asked. "No, but I do want to figure out how to get you to stop calling." There was a click. I grinned. The phone rang.

For the next twenty minutes, I kept letting them try not to call me, leaving the speakerphone on as I worked on church reports. They tried hanging up. I kept coming back. They tried leaving the phone on their desks, while I heard folks jabbering in the background. I pressed buttons to send rhythmic tones through to them. They tried hanging up again. No dice. Eventually, they found a manager...but only after twenty-five minutes of passing me around the office.

I love technology.

In Washington, Even the Telemarketing is Different

Telemarketing is back. Despite our desperate efforts to drive a stake through it's heart with the Do Not Call list, there are always ways around it.

Over the last three months, for instance, I've gotten two different versions of the same phone "survey." It isn't a survey at all, of course. It purports to be a survey. "We're not selling anything," says the happy person on the other end. "We just need a few minutes of your time."

What they've done during that time is fascinating. It's marketing, wrapped up in the guise of market research. It's the corporate equivalent of "push-polling." Push-polling, for those of you who aren't attuned to such things, is a form of political "research" that involves the caller asking you questions like this:

Caller: On a scale of 1 to 100, how would you describe your perception of Candidate Smith's personal integrity, with 1 being Satan and 100 being Jesus?

You: Um...maybe 70?

Caller: Thanks! Now, if you were aware that Candidate Smith eats human flesh and compulsively sodomizes cute little baby bunnies, how would that influence your rating?

Obviously, Candidate Jones is payin' for that call.

What's fascinating about the push-poll calls I've gotten recently is that 1) they are efforts to influence people inside the Beltway and 2) they are blatantly funded by corporate interests. The calls begin the same way. They ask what you do for a living, and are fishing for folks who are influential. They want to know if you work or have ever worked for a political party, a political action committee, a law firm, a think-tank, the Pentagon, the IMF or World Bank, the administration, or the legislature.

As a lifelong Washingtonian, I can check two of those boxes. Yeah, I was an administrative flunky, but hey, that wasn't the question.

Then, they get into the pitch. The first call asked about perceptions of health care coverage...at Walmart. I was then given a huge volume of detail about just how wonderful Walmart is at caring for it's workers. "And how would that change your opinion, sir?"

The second call, which came last night, followed the same format. It asked about my perceptions of foreign investments in the United States, and foreign purchases of American companies and assets. I was then pitched a line about a particular development conglomerate based in the United Arab Emirates, and their wonderful concern for local interests in the communities where they slurp up properties and businesses. Gosh. I wonder what folks in the U.A.E. are up to? Maybe...thinking about buying tons of undervalued American companies? And wondering what the "leadership" of the country might think about it? Hmmm.

It almost makes me wish they were trying to get me to switch phone service or extend my car warranty. Sigh. The joys of living inside the Beltway.