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> In lugnet.admin.general, Frank Filz writes:
> > Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> > > - ability to mark in your member profile whether you are interested in
> > > unsolicited offers, and if so, what sorts (categories of interest, types
> > > of sales, specific sets you want at a low level of interest but haven't
> > > posted to bst lately because you don't want to be a pest).
> >
> > I like this idea. I really hope the marketting world starts to realize
> > the value of targetted advertising.
Targeted advertising could soon become pervasive and inescapable. Be careful
what you wish for. See http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.09.13 for the latest
in involuntary user profiling that could become standard equipment at ISPs.
Until people get mad and start to take back their privacy, it'll get worse.
Until the marketers are willing to call a cease-fire, it's war, and screw the
marketers. I won't fill out any questionaire because it just encourages the
unscrupulous ones to send me even more irrelevant stuff. I don't own a car, but
I'm a high-strung city dweller even still, so this is where my road rage goes.
Get out of my mailbox!
I try to be nice to the poor minimum wage schmucks who have to make the calls.
"Wow! Magazines! I love magazines! What do you have? Oh! I already get that one!
What else? Oh! That one too I already get! What tipped you off that I might like
that one? Oh! Sorry! I renewed it just yesterday! Happy Valentine's Day!"
Exerting that little bit of energy to make their day more surreal in lieu of
more miserable. The effort makes me feel better too. Of course sometimes I just
hang up angrily.
I send tart letters to credit card companies. "Wow! Your latest faceless,
shameless promotion for getting hopelessly into debt failed to impress me! In
fact, I'm already a customer of yours! But you know what? You ranked 3 out of 5
on my little survey (results below) and I'm afraid you will be cut off now. Bye
bye, and thanks for financing my reckless college years." I stopped sending
those letters because the poor schmucks that are Account Executives get an open
ticket and they aren't allowed to let a customer be unhappy, so they try to call
me even more to make amends. Then they hand the hot potato to the next shift,
and a new person calls me...
I once strung out a novice vitamin marketer for many minutes, who seemed to know
way too much about my credit limit (I know my card sold me out on that one)
until she panicked and I heard her begging her supervisor for help closing the
sale. Doing my bit to make 'em unprofitable. It's war.
If there are any scrupulous telemarketers, they aren't the ones calling me. I
have all the electronic gadgets to fight them with, so much so that I can't even
call my own house anymore from a public phone. Bell Atlantic admits their
helplessness. Anonymous call blocking can be bypassed, and it is bypassed on my
home about 4 times every evening. If I have the ill fortune to pick one up, I
pretend I'm calling them and start talking rapidly. One routine is to remind the
telemarketer of their dentist appointment when they give their name, and make up
even more gruesome procedures the more they try to insist that they're calling
you.
Of course, the usual advice about taking names and addresses and threatening to
get a judgment does go a little way. It doesn't help when the same company
employs multiple marketers for the same product. Then you just have to screw
them.
I make myself pay careful attention to postal regulations (get something out of
waiting in line at the PO) because it's important that revenge be done by legal
means.
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