How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash 227
First time accepted submitter georgeaperkins writes "A man targeted by marketing companies is making money from cold calls with his own premium-rate phone number. So far he's made £300 profit following a £10+VAT initial investment. The premium rate regulator has 'strongly discouraged' the practice, as it violates the code of practice. Nevertheless, the novel idea is sure to resonate with everyone worn down by mindless cold calling!"
So Full Of Win! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is epic win.
Billing bill collectors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clear something up? (Score:3, Insightful)
"I don't know this number, fuck that!"
Re:and why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
0844 is national rate, not premium. Our office number is one digit away from the Maplin number.
You can get a bit of revenue from an 0844, we don't from ours, but we get it for free as a SIP trunk and we get pretty much free outbound calling. We don't use phones much anyway really, nasty noisy things.
Re:Code of practice? (Score:5, Insightful)
taking pot-shots at the monumentally, epically difficult jobs of regulators is lazy comedy.
/ no, i am not a regulator, but I know what they do.
I would have more sympathy if the regulator's response to flagrant law-breaking wasn't always simply to write a "stongly worded" letter to the company responsible, reminding them of their legal obligations. I dunno, but if I personally broke the law, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get a letter reminding me that what I did was illegal and told not to do it again, especially if I'm doing the law breaking on a large and organised scale...
Re:Code of practice? (Score:2, Insightful)
They just haven't noticed he's a person not a business.
If you personally broke the law, you get bubba up inside you for five to twenty years.
If a business does it on a large and organized scale, bad, bad business. shouldn't do that. Feel bad. Feel bad? Good, we're done here, you can keep doing it now. Campaign contributions maybe? awww, so sweet, thank you.
Re:Conversation (Score:1, Insightful)
No they aren't humans. They gave up their humanity when they took a job where they got paid for causing people harm.
100% of the products advertised through telemarketing (and other direct advertising) are scams.
These practices should be illegal because they take a public good, modern communication systems, and decreases their value by increasing the noise/signal ratio for personal profit.
Re:Conversation (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. Because someone making minimum wage for 15 hours a week because they grew up in poverty and have no skill set doesn't deserve to be considered a human. Someone who can't find work anywhere but a temp agency and gets completely exploited as the company they're being contracted out to doesn't have to abide by the usual labor laws is most certainly not to be considered human.
When I order a burger from McDonalds, I'm ordering it from nigger-cattle. Apes. Certainly not humans.
Fuck off, ass hole.
Re:Conversation (Score:5, Insightful)
Some poor people become pot dealers, some become telemarketeers. The difference between those two is that there is an actual demand for the services of the first.
Re:Definition of Abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, as it says in TFA, the guy now "welcomes cold calls". I can see the point of slugging cold-callers with what is effectively a "fine", but once you go to the extreme of extending unsolicited calls just for the revenue, then that is just profiteering.
I am cool with that. If they do not want to pay him for his time they can choose to not call him.