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Stopping phone calls from charitable organizations [Solved for now]
illirica
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi, folks,
I'm getting pestered by people calling me wanting my money, which annoys me. As far as I know, I don't have any recourse, but I thought I would see if PA knew of anything else that I could do to help the situation.
The background:
1. For locational reference, I live in the US, near Chicago.
2. We just moved, so these folks must have gotten our number from our phone company. We are not yet listed in the phone book, so having an unlisted number would not help. The callers have both my name and number, so they're not just "hi, can I speak to the person in charge of financial decisions" calls, which is what has led me to believe they got the number from AT&T.
3. I am already on the Do Not Call registry, however, this doesn't help because the registry does not apply to charities.
We get at least one or two, usually several calls a week from various organizations wanting us to donate. Right now, all I do is say "We're not interested, please don't call again," but that doesn't seem to help all that much. When I do make my charitable donations, I also choose only charities which don't call me, but again, that really doesn't help the current situation.
In our area, some charities also use the local police and fire departments as fronts for their collections - so Caller ID doesn't always help, because the Caller ID displays "<City> Police Dept," and of course you pretty much have to pick the phone up for that (this process irks me in ways I cannot describe, but this is an H/A thread, not a rant thread, so I will not try).
So, essentially, I'm asking if there's anything I can do to stop the calls. It's not just one organization, it's a new one every day, so even if I did get one of them to take me off their list it wouldn't do that much good. Can I work something out with my phone company? Is there some super-secret "No, Really Do Not Call" list that I don't know about? Or if anyone has any other advice or options, I'd be happy to hear about them.
Edit: I have some good working solutions thanks to people here, so I'll be trying them out and hopefully all goes well. Thanks to everyone, mods can feel free to lock if desired.
I'm getting pestered by people calling me wanting my money, which annoys me. As far as I know, I don't have any recourse, but I thought I would see if PA knew of anything else that I could do to help the situation.
The background:
1. For locational reference, I live in the US, near Chicago.
2. We just moved, so these folks must have gotten our number from our phone company. We are not yet listed in the phone book, so having an unlisted number would not help. The callers have both my name and number, so they're not just "hi, can I speak to the person in charge of financial decisions" calls, which is what has led me to believe they got the number from AT&T.
3. I am already on the Do Not Call registry, however, this doesn't help because the registry does not apply to charities.
We get at least one or two, usually several calls a week from various organizations wanting us to donate. Right now, all I do is say "We're not interested, please don't call again," but that doesn't seem to help all that much. When I do make my charitable donations, I also choose only charities which don't call me, but again, that really doesn't help the current situation.
In our area, some charities also use the local police and fire departments as fronts for their collections - so Caller ID doesn't always help, because the Caller ID displays "<City> Police Dept," and of course you pretty much have to pick the phone up for that (this process irks me in ways I cannot describe, but this is an H/A thread, not a rant thread, so I will not try).
So, essentially, I'm asking if there's anything I can do to stop the calls. It's not just one organization, it's a new one every day, so even if I did get one of them to take me off their list it wouldn't do that much good. Can I work something out with my phone company? Is there some super-secret "No, Really Do Not Call" list that I don't know about? Or if anyone has any other advice or options, I'd be happy to hear about them.
Edit: I have some good working solutions thanks to people here, so I'll be trying them out and hopefully all goes well. Thanks to everyone, mods can feel free to lock if desired.
illirica on
0
Posts
Unfortunately, I'm unfamiliar with the Laws governing your jurisdiction, but here in Manitoba, Canada, anyone who calls you is required by law to provide you with the source of your number, including contact information, by lettermail within 30 days of a request.
Unfortunately, through past experience working at a company that bought lists, I know that in the US various utility companies have been known sell client contact information to marketing companies, often the same clients over and over.
However, you can ask them to take you off their list.
When someone calls, let them get through their initial opener, then say "I am not interested in XXXX (My finances are already committed, I don't give to charities over the phone etc) or in receiving any other unsolicited calls, I would like to be removed from your calling list, can you give me a confirmation number, or your contact information"
If you don't add the last part, telemarketers tend to say "okay" then hang up. In these cases I've found I keep getting calls.
With subsequent calls from the same company, I explain (assuming it was >30days) that I had already requested not to receive unsolicited calls from this company, and I will be contacting my telecommunication company to lodge a complaint. I again ask for their contact information. Usually this is met with a polite apology, insistence that they will ensure I am taken off their list, as well as the requested information. I've never needed to actually file a complaint.
I had to do this quite frequently for about 2 months. After that the calls started becoming more and more rare. At this point I can pretty much guarantee that if my phone rings, it isn't a telemarketer/charity.
It's important to actually answer the phone, and make the request. I went through a long period of not answering the phone when the call ID was obviously a telemarketer. This doesn't solve the problem, and in some cases I'm told it ensures you will get another call sooner then if you answered.
You've got to stay vigilant, and try to keep them on the line after you make the request to be removed. Get some sort of employee number, removal confirmation number, as well as a contact phone number. This tends to get their attention.
I had a similar problem a few years ago after I foolishly gave $25 to our local firefighter's orphans and kittens fund*. Basically, it seemed like EVERYONE suddenly wanted a piece of my sweet, sweet, charitable nature.
Fortunately, when I went to the fire department's web site, they listed the name of the company they'd contracted to handle their charity drive, and googling that name turned up a newspaper article which included both THAT name AND the name of the "president" of the organization, and googling his name turned up the name of the real company behind all the "different" charity drive organizations, and calling THAT company got me two things:
1) I got to speak to someone who seemed very shocked that I'd actually connected the calls back to them.
2) The blissful sound of my phone not ringing anymore.
So what I'm trying to say is, do some sleuthing, and good luck.
* May not be the actual name of the fund.
Best thing would probably be to ask to talk with whoever's running the phone bank and, then ask to be taken off the list. The average grunt calling you is probably a volunteer and probably doesn't know much of anything at all aside from what's on their script, so you need to do your best to get through to someone who can actually help you.
Another good way to get off lists like this is to say that it's a wrong number, or that the people they are trying to reach no longer live at your address. Again, that might take a while, depending on how far spread your info is.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
They never sent the sticker. Instead, my phone exploded in requests for charitable donations from every where. I mean like 5-10 calls a day.
I finally just canceled my land line because I couldn't get it under control. Every 'supervisor' I spoke to who said that I was being taken on my list seem to have divided and morphed into two more new organizations.
Stick with it, man. It looks like the above advice is the way to do it.
For a while I was being called by a warranty company (claiming the warranty on my car was about to expire! o noes! - I don't own a car) on my landline and cell phone more than 5 times a day (each) and had asked to be taken off their list several times, they always hung up before I could finish what I was saying. I got an airhorn and kept it by the phone, ready to get rid of them once and for all. (Not sure the actual legality of this, but in my case the company was actually a known scam so I didn't feel too bad about it.) Never had to use it because they called my cell phone and started off and I cut them off and just screamed "NO NO, TAKE ME OFF YOUR FUCKING LIST RIGHT FUCKING NOW" and she said "Alright" and I never got another call on my cellphone or landline.
With a charity however, I'd advise you to be a little nicer. I'd say get on it sooner than later so that your number doesn't have time to spread more. Alternate solution is to buy one of those "callzapper" things, or call most of your utility providers and make sure they know you don't want them giving out your information.
they will probably do it
If you're extremely technical, you can have some fun with incoming telemarketer calls. Just be sure your friends, family, and employer know what to dial to get through to you.
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funny anecdote:
i got a call from some library fund raiser a few years ago... i issued my typical response within the 1st 5 seconds of the call "please take me off your list" + immediate hang-up
the woman actually called me back and tried to ream me out for being "rude"
she found out that i know more curse words than she does
For paintings in progress, check out canvas and paints
"The power of the weirdness compels me."
Just be sure to record the calls and report back here.
I think this is the kind of thing people say they do/want to do without actually doing it. Isn't that sexual harassment?
If you go into Best Buy and the salesmen keep coming up to you and bothering you, you don't get to slap them on the ass to make them uncomfortable and leave.
Random yelling or dirty talk or putting the phone down and walking away is going to get you flagged as non-responsive or not available, which means that the next time someone works through the list they're going to see that they haven't made contact with you previously and try again. So, have fun with that.
Most orgs are decently good at removing people who ask to be removed, if only because it wastes their time to continue calling them. If nothing else it should get you removed from their general cold call lists. The problem is that because nonprofit phone ops are typically low tech and use volunteers, it can take a long time for non-financial response data to work it's way back into the database and be reflected on the new list (or they don't even manage their own DB and are just pulling the list from somewhere.) So it often takes multiple tries to get off of a call list.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This doesn't really justify it. If you don't have your own list, that you can remove numbers from, your organization shouldn't be allowed to my coldcalls. If I ask you to stop calling me, and I don't owe you any money, and you continue to call me, that is a sign of disrespect. It doesn't matter if its because they're "low tech" and don't have a way to remove my number, or if they just don't give a shit and want to harass me. By not putting a system in place to remove numbers from their lists they are saying they are willing to harass everyone, repeatedly.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I donated blood once, basically to get out of class, and I had people calling me up twice a week after my very blood!
So I told them rather sternly, that when I am in the mood to donate my blood I will let them know, but not to call me and check in during the mean time. This eventually took care of things.