There is a Law, called the "Do Not Call Law." If you put yourself - your home phone number, that is - on the Do Not Call list, then companies and people are not supposed to call you for most any reason. Especially not to sell you something, or ask you to participate in surveys, and so on. Here is the web site:
But every once in a while, a company ignores the Do Not Call Law and makes calls to your home phone, and often times, at the worst possible moments. During dinner, early in the morning, or late at night. The phone rings; you have Caller ID and there is nothing to identify the caller. Instead you see "Unknown Caller," or you see a phone number from an 800 or other so-called toll-free area code, but the number is not one you recognize.
If you answer, you may be drawn into a conversation you do not want to have, for any of a number of reasons.
Well, to make a very long story longer - we are going to make it short - this is a story about how we learned that people who were calling us at all times of day and night, were ignoring the Do Not Call Law and, in fact, were bothering other people as well. We simply "Googled" the phone number we saw in Caller ID and that took us to a series of Web Pages in which other people told similar stories of what we were experiencing.
So, here is what we posted on one of those sites, and this is what we promised. And, by the way, the people calling us are related to the very famous Sears, for goodness' sake:
We have no Sears' credit cards. We have Sears’s service contracts on a stove and microwave, for which we pay annually; in advance. We owe Sears nothing; not a single penny.
Yet recently we have begun receiving calls from this number, 800-927-2291.
They leave no voicemail. They call multiple times a day, in clear violation of the Federal Do Not Call law, for which we signed up years ago. Apparently, they feel themselves to be above the laws of the land. (Must be big contributors to the Bush White House.)
We demand that they cease and desist from further calls to us, and anyone else who falls into the same category - do not owe them, do not have credit cards with them, and have no interest in a continuing relationship with them.
As our service contracts are for General Electric products, we will cancel our Sears relationships now, and enlist General Electric going forward with our service contracts for the Stove and Microwave products.
How's that, Sears, for being so inconsiderate of consumers' feelings?
And, since we own and or manage more than half a dozen web sites, we will begin to post this story on all of the sites on which we are able to do so, to see if we can help drive business away from Sears in the process.
So as a consumer, you can fight back, by spreading the word to all you know. If a company calls you in clear violation of the Do Not Call Law, tell your friends, family, and co-workers and help steer business away from these annoying companies.
Hit them where it hurts - in the wallet ... in the bottom line ... in their profit margins. Show them that it costs them more than the cost of a phone call to mess with the public this way.
If, as they do in our household, they wake you at very early hours in the morning, even on weekends, then wake them up by switching your loyalties to a different company who will provide the same services, with less annoying business tactics.
Happy Holidays to all!
-a.