The Telemarketing Plague

Telemarketers are the callers many love to loathe. They interrupt dinners. They spoil weekends. They won’t take no for an answer. So why are you still getting calls from this telemarketing still calling people? Well, it’s because consumers spent $274 billion on telemarketing in 2001, according to the Direct Marketing Association. That’s up 8.5% from the year before. Business-to-business sales were $387 billion, up 10.4%. Telemarketing is the second-fastest-growing marketing segment behind the Internet. Of the $1.86 trillion direct-marketing industry that ranges from catalogs to e-mail to 800 numbers on TV. There is a saying that goes: “If we all did not answer the telemarketer calls for a whole day, the industry would go bankrupt.”

So once you head over to the donotcall.gov and sign up with the government’s do not call list, go over to the Telephone Preference Service from the DMA. This will stop telemarketers who are members of the DMA, which has around 5,000 members. You can pay $5 to register online, or you can mail your name, address, and phone number to:

Telephone Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
Box 1559
Carmel, NY 10512