When Charities Become Telemarketers

The ones in the middle
are phone spam too.

I know that fundraising is hard. I understand that charities need money with which to pursue their missions. I would ask them not to follow the example of spam and scam telemarketers. But they do.

Looking over my phone records since the beginning of the year, I find that there are two phone numbers, both of which exceeded the number of calls that I received in the same time period on our home phone from my own husband. I actually like talking to him. When he calls me, it’s usually for a reason that I’m interested in. And he almost never calls and hangs up if I don’t answer (sometimes he calls my cell phone, because unlike telemarketers and fundraisers, he knows my cell phone number).

Although I tend to ignore phone numbers with weird names, call enough, even if you don’t leave messages and my curiosity and ire might actually get the better of me, as I entertain the fantasy that the person who keeps calling me every freaking day and doesn’t leave a message on the answering machine might actually listen if I tell them that in my opinion that their calls have crossed the line into misuse of the telephone.

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An Open Letter to Cox Communications

I receive frequent annoying scam calls. I was even more bothered to find out that in order to block these people from their repeated call, Cox wishes to charge me additional money. This should be free. Cox is complicit in this by trying to make money off of people who just want the nuisance callers to leave to them alone. One number, 570-983-3206, called me 18 times in the course of August and September. We have been called four times in the last four months from 949-896-5565, who claim to be contractors looking for work. We have told them not to call back, but they persist.

I was told that it would cost me an additional five dollars a month to be able to block these callers. Cox should not be charging money to protect me from these annoying, persistent, and illegal calls. If the phone carriers made it easy and free to block these calls, phone scammers would be in trouble. Think of boiler rooms of people listening to busy signals all day.

If the phone companies aren't willing to offer this, then perhaps Washington needs to better regulate the phone companies. I know that I will be contacting my representatives in Washington, the FTC, and the FCC on this matter. Cox should stop making life easy for phone scammers and side with their customers.

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You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

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This blog runs solely on ego! Follow this blog! Comment on this post! Let me know that you want to read more of it!