| Comment Number: | OL-106138 |
| Received: | 12/5/2004 8:49:35 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Fran Hedberg |
| State: | WA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
No. No, no, no. Listen, It's annoying enough to get LIVE calls from Comcast (and its subsidiaries and business partners, some of whom seem to be pretty far-flung from the cable business). While it's easier to hang up on a computer, those messages take up a lot of space on my answering machine, and they also interrupt me in the middle of meals, other calls, showers, et cetera. Further, if I want to tell the company to stop calling me, I'd rather interrupt a fellow human being and ask to be removed from their call list than have to wait through three minutes of advert in order to get to the end and find a number to call for service. Further, all the major companies now have advertising added to the menu options in their automatic phone answering systems, so while I'm on hold waiting for a representative or trying to dig through layers of automation to find the right option, I get MORE advertising. If you want me to be happier about getting phone solicitations, open up the cable industry to competition the way long distance service has been opened so that I can finally see my basic cable or digital cable costs per month go DOWN a few dollars some year, instead of going up by 5 percent faithfully every year and a half while service quality decreases and their call centers are moved deeper and deeper under automation and further and further from native English speakers. If they provide service, if they COMPETE for my dollars, THEN I'll consider allowing them to spend MY time on the phone. Until then, there's a reason that the Do Not Call list is so popular, and it's their fault, NOT mine. Thank you for your time, and for your very hard work. I know your job's probably thankless a lot of the time, but it makes me very happy that you're doing it!