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Contents 1 Removed Long Comment 2 Removed material 3 Proposed Merger 4 List of opt out services? 5 Legality 6 Phone Call audio file 7 Spam 8 Nadji Tehrani 9 PhoneSpamFilter.com 10 "Don't Panic but this is your final notice. This is your last chance... To get money back on your morgage by rexian..."

[edit] Removed Long Comment

Removed a very long comment by Graptor (see the history page.) I do not see what it had to do with making the article any better. Graptor, if you disagree go ahead and add something to the article itself, rather then a long comment here. See this page for an explanation about this. --BenjaminHare 09:37, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Eh, I won't argue. Had a hard day at work and got ranty, happened to be looking up stuff on wikipedia that night to see what if it said anything on the subject, it didn't seem appropriate to add any of it to the article...and that was all I could think of. Not really a big deal that it's gone, honestly. I do dumb things when I'm mad. and all the rude people I have to deal with at work just for trying to do surveys grates on me at times. The only thing I could think of that's worth adding at all, though I don't know how, is something about how many people either automatically assume I'm trying to sell something, decide I'm a telemarketer(surveys are not marketing), or think that telemarketing laws apply to surveyors(I've never heard of one that does. The impression I've gotten is that the few that're out there above the local level(I'm assuming there's a few) they follow without telling the agents, as they have total control over what areas we call and when, and we have zero control over it...and that the local ones they don't bother to look for proactively for the most part. or something.) Like I said though, how to include it in an article, and with some of it even what article to put it in, I can't think of. I'd like to add it(in a much less ranty way, stupid me), but can't think of how. :(

-Graptor

Surveys can be (and usually are) marketing. Why do you think the client wants the survey done? To gather information to use in their sales and marketing activities (unless the survey is a post-sales follow up). If you do a survey and the client thinks it is a promising lead, they are going to do a follow-up to try and make a sale. I work for one of the top tele-marketing firms in the country and do surveys 40 hours a week. Make no mistake, it is a form of tele-marketing (even though you are not making a "direct" sales pitch yourself). 74.65.39.59 (talk) 03:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed material

I have removed the following:

Sometimes the term is used as synonymous with TV marketing, products or services sold by mail/phone and usually advertised in specialized TV shows lasting several minutes or even hours, in contrast with typical TV ads.

Telemarketing does not sell via mail and infomercials are not a form of telemarketing. These are forms of direct response marketing rather than direct marketing. mydogategodshat 05:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, I am living in Greece and visit Italy often and at least in those countries (maybe in the whole Europe) the term "Telemarketing" is synonymous with "infomercials" (the latter term isn't used very often, if at all), and many companies specializing in infomercials define themselves and their business "telemarketing" and rarely "direct marketing", and there are TV stations (mostly small, regional stations) which broadcast this kind of "telemarketing" all day, also in the form of TV auctions.

Their pricing policies also closely resemble those of telemarketing e.g. they sell most items at fixed prices of either 29.99 , 59.99 or 99.99 Euros + shipping and handling, usually fraudolently high prices. Some examples: Popcorn hot air machine, 60 Euros via "Telemarketing", 12 Euros at a local retailer. NES Famiclone: 60 Euros (when they rarely get over 25). Hair remover for clothes: 60 Euros at telemarketing, 3 Euros at local stores.

EpiVictor 09:09, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe the terminology is different in Southern Europe, but in English speaking countries Telemarketing is that type of direct marketing that uses the telephone. That is, marketers attempt to sell directly to customers by phoning them. There is no intermediary broardcast media invoved (which is why it is called direct). Infomercials, on the other hand are a type of direct response marketing. That is, marketers use broadcast media to get customers to contact them directly. It is direct response marketing because the communications from the customer to the marketer is direct, and this differentiates it from direct marketing in which the communications from the marketer to the customer is direct. Because of this distinction infomercials are not a form of telemarketing. mydogategodshat 09:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion above between Teleshopping and Telemarketing.84.48.67.15 08:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Merger

I'm not sure that telemarketing and cold calling should be merged. On the surface they are very similar concepts: They both involve making a sales pitch to prospects who have not agreed to such an interaction. However there are important differences. The purpose of telemarketing is to close a sale, however the purpose of cold calling is frequently to arrange an in-person meeting. Also, cold calling does not always involve using a telephone. It could involve sending e-mails (in which case it is spam), or involve in-person sales calls (although this is rare because of its high cost). mydogategodshat 04:09, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the two topics should be merged either. While cold calling is a subset of telemarketing, it is usually more restricted to business to business sales as oposed to the majority of telemarketing which is geared towards consumer sales of products and services. tawker 09:01, 11 November 2005 (PST)

Dave 18:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC) Cold calling is a form of telemarketing, but it implies no prior relationship with a customer.

I'm removing the merger tag. These subjects ought to be treated separately -- telemarketing entails a lot of cold-calling, to be sure, but it could also involve selling to customers with whom one has a prior relationship (e.g., the telephone company hawking new services). Cold-calling, by contrast, is involved in many situations that have nothing to do with selling products -- headhunters seeking heads, journalists seeking leads, people seeking work, entrepreneurs seeking investment, and the like often engage in cold-calling. jdb ❋ (talk) 02:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the merge tags from both articles, since no one seems to support the merger. If someone tags them again, they need to explain why on the talk page. IrisWings 21:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of opt out services?

Would it be worth either linking to an external list, category, or inline list of opt-out agencies, such as Telephone Preference Service and United States National Do Not Call Registry -- I dare say there are more, (The UK one is a result of an EU directive, IIRC, which would imply equivelents for other European nations). This seems like a good place to link to all the articles on the other relevant agencies -- Ratarsed 14:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legality

Have there been any bills introduced to attempt to ban telemarketing? I find it really difficult to understand why it's still legal.

There have been, including those bills responsible for the enactment of the Do Not Call List, however unforunately for the average business or individual who has not proactively listed themselves on this list, current laws are fairly vague. For example, current law states that a telemarketer cannot "mislead or misrepresent" themselves or their product/service. An interesting tactic of telemarketers in an attempt to bypass this, is to originally persuade whom they are speaking with of what they are selling in a misreprestative manner, and later record them on file in as straight forward non-misrepresentative manner as possible. A telemarketing company operating as such is therefore operating illegally, but unfortunately the company's audio recordings (which they later playback to collect money) have the indicate the appearence of otherwise. --Gregorof 02:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phone Call audio file

What is with that woman's voice. It scared the hell out of me, even at the end of the video!--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 14:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• Depending on where this call was recorded, dual-party consent may be required (meaning that Discover and the telemarketing rep would also have to consent to the recording and the placement of that file on Wikipedia. I propose removing the audio file, but will wait a few weeks for comments. SkerHawx 01:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Input needed: Arkow v. Bank Of California 1995; outlining individual corporate Do Not Call policy requirements. This is still actionable, however the question remains is it archaic? Ttlr113 00:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

Link to PBX product called ASterisk. Is it so notable tht it should be here? Or is is link spam?

[edit] Nadji Tehrani

Since 1982, Telemarketing has been a registered trademark owned by Nadji Tehrani.[1] In a 2006 interview, Tehrani described how he began using phone marketing to sell advertising space in trade magazines published by his company, Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC). After discovering that phone marketing itself had no trade magazine, Tehrani started TeleMarketing Magazine in 1982.[2]

Once the inaccuracies of this statement are removed, the remainder of the paragraph is irrelevant. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a trademark was issued to Technology Marketing Corporation on December 28, 1982 as a mark used to refer to "Printed Matter-Namely, Magazine Directed to Electronic Marketing and Communications". This trademark was cancelled on October 4, 2003. Saying someone "owns/owned a trademark on the phrase Telemarketing" is untrue, it was only a registed trademark with regards to referring to a magazine. The trademark serial number is 73360064 if someone wants to see for themselves at http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk. I have removed the above paragraph. Neil916 (Talk) 16:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

This information was re-added today (March 5, 2009), but its relevance to the history of telemarketing isn't clear to me. It was a trademark for the name of a magazine. This article is not about the magazine. To me, it's about as relevant as a comment that "Hugh Hefner had a yacht called Telemarketing back in the 1980's." (totally made-up factoid). I've pulled it back out, but am certainly willing to be persuaded otherwise. Neil916 (Talk) 01:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PhoneSpamFilter.com

Removing this link is unnecessary, as this is a site with zero commercial content and one which provides Wikipedia users with additional information -- namely a method for checking a phone number to see if it is a solicitor.

To whoever has chosen to vandalize this page by repeatedly removing this link, please stop it.

Several for-profit telemarketer-blocking sites have attempted to put links here, which clearly violates Wikipedia guidelines. PhoneSpamFilter.com does not, however. Same thing for other similar telemarketing sites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.21.227 (talk) 00:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Please take a long, hard look at WP:EL and WP:NOTLINK before adding that link again. The site may be non-commercial in nature, but that is not the sole criteria for why that link does not belong. Wikipedia is not, and never will be, a web directory. Other sites do that much better than an encyclopedia and you should focus your efforts there. Neil916 (Talk) 06:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean? There are no fewer than 8 links in the "External Links" section of that article. Can you explain to me what makes those links valid and this one not? What I believe happened here is someone running a commercial site either continually tried to replace this link with his own site, or perhaps he complained to you. In any event, I think it's very unclear why this link "does not belong" while the others do. I'm thinking about the guide for "how to sue telemarketers" in particular. How is this any different? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.21.227 (talk) 07:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok I've read the WP:EL and WP:NOTLINK, and I'm completely baffled by your problem with this link. PhoneSpamFilter.com is not a commercial site, and yes I know that it gets no search-engine boost from being added here. It is an informational and useful tool for users with at least as much value as the other links on the page. Namely, it provides a free, non-commercial, registry of telemarketers. It also provides a free, non-commercial tool for automatically blocking telemarketers from your phone. This seems a lot more useful than an article about how to sue telemarketers in court (a complete joke, by the way). I absolutely could see an objection to linking to a commercial site here, but this is not the case. I think the real issue here is some employee at the commercial site 800notes.com keeps changing the link, thus bringing it to your attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.21.227 (talk) 07:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the link is that it is only indirectly related to the articles where you are inserting it. The site is interesting, don't get me wrong, it's just not appropriate for an encyclopedia. I said it above, and I'll say it again, Wikipedia is not intended to be a directory of every website relating to everything about telemarketing. Wikipedia is not a self-help or a how-to site. I am not claiming that this is a commercial site, I am claiming that linking to a website that allows you to look up the phone numbers that your website participants have reported that are used by telemarketers does not substantially enhance an article about telemarketing in general (or any of the other articles where you keep inserting it). You should not interpret the removal of your link while leaving the link about how to sue telemarketers as my endorsement of the presense of that link, it is not, and that is one I missed when I tried to quickly trim out the excess links last night. Nobody has complained to me about your link, either. It attracted my attention because of the edit warring that has been going on over it, and yes, the 800notes.com is also an inappropriate external link that I would remove. Thank you for discussing this here. Neil916 (Talk) 15:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok that's very interesting. I would argue that in fact someone did effectively complain, by simply repeatedly removing the link. What this implies to me is that a person can basically guarantee the elimination of content from Wikipedia by just bullying others and repeatedly removing it. Maybe this is good, actually, since it makes the default to remove content. There is one other link that I am going to remove from this article, by the way. It's the one that links to someone's blog about do-not-call lists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.21.227 (talk) 19:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Don't Panic but this is your final notice. This is your last chance... To get money back on your morgage by rexian..."

But I don't even own a home... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.132.247.134 (talk) 00:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)