They called me at my office. The automated voicemail was offering some kind of debt consolidation service. At the end of the message, it said to press 1 if I was interested or to press 9 to be removed from their list. The company was not identified.
I have been receiving calls like this from many different numbers, including this one, and I am getting absolutely FED UP with them. The standard "we have programs in place that will help those with $10,000 or more to be able to reduce their monthly payments by as much as half" spiel.
Both of the phones on which I have received these calls are on a PREPAID plan. So every time these people call, they STEAL that prepaid time from me. Every time I call my voicemail to find out who called me, it costs me money too. So these people end up costing me DOUBLE. And at forty cents a minute, it adds up.
These people talk about reducing debt. They should start with reducing their own--as in MORAL debt, which they incur every time they call me. I'll give you a good example. As a musician living in a small music market, I have to spread myself thin by necessity, doing multiple music projects. I had a band gig this past Saturday and had had only one rehearsal with that band. A day or so before the gig I discovered a voice mail on my phone, and I thought it was from him. It turned out to be from THIS TELEMARKETER.
This ticked me off to the point where I felt the need to post my frustration on 800notes.com. In that moment I was SUPPOSED to be programming one of my keyboards for a second gig that I have with another band this coming Saturday, and our rehearsal for that was this past Sunday afternoon--which didn't allow me a lot of time. By forcing me to complain right there and then, this telemarketer was cutting into MY time. And right now I'm in my insurance advisor brother's office, and am supposed to be working on an insurance application for one of his clients. By forcing me to complain right now, this telemarketer is cutting into my time YET AGAIN. These are two instances of incursion of moral debt on the part of this telemarketer.
I have set up both of these cell phones to be on Canada's national Do-Not-Call list. Therefore, by law, they are NOT supposed to be calling me AT ALL. And yet they have done so again, TWICE--and in one case suppressing their phone number so that only "private" appears in my call display. In my book, that's called COWARDICE. No legitimate business worth its salt would suppress its phone number like that. If this telemarketer doesn't have the guts to reveal who they are, they don't deserve to be in business AT ALL.
Moreover, I have spent the last twelve years building goodwill into one of my phone numbers, and have recently started building goodwill into the second one. Both of these cell phones are my business lines and have been in all that time. They have been on my website, on my business cards, in all of my business correspondence. Can you imagine how much of a logistical blow it would be to my business AND to me if I were forced to change my number as a result of these telemarketers' ilk?
These telemarketers have used the following numbers: (416) 555-9911 (how stupid of them to be using the 555 exchange--shouldn't that be reserved for long-distance 411-type services?), (416) 555-8019, (647) 724-3516, and even (613) 667-5301. I've been debating whether to sic the CRTC on them, but as they could alternately be from some other country (they could be using Skype from anywhere in the world, for example), I don't know whether to do that or contact the FCC or the equivalent agency in some other country.
Shame shame SHAME on these telemarketers for making my life so frustrating. They shouldn't even have my Toronto number in the first place--I just activated it three months ago.
I've received two calls from a 416-555-xxxx number but they were to my textplus app on my iPod and therefore I couldn't actually pick up since it's not a phone. Glad I couldn't pick up though after reading these comments.