A friend told me about an appalling “service” perpetrated by one of our local big telcos today.

Imagine this: The day’s finally finished. You have just arrived home with the kids in tow. There’s dinner to sort out, the cat to feed, and the family to settle. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. A strange man wants to be let in. He is from your friendly telephone …

[edited 19 July 2007 - ok, not a scam afterall - see comments]

[edited 3 July 2008 - not sure if it isn't a scam. Could be. Who knows. Still bloody annoying for sure. One year on, after telling them to remove my number from their list, I just received ANOTHER call!!!]

Just got an international call from some company called “Freedom Escapes” telling me I have been selected to …

Some nice lady rang today to invite me to view a free online presentation of something called “Fortune 100 investment software”; which I have never heard of and certainly don’t use.

She laughed when I said “So this is a spam call then is it?”. She was very nice. And they obviously use a local call centre.

Still, the number to block is 07 5562 5321.

Maybe if they’d called it …

I received one of these today - despite the NO JUNK sign on my letterbox. I didn’t think much of it until a quick look at their website seriously gave me the sh*ts. This is what they had to say:

“Unaddressed mail continues to be one of the fastest growing media channels in Australia and The Yellow Envelope is Australia’s most successful unaddressed …

It’s dinner time - perfect for yet another unsolicited call. This time it is from GoTalk. It is interesting how this pitch was sequenced, and I paraphrase hence:

“Hello am I speaking to Z Liew? How are you? We want to tell you that Telstra, Optus [and several other big name telcos] are giving you a discount on your phone bill next month. There’s no catch, and no contract …

My friend Stil posted a rather succinct and amusing breakdown of a local politician’s flyer here. There’s a nice photo of the article in question too.

I just had a machine call me on my mobile (awww! I feel loved.)

The recording first of all told me I was a “valued customer” (oh dear, I wonder what they do their unvalued customers?), and that as a “valued customer” I will not be charged for the call (brilliant!). Though I would probably be paying for the call if my phone was on roam and I am …

This was a real telemarketing call that happened to me:
“Hello is that Mr Liew? I am calling from ***marketingsolutions and we have a great investment opportunity for you. You can make up to $20,000 per year tax free, guaranteed. You don’t have to do anything. It is totally risk-free. All you need to do is buy a 5-year license. And it has nothing to do with horse racing.”

I just had another spam phone call from a certain large telco. Apparently I have magically qualified for another of their specials.

From a customer conversion point of view, these were the challenges presented to me:

To determine how much I will save with the offer, I need to dig out my phone bills. I was having dinner.
The spammer started rattling off all these convoluted combinations of rates, plans, and …