Outreach Associates - you suck, and phones suck too!

UPDATE 8/8/08: I have received a number of responses to this post and most of the recent ones have indicated Outreach have answered their phones and been helpful in taking details to remove users from their lists. None have indicated if they were actually removed - I guess that can be difficult to assess even if calls stop. However I stand by my frustration with the original experience and the general point about how technologically backward our phone system is after over 100 years of development.

About a week ago I got a call on my cell phone from a 1-800 number on the weekend, I didn't recognize it (well I don't recognize any 800 numbers of course) so I didn't answer. Later in the day I missed another call and went to check my phone call history and there were three calls from the same 1-800 number. When I got another call from them the next day I Googled the number and found out they were some company calling on behalf of charities. Turns out they are making lots of calls to people, and their cell phones and like most telesales calls are pissing off a lot of people. See the pages of history and bitterness at 800notes.com.

During the week I had a bunch more calls from them - now I knew it was some charity related call I wanted to know who so I could bitch and moan about them calling my cellphone at times when I'd be running up a bill for it. However after three attempts I could never get them to answer, the line would just go dead. Eventually today I called the number back and got an automated response that indicated they were a company called "Outreach Associates" and they would do EVERYTHING they could to fulfill my requests, all I had to do was leave my full name and phone number because they do not have caller ID.

It turns out that Outreach Associates is a DBA for Direct Advantage Marketing of Pittsburgh Pensylvania. They claim they have been in the business of tele-fundraising for 15 years - so I guess they are taking their time getting caller ID to log calls from irate "donors". A little bit more research (yes, that's what I call Googling) shows that they are what is known in this country as a "commercial fundraiser". They get state licenses and call on behalf of charities, usually for a hefty premium - according to Washington State only 46% of the $6,7 million they collected in 2005 reached the charities they were fund raising for, so a cool $3.7 million went into their pocket for calling irate consumers on the weekend, mornings and evenings.

At this point I have to recall the title of this Blog - "The long dark tech time of the soul" - and sigh a deep sigh that this is even an issue. Just how long has the telephone been in existence? Just how long has digital communications been pretty much ubiquitous? Just how much do I pay for a cellphone each month? And yet I still can't block these nuisance callers from wasting my time and money? It really goes to show that the telephone has evolved little if not not at all beyond the quagmire of email spam that we all have to endure daily. I'll put email issues down to geek naivety (that anyone other than the intellectual few would ever have an interest in their little messaging protocol), however telephones being this retarded after over a 100 years is plain and simply a cruel and unusually accurate statement of the human failing to "get it".

I mean, just what am I paying for here? Just why cannot I have a feature to receive phone calls from only those people known to me? Why must I pay for incoming calls from stranger? And why do cellphone companies who make tens of billions each year claim there is nothing they can do? One answer might be "because they are ignorant monkeys who don't know any better" - and that's doing an injustice to the monkeys. Another might be that cellphone companies have ever interest to deliver ever call possible because its a win-win revenue opportunity for them.

And why do legislators exclude fundraisers from do not call lists? No, I wont defame monkeys here, I will just say that they are greedy hand in someone elses pocket financial dependents of lobbies that depend on such "anomalies" for their livelihood - in the case of Outreach Associates to the tune of three million plus dollars a year, and they are but the tip of the iceberg. Oh that people might have to voluntarily pick up the phone or pull up a web page to make a willing and completely voluntary contribution to their campaign funds... what a wonderful and pure concept that might be.

So, let me just say for the record, in case you might think I'm one to mince my words:

Outreach Associates (aka Direct Advantage Marketing of Pennsylvania) - YOU SUCK
Cell phone carriers who pretend they can't block these calls at next to no cost - YOU SUCK
Legislaters who are too afraid to ban all unsolicited phone calls - YOU SUCK

Now at this point I should point out if I was just slightly more subversive than I am I would at this point go off and write a virus. An inanely stupid virus I grant, yet beautiful in its purity of purpose. It would do little more than propagate itself throughout the worlds computers, laying low for months, if not years until infection was almost completely ubiquitous. Then one sunny day it would unleash the hounds of righteous retribution and dial on every computer still attached to a telephone, and digitally on everyone not, the number 1-800-391-7048 and wait for an answer - then dial over, and over, and over, and over again... 'till the cows come home. Mooohahahahahahahahahahaha!