Cathode Tan - Games, Media and Geek Stuff
logo design by man bytes blog

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Nothing Is Private, Nothing is Sacred

So I just got marketing call.

On my cell phone.

Now, I don't give my cell number out to most people, let alone business people because my life has been inundated with spam. My home line still gets plagued with marketing calls, despite Congress' best efforts. My GMail account gets spam in it's inbox, despite Google's vaunted bayesian filters. I actually use several accounts so that I can delete one when it gets too saturated.

My cell phone was the one piece of calm I had. When it rings, I almost always answer - because I'm sure it's someone who is actually looking for me as a person.

This week, I gave my cell phone number to a LendingTree.com representative and a Baird & Warner realtor because I wanted to be able to keep in quick communication with them. Since the home line is basically an answering machine now, I thought that house hunted warranted something faster.

This week, I got my first telemarketing call on that cell number. Coincidence? I have to doubt. I will be calling them today and insisting they come clean on their privacy policies. Both companies may just lost a customer.

I really hope whatever kickback the get for giving up a client's information is worth what they'd lose over a commision or loan.

I have to doubt it.

Bastards.



tagged:

4 comments:

Josh said...

Just called LendingTree and they swear it wasn't them, couldn't be them. So they'll be talking to B&W about it, as I very well may as well.

Angry. Angry. Angry.

Tony said...

Funny you mention that, because I just started getting Text Spam on my cell phone. I don't have text messaging enabled, but Cingular (my provider) in its infinite wisdom, has decided that doesn't matter and they're texting me with all sorts of offers! Whipee!

Luckily I can opt out of it, and so far I haven't been bothered again. Hopefully you get to the root of it.

Josh said...

I got that with AT&T a lot, but when I moved to Cingular I must have gotten myself opted out.

Instead, I had some stupid social networking site that a friend got me signed up with texting me. It might sounds like getting flirty text messages from "aLIEn3303" at random times of day would be fun, but it's really not.

fuming. fuming. fuming.

Josh said...

Should I get another one, I'll be sure to get the telemarker's name and the company's name and then try to work my way up until I talk to someone who can rat out where the number came from, considering that unless they can prove it's solicited or came from a legit third party - they're breaking the law.

Not that I'm holding my breath. I mean, these people don't even use phone numbers which show on caller ID. I have no idea who this company was or how to call them back. Just an automated message hoping some chump would press "1". About as shady as you can get.