Selling on the phone

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

I don’t know what crime I have committed to deserve this, or maybe this is atonement for my sins, because this is more than just a bother, this feels like some punishment meted out by the gods.

I refer to the constant ringing of my phones these days, this steady flow of text messages and even voice calls, from numbers I do not know, asking me to avail of this, buy this, try this and on the whole trying to sell me something.

“Get 50K to P2M fast approval cash loan 1.28 percent interest per month! No collateral!”

“On line shopping! Super Sale Apple IPhone 4As, iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy SII…”

“Pre-approved credit card! Up to 500K credit limit! Call now!”

“For sale: 3BR condo unit, with  balcony, facing the sun…”

“Greetings! Condos  across Ateneo, excellent investment…”

I get an average of 12, yes, 12 of these messages a day, not to mention the anonymous phone calls, and if that is not a bother, I don’t know what is. It’s a flagrant violation of my privacy but who do you call and scream at? The calls you can ignore or even cut off, but the texts you cannot. You also cannot call the numbers because it won’t answer, and the number they provide for you to call is somebody else’s, and the one who answers you pretends he is not aware of the texts you got. I am told the texts or calls are done by a computer, thus, you cannot return the call.

I don’t know if this is legal. I’m sure our landlines are fair game, their numbers after all are even in public directories, but what about our private mobile numbers? Somebody said our numbers and profiles are being sold to whoever needs them. These may come from our credit card companies, banks, and of course, the prime suspect, our telecoms.

It is said that our transactions, such as payments with these firms, are figures that form our profiles that in turn telemarketers can buy, giving them an idea or a clue who has the means to buy whatever it is they are selling. Before you feel honored that you are being chased for having such a good credit or being in good financial health, let me hasten to add that is not so. If these people looked closely into my payment records, they’ll know I do not belong to the segment they should market to.  After all, among the marketing messages I also get, is this:

“Your bill is overdue. To avoid redirection, please pay TODAY.”

And I get that regularly, too.

So who wants to sell to somebody who doesn’t pay on time?  The way it looks,  it seems like my number was selected at random, and for no logical reason at all,  I have become the object of affections of these anonymous telemarketers.

So does anybody have any right to my phone number? Can anybody just text me to announce the coming great sale?  I don’t really mind if they come once in a while, but given their regularity, I think we should examine the propriety of this. There ought to be a law!

How I wish there was a phone that can detect these as spam and send them to its own box, the way our emails have.*

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