Telemarketing = FIREY HATE!!!!!

Here's a roughly acurate transcript of a conversation that just took place on my phone this afternoon:

{ring ring.... ring ring....}

{I pick up. Background noise.}

Me: Hello?

Phone: Hello sir, my name is Raj, I'm calling from (didn't hear company name) and I'm just ringing to congratulate you. Your phone number has been randomly selected to win a free LG #### flip phone. Now before I ship the package to you, I'd just like to ask you a couple of questions. Is your current phone pre-paid or on a contract?

Me: Pre-paid.

Phone: And how much would you spend per month on phone credit?

Me: Oh, not much. About $20 every three months?

Phone: {pause} $20 every three months?

Me: Yep.

Phone: {beep... beep... beep... beep... beep...}

I am quite cranky about this, and if I could remember the name of the company, I'd ring Fair Trading and get them to give them stick. It's so SO wrong. Telemarketing sucks when they're selling you stuff, but when they pretend you've won something free, and then hang up on you when you don't meet their "minimum spend" it's just gone to the realms of completely not right.

This probably will achieve nothing, but if anyone reads this and then gets the same phone call, could you please let me know the company name, and I'll ring the Department of Fair Trading about it? It's about time I took a stand about some of this stuff - it's just not right.

In other news, my next post will be about my political party. I'm adding a new thing to the party agenda - national, enforced, telco independant, do-not-call list that is easy for consumers to opt in to, and where the responsobility rests with the companies doing telemarketing to not call those people, else hefty fines. Like, "go out of business" type fines for repeat offenders.