What a scam

BCinSC

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
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What a bad choice. I decided last summer to advertise in the local yellow pages (Bellsouth) and was suckered into this enormously expensive ad that allegedly had a guaranteed number of calls (GAP, Guaranteed Advertising Program, which uses a pseudo number in the large ad that forwards to my number to track how many calls are made from that ad). Salesman wrote guarantee of 40 calls per month on the paper he gave me, but only 32 on the official contract, which he filled out later. Regardless, most of the calls I get are crap, many being solicitations. When I complained, more than 4 months into program when I finally got report to back up what I believed, I was told one of the things I had to do was register this pseudo-number with National Do Not Call list. Now that is just a crock - a pseudo number should NEVER be available to telemarketers. Now that I've received 2nd quarter report, then insult to injury gets even worse. 30% of my quota for January was used within a minute and a half by an number that redialed every 10 seconds. Obviously electronic and likely within the phone company, it's such a SCAM. Every call counts against you, answered or not, wrong numbers, solicitations, INCOMPLETE calls (somebody dials number and hangs up before it even rings), nights, weekends, whenever, whatever. It was bad enough when some kid kept calling at all hours of day and night asking, "you sell computa?" Words of wisdom, beware.
 

Mayfriday0529

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2003
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Who actually looks at the Yellow pages still? no offence to the OP but the way the phone companies distribute the Yellow pages book around my area really sucks, no wonder no one gets a call.

a few weeks ago they gave out the new phone books but they just actually threw them on the side walk in front of each house. probably half of them got wet by rain and the rest where picked up by the trash. what a waste.

 

BCinSC

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
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Same holds true of newspapers here. Many are discarded without ever being touched. Most of my business comes word of mouth. I advertise online, too, but in this technically challenged geographic region..........
 

BCinSC

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
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It's really funny looking at this quarterly report and seeing them claim 100% performance when I haven't received a single viable call in over 3 months.
 

vegetation

Diamond Member
Feb 21, 2001
4,270
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Ugh, the yellow pages around here is like the size of a 20lb unabridged dictionary. Nobody uses it at all.
 

Britboy

Senior member
Jul 25, 2001
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We have FOUR companies distributing their own version of the yellow pages here. We use one of them maybe 6 times a year, total waste of paper
 

arcenite

Lifer
Dec 9, 2001
10,660
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Originally posted by: BCinSC
Originally posted by: Pepsei
when some stupid kid with bad english kept calling at all hours of day and night

Irregardless

The irony.

I fail to see the irony. Are you suggesting that is not a word or misspelled? You would be wrong.

No, but your grammar IS less than perfect. Which wouldn't be a big deal if you had not called someone stupid for doing the same thing.
 

Reel

Diamond Member
Jul 14, 2001
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When my dad ran his own business, I remember he signed up for this service and had all sorts of trouble. I do think he got them to back down though and refund his money since it didn't work out well for him either but it has been a while (probably 10 years ago or more, prior to Dell becoming a household name).
 

MrBond

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
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That sucks about the autodialer - too bad I'm sure the phone company took every means to make it hard to track back to them. Did a lot of dealings with the phone company at my first job - I don't trust ANYTHING them say or do.

Yellow pages salemen are as bad or worse.
 

BCinSC

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
2,084
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Nobody writes in perfect prose on a forum and my grammar was pretty good considering it was just a rant. My point about the kid was he just kept calling, costing me hundreds of dollars - I was ready to file harassment charges.
 

Pepsei

Lifer
Dec 14, 2001
12,895
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Originally posted by: BCinSC
Originally posted by: Pepsei
when some stupid kid with bad english kept calling at all hours of day and night

Irregardless

The irony.

I fail to see the irony. Are you suggesting that is not a word or misspelled? You would be wrong.


Definitions of irregardless on the Web:

* Do not use. The word is a mistaken fusion of irrespective and regardless.
web.presby.edu/writingcenter/guides/glossary.html

* an erroneous redundancy for regardless.
www.iolani.honolulu.hi.us/Keables/KeablesGuide/PartThree/Letters/I.htm

* Irregardless is nonstandard. Use regardless instead.
hometown.aol.com/stetsonenglish/wordsusa.htm

* regardless; a combination of irrespective and regardless sometimes used humorously
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

ALSO

Usage Note:
Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.
 

BCinSC

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
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Point taken. And though it is in my American Heritage Dictionary, I will cease to use it.
 

Pepsei

Lifer
Dec 14, 2001
12,895
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Originally posted by: BCinSC
Point taken. And though it is in my American Heritage Dictionary, I will cease to use it.

unless you're using it for humor of course. :D

 

Jzero

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
18,834
1
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Originally posted by: Pepsei
Originally posted by: BCinSC
Point taken. And though it is in my American Heritage Dictionary, I will cease to use it.

unless you're using it for humor of course. :D

I'm sticking with Cosby - if irregardless is supposed to sound smarter than regardless, than disirregardless must really sound smart!