Murtha’s Middlemen and Telemarketing’s Tricks of the Trade
Here are our editors’ picks from today’s roundup of investigative stories around the Web. Was there a story we missed? Please keep sending us your picks or include them in the comments section below.
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has channeled earmarks to a Pennsylvania-based defense firm to dole out $10 million in Justice Department grants to local police departments, circumventing normal procedures, the Washington Post reports. The funds often arrived shortly before Election Day and were attributed to Murtha’s largesse, the Post reports. Sound suspicious? The Justice Department thought so too and opened an investigation last fall.
Also, the Los Angeles Times digs into filings from the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Transcontinental Warranty Inc. and offers a glimpse into the secretive (not to mention annoying) business of illegal telemarketing robocalls. Former employees describe a company policy of obtaining credit card information at any cost and doing anything to avoid giving out the company’s name. The company’s chairman said it adheres to the “best practices of telemarketing.”
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2 comments
Tanya888
May 26, 2009, 8:11 p.m.
Cost saving strategies pushing the companies to “optimise” the costs of labour
larry lynch
May 31, 2009, 6:38 p.m.
Since telemarketing is an annoying intrusion into personal privacy which uses deceptive practices constantly, exactly what are the best practices of telemarketing enterprises? Could telemarketing’s best practice be-robo-calls using recorded pitches, calling at meal times, deceptive practices, larceney, lying, calling people who use do not call lists to avoid being called by any telemarketers? One may not call telemarketers scum bags for scum bags can prevent STD’s & prevent unwanted pregnancies. Telemarketers are useless, annoying, larceny by wire, fraud by wire, etc.
Answering machines & caller id devices often don’t prevent persistant telemarketers from reaching your phone.
Maybe if the USA used an interesting Saudi punishment beheading the criminal & crucifying the headless, dead criminal. The Saudi’s display both the criminal’s head & crucified, headless, dead body in public for days to discourage crime. That is a just fate & punishment for anyone engaged, in any way, in telemarketing. Seeing vermin, carrion feeding birds, insects & animals eating the criminal’s head & crucified, rotting body would be an edifying sight. Making a video of the beheading to show at schools, prisons, markets & outside places worship would be a good idea. Showing videos of beheading on TV every 4 hours should be tried. These videos should be available at a very low price the world over. These videos would inflame & increase hatred of telemarketers.
For the present, we should not encourage lynching & other vigilante acts against telemarketers. Mob actions can be difficult to control or stop. A simple tar & feathering could become a lynching quickly. By all means give telemarketers swift & fair trials, if a telemarketer is found guilty, the telemarketer must be sentenced at once. The sentence must be enforced quickly & in public. The stocks, bunking stools, flogging are suitable punishments for telemarketers who are 1st time offenders. The more severe punishments should be reserved for offenders who offend often.
The USA has not reached the point where amputations are desirable punishments. We should leave amputations to the Saudis for the time being. Rendering telemarketers to Saudi Arabia for punishment is unwise for now. It may become necessary if people persist in telemarketing.
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