this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Why don't telemarketers give up on unresponsive numbers? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 11 months ago by amoroso@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

When receiving unsoliciting phone calls by telemarketers, many people consistently hung up, don't bait, and don't interact. So why don't telemarketers delete from their databases such phone numbers that don't lead to any sales or other business benefits?

Maybe the cost of keeping the numbers is so low telemarketers just don't bother. Or keeping track of what numbers to delete may actually have a cost. Or perhaps telemarketers hope those people will eventually pick up the calls.

Any insight?

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[โ€“] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 44 points 11 months ago (1 children)

because they aren't people 99% of the time, it's a computer program. It'll keep attempting, and if you do engage it will switch over to a real person once they have someone hooked.

They even have ones that garner attention, like shuffling noises, saying "Oh I'm sorry, hang on a second" and other gimics to keep you on the line and start engaging. You'd be surprised at how many people will say "Oh sure" out of politeness.

As for cost, to run a virtual machine in the cloud running 24/7 trying all the numbers one by one in the database would cost... pennies. We're talking probably less than 5 bucks a month.

[โ€“] amoroso@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Okay. But if a robocaller doesn't lead to results, it may be programmed to give up on unpromising numbers.

[โ€“] snooggums@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago

They are going by volume, so the overall successes matter and the reason for why the rest are unsuccessful doesn't matter.

Phone numbers get reused all the time, so if they pull the number from the pool they miss a possible future opportunity. This is important when lack of success would massively shrink their pool of numbers at no real cost savings to them since they are going for volume anyway.

Basically you are asking from a logical and well intended point of view, but telemarketers are approaching it from a maliciously logical volume method that benefits from stumbling across enough gullible people to make the rest of the volume worth it.

[โ€“] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 8 points 11 months ago

Sure it can be, what I'm trying to say is that there is no financial incentive for it to be though. Programming takes time and money, and there is literally no profit to be had for doing it.

[โ€“] dan1101@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Part of the telemarketing industry is selling crappy lists to new/unwary telemarketers. The sellers don't and maybe can't properly curate the lists, and the telemarketers try to make a living through volume of calls.

[โ€“] shasta@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they should just not exist then

[โ€“] Gabu@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

That's just true of 90% of jobs in a capitalist society.

[โ€“] joe_archer@feddit.uk 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why would they? What advantage do they gain from doing so, compared to not?

[โ€“] amoroso@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Possibly saving time and resources.

[โ€“] gregorum@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

by volume, it's trivial amounts of both, and those unresponsive numbers will often get recycled eventually. people just don't hold on to phone numbers as long as they used to.

[โ€“] Tak@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

IMO we shouldn't use phone numbers anymore. Usernames that can request to contact are far superior. The fact that my number can be passed around and shared against my consent then called whenever they feel like it is ridiculous.

[โ€“] gregorum@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

adding that level of verification to phone numbers would be a fair compromise, no? i like the level of anonymity you get with a phone number.

[โ€“] Tak@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

I think there's more anonymity away from phone numbers because the way phone numbers are plain text and sold. The only way to really keep a phone number anonymous is to constantly switch phone numbers instead of switching logins.

In today's world I feel like it's much easier to whitelist who you want to talk to instead of blacklist who you don't. It's way too easy to spin up another virtual phone number and just call again or spam texts.

[โ€“] Dirk@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

It's a machine calling and connecting the calls, not a human.

[โ€“] peter@feddit.uk 4 points 11 months ago

A lot of them do, and are replaced by other new ones that are calling instead. There's just a lot of them about