do not want
I totally agree with this proposal: that telemarketing should be entirely ‘opt-in’ rather than ‘opt-out’. In other words, unsolicited commercial telephone calls should be illegal unless the victim recipient has previously agreed to receive them.
At the moment I simply hang up on telemarketers, but I strongly resent (a) the interruption and (b) being put in a position where I must be rude to another human being in order to maintain my privacy in my own home. Despite being on the Do Not Call register, I still get the odd call (although admittedly the volume is much lower than it once was).
On a related note, I am getting very sick of Australia Post and the Eastern Courier, both of which seem to rather vainly consider their blatantly commercial (and in the case of the latter, hideously mediocre and cringe-inducingly capital-M Middle Class… perhaps more on that later) pieces of literature not to be “junk” mail. I am seriously considering getting a small plaque to place below our “no junk mail” sign which says:
for the avoidance of doubt, we consider “junk” to include advertising from Australia Post and hideous bourgeois claptrap from The Eastern Courier
My sentiments exactly. I refused to go on the ‘do not call register’ as a matter of principle, and because it actually gives your number to exempt callers that may not have had you number in the first place (eg charities). I suggest requesting your telephone provider to give you a new number – you need to request a new number as in one that has not previously been used. Consequently I have a number that starts with a 7 (in ADL) – but no more pesky telemarketing calls!
Re junk mail – so bizarre – I created a Facebook group ‘No Junk Mail means No Junk Mail’! Heh. For some reason politicians, religious organisations and real estate agents do not think that ‘No Junk Mail’ applies to them.
My letterbox says: ‘No Junk Mail – this means YOU! (Unless your cat is missing I don’t want to know).’