I understand the importance of companies to advertise their products and service, but when does it go too far? Lately, I've been feeling that advertisers too often PUSH their products or services on the public to the point where it becomes an annoyance, and in worse cases, harassment. Pop-up advertisments, spams, TV commercials, telemarketing... I can't seem to enjoy sitting at my computer or watching TV anymore. Also, I've been taking the phone off the hook during the day as to avoid telemarketers. I had to threaten Citibank with a potential law suit before they would stop. In a conversation with Goofyfish, we discussed a Zapper to eliminate telemarketers, and other methods towards reducing junkmail and telemarketing; however, none have seemed to work so far. Should the government do something more to stop the harassment? Shouldn't their be limits as to how many calls a company should be able make within a certain time frame, or how many letters they send out?
In many states if you tell the telemarketer once to take you off their calling list and they don't...you officially have the right to sue them and collect 10,000 dollares. They are suppose to and if they don't...don't even warn them, just file a complaint against them.
I don't have a problem with advertisements in general, but there is a time and place for it. I don't think it is fair that when you buy a product or service (with a credit card on the internet for example) your personal information is sent out to 100 different companies. I did not volunteer my phone number or address to those 100 companies. The only ones that should use that info, if needed, is the online company that I shopped at. Now all the spam you get with hotmail, yahoo accounts is understandable. It is a free service and in return you gotta deal with the spam. It's still annoying as hell but to be fair, we'll have to live with that. I've been telling various telemarketers to take me off their calling list over the last year or so and I have yet to see a decrease in calls. I guess there are just so damn many. I never knew you could get 10,000 dollars tho. How would you prove that they were harassing you?
[Halo]: I completely agree. I have used Sneak Email to try to decrease the spam since it will allow you to use a 'fake email' address when you place an order online, but what it actually does is routes the emails from your fake email address to the correct address and then allows you to decide whether or not you want to bounce or shred, etc. the email so that you won't continue to receive emails from the same user or domain name. It's kind of a pain in the arse to use and I'm not sure if I would recommend it since it's no different then adding the unwanted emails to a 'Spam List,' like Yahoo uses to filter out the spam. I had consulted a lawyer when I was harassed by Citibank, the lawyer told me that I should use the words 'cease and desist from telephonic communication,' but not make any mention of suing them because they may pounce on you. After your communication with them, don't call them any longer but make note of when they called, how often, who had called, and how long the conversation was in case they company persist in calling you. If they don't obey your wishes, they are liable to a law suit. I didn't have to go any further after using the words "cease and desist." They had stopped immediately thereafter. I, also, visited the Better Business Bureau site to file a complaint against the company. No action was taken against Citibank but a copy of the complaint was sent to the financial institution in the hopes that they will stop the harassment against anyone else who may be or may becomes a victim to their obnoxious pestering.
The ultimate annoyance to me is paying $15 to go to a movie on your day off to spend 15 minutes of your time prior to the movie watching commercials. Do theatre chains not rake in enough money from their ticket sales to make a profit? I don't mind the trailers, those are one of the best parts of actually going to a movie ahead of time, but 5 Alive ads and Ford commercials just make me sick.
Yeah, that sucks. There has been a class-action law-suit against some theater companies for that practice. Maybe you're right. Maybe theater companies don't rake-in enough money but the advertisments have struck a chord with movie-goers and now there is a law-suit.
I wonder what the effect would be if you could get enough peopel together to say "enough, no more advertising or we'll sue your ass off!" Otherwise, my favourite anti-telemarketer tool would be Bun-Bun. (if you dont know what I mean, ask.)
Actually, major theaters make nothing (or next to) from ticket sales. They make their money almost purely from concessions and those ads. I hate those ads too. What's wrong with silence before a movie?
As if having advertisements before a movie wasn't bad enough I have found that most of them are beyond stupid (The Five Alive commercial with a guy cheer leader in short shorts dancing around with a baton). That's the main problem, it's not silence. I am talking about the full length commercials (the same stuff off of TV) that they play before the trailers. I have no problem with the visual ads prior to the movie starting that just play silently ( and are acompanied by various movie trivia). Why is it that a movie theater chain has to charge an average of $15 a ticket for a movie while small town theatres charge a maximum of $10? Sure they have better quality picture and sound, but they also get more people going to see the shows than small theaters do.
