Ellen Phillips photo for ConsumerWatch column that runs every Sunday – Please use this photo from now onOver the holidays, a spate of scammer phone calls seemed to be on the rise, chief among them is the fake survey call.
Bottom Line Personal tells us that automated opinion polls may want more than our opinion. Because phone surveys are exempt (why, please, Mr./Ms. Legislator?) from rules that ban robocalls and those numbers on the federal Do Not call Registry, lots of fraudsters and schemers hit their speed dials to reel us in. Lots of companies believe that beginning an automated sales call with a survey legitimizes the call. Not so.
Visit the Internet to discover how many companies have been either substantially fined or even shut down over this deception. Bottom Line uses Caribbean Cruise Line as an example. It recently agreed to pay half a million dollars to settle claims that it robo-called millions of numbers with what appeared to be a political survey.
Recipients were told that if they responded, they would receive a free two-day Bahamas cruise. Unfortunately, when the would-be cruisers tried to claim their reward, the salesperson tried to talk them into paying for some of the “free” cruise.
A couple of weeks ago, a similar scamster pulled up my number. By the time I got through listing federal names and addresses on my complaint contact list to which I planned to report his company, he was whimpering like a little lost puppy. (Normally, I would have followed my own advice to hang up immediately, but this scammer caught me at a bad time – for him.)