An automated dialer from Blockbuster called me today to tell me that I had an overdue movie. I received a similar call about a week ago for the same movie. The problem is, I don’t rent movies from Blockbuster!
It seems like someone else registered with my phone number (maybe just a typo) and now they are calling me about someone else’s movies. To make matters worse, this is my mobile phone.
The automated message was about 2 minutes long and included a phone number for the Blockbuster branch that the overdue movie was rented from.
I waited until the end of the recording, hoping to hear “If you’ve received this message in error, press 2 to be connected to an operator” or “If you don’t want to receive calls like this in the future, please press 2″ but there wasn’t anything like that.
Shouldn’t automated phone calls include an “unsubscribe” just like emails?
Technically, this would be a “transactional” email or phone call, since Blockbuster isn’t trying to sell me anything. However, I think this shows a good example of why even transactional emails should have an unsubscribe on them.
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Yes. Great comment.
Shaun Dakin
CEO
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry
StopPoliticalCalls.org
I've had the same thing happen to me. Recently, I inherited a land line number from the local cable company. I get so many recorded calls for the previous phone number owner that it's rendered my phone useless for any incoming calls (I ignore everything). You'd think there would be some sort of law around this as getting an automated call is more intrusive and abrupt than spam which you can check and trash at your leisure.
I guess not enough Congressmen have had the misfortune of getting automated calls to do anything about it?
-Chris Wheeler
Grrrr… Blockbuster just called again!