On Jeopardy!, the clue would be: The phone ringing at supper time.
Answer? Who is a telemarketer.
But this intrusive form of marketing is no game, unless you're comedian Tom Mabe, who plays pranks on unsuspecting telephone salespeople and records the conversations for fun.
Mabe once convinced a cemetery salesman the call interrupted his thoughts of suicide.
"You don't understand. Just five minutes ago I was praying: 'God, help me through this, give me a sign of some sort' and you call," he tells the now-agitated salesman.
"No, I'm not that sign," pleads the telemarketer, who no longer wants to sell Mabe a burial plot.
"You're the Angel of Death, man," insists Mabe, now sobbing and carrying on for about three minutes.
For the rest of us mortals, the incessant phone-sales pitch is no joking matter. The never-ending ringing from callers soliciting us for one thing or another invades our homes and peace of mind.
Could it all be truly coming to a hang-up? One can only hope so, now that the Canadian government is launching a do-not-call registry next month -- three years after passing the legislation.
Ah, I can almost hear the sound of silence. Unlike most, I tend to answer when I know it's a telemarketer so I can say please, please take me off the list. I love how they try to keep me on the line, asking how I am, as if they really care about my well being. "Not interested!" Click.
I almost feel sorry for these guys in boiler rooms, making the cold-calls. Then, the sales pitch kicks in and I remember their job is to invade my privacy.
Then, there are the so-called "dead air" interruptions, my favourite. That's when there's no one on the other end because the call is made by an automatic dialer. If a live person isn't available when you pick up, the call is automatically disconnected, thus, dead air.
No wonder the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is inundated by thousands of calls from frustrated Canadians annoyed by telemarketers.
So how will the do-not-call registry work? The CRTC will organize the list, Bell Canada will operate it, and a third party will investigate complaints.
One simply has to register -- up to three numbers -- by phone or online. If telemarketers who are not exempt from the list continue to phone, consumers can and should complain. They have up to 14 days to do so, and only need to provide the date of the call, the nature of the call and the number of the telemarketer.
The final criterion could pose problems, as often these calls come from "unknown" or blocked numbers. The easiest way to handle this is by requesting the local or toll-free number. The telemarketer must make it available, upon request. He or she must also provide the name and address of the employee, or representative, to whom the consumer can write.
I encourage all those who feel like saying, "Sorry, wrong number," to register their lines and take the time to complain should the calls continue. It's nice to see some teeth behind the enforcement, with the CRTC empowered to impose fines as high as $15,000 per call.
The biggest obstacle will be the exemptions. Far too many organizations will still be permitted to phone consumers whose numbers are on the do-not-call list.
They include registered charities, political parties, opinion polling companies that have had an existing business relationship with the person in the past 18 months and, yes, newspapers.
These groups have been dealt a blow, however, with a recent CRTC ruling that endorsed third-party websites such as iOptOut.ca, which block calls for you from exempt parties. To stop such calls, consumers must either request to be removed from the list at the time of the call, or proactively contact the organization.
The iOptOut.ca website, started by a University of Ottawa Internet law professor, has created a database of such exempt groups, allowing users to be proactive by sending automated e-mails, requesting their numbers be removed from the calling lists.
It's a clever, one-stop shopping solution. If a telemarketer tried to sell me onto that product, I might actually listen.
But the website can sell itself because it meets a need in today's marketplace.
The obituary might as well be written on telephone sales because the model couldn't be more outdated. Marketers have one option, to cut the phone cord and run toward a new way of communicating their message.
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