When Marketing Becomes Unethical and Disturbing

Marketing is essential for any business to get customers and develop their businesses to greater heights. However, I am starting to think that certain forms of aggressive marketing may do a company more harm than good with the way specified activities are being carried out. I am starting to write this thread due to specified experience that I am having since a couple of weeks ago, where the first telemarketer started to call my mobile phone looking for a specified Mr Soh. I’m certain it’s not confused with my surname Low, which sounds similiar, since those telemarketers address the full name.

Anyway… for the first time, I kindly told the telemarketer nicely that he/she had called the wrong number. Thereafter, I received a few more calls and I also just told them the same thing. However, the situation has gotten pretty bad recently with the calls becoming more frequent and just today, I received a few calls looking for that same Mr Soh. Till today, I still have not flared up at any of the telemarketers, but politely asked them for the source of their contact list and their company details. My experiences were disturbing…

Firstly, people were calling from different companies. Secondly, each of the companies promised to delete me from their contact list since it was the wrong number, but I still continued to receive the calls from the same companies. Thirdly, there were a few telemarketers that got angry at me for asking, when I haven’t even got angry yet myself for being disturbed so often. (a few times daily basis) There was even one that slammed the phone on me.

In fact, I am receiving the calls so frequently that I am almost able to tell that phone numbers starting with specified numbers belong to specified companies. There are a few cases of unethical marketing in this simple scenario that could potentially harm companies involved, especially if the event happened to a grouchy consumer, who decides to compain to all the relevant authorities. Unethical and disturbing marketing behavior spotted in this simple scenario include:

1. Companies selling our contact information to many different companies. I’m certain this is the case unless that so-called Mr Soh is deliberately playing a prank on me by purposely filling up many lucky draw forms and submitting them.
2. Telemarketers are not well-trained enough to show basic courtesy, even when the consumer is polite. This may tremendously affect the company’s reputation. For example, if it hits my limit, I may just decide to complain about all these companies and reveal their names all over the internet. Consumers may become apprehensive in dealing with these companies and revealing their information.
3. Telemarketers promising to remove our information from our database, but did not. Disrespecting consumers’ rights to opt out of further contact is detrimental to not just the company, but also to other businesses in the sense that consumers will be wary of providing information. If there is no way to stop further contact, the only alternative for consumers in future may be to refuse filling up any forms in future.

Of course, there are probably much more complains we can have when discuss intrusive marketing and I’m sure most of us has prior experiences. The calls are testing my patience and I’m still keeping myself contained, but if it bothers me some more, you may start seeing a compilation of all the companies that have been disturbing me posted all over the internet. I may even start a website: CompaniesToAvoidGivingYourInformationTo.com.

Anyway, the intent of this post is probably to get suggestions on how I can stop such future contacts, especially if you have resolved a prior situation before. For my next post, I will probably blog about how companies can act with the highest ethical standards and ensure that consumers dealing with them are all kept satisfied. Until then…