What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Some background info.. I'm in Michigan, I own a small company that does business via internet sales and I spend a lot of time on the phone providing technical assistance to customers and potential customers. My phone number (cell) and contact information is listed on my website so customers don't have to look for it.
On January 12th, a telemarketer called my wife's cell phone and asked specifically for me while confirming my company name. He claimed he had spoken with me a few weeks ago and asked if I was available. My wife isn't much of a phone person and just carries a flip phone for emergencies or when she calls for a kitchen inventory check when she's at the grocery store. (You know "do we have milk?) Her phone number is almost never shared with anyone but close personal friends.. all "official" documents for our family will always have my phone (also a cell) listed.
So this telemarketer calls her phone and says he's trying to contact me by name, she says he has the wrong phone number and gives the guy my phone number thinking he was a customer.. He calls me and acts like he's my best buddy.. starts off with "How is your wife Betty doing?" He states that I had just talked to him a few weeks ago about some equipment.... When I ask him what his name was and what equipment we talked about, he offered only his first name and was very vague about our previous discussion.. I immediately knew he was just a machine dealer cold calling any business in the machinery industry. I've had these types call me before and so I'm adapt at recognizing the "get them talking" technique to get their foot in the door sort-to-speak. I asked how he got my wife's name and says he had just talked to her, I then asked him if he was selling something and he said in a vague way that he wanted to talk to me about some equipment.. I told him "You've never called me before and you've never talked to me before, stop calling and don't call again". And I hung up on him.
Please note that while I don't remember the specifics of every customer I talk to, I do tend to recognize their voice and speech patterns as being familiar or not.
I immediately call my wife on her cell (at her work) and told her what had happened.. Both of us were confused as to how he connected her phone number with my name and company but we have since figured that out.
A couple days later, I get a very disturbing anonymous voice mail message that goes as follows:
"Hey (my name), I'm just calling you to give you a heads up man, your wife Betty has been fu**king er buddy Mikes now for a while, hey man, its all good, if you want to be a fu**face I'll go ahead and f**K Betty too, you fu*** and then inaudible mumbling..
So here I am about ready to tag her vehicle with a magnetic GPS tracker, get a paternity test done on our two year old child, and going through facebook profiles to see how many guys named mike are in some way connected to her or her coworkers.. My wife doesn't even use facebook or any other social networking site.
During my "investigation" I went into the voice mail message system on my phone and looked at the message details, the phone number was blocked but the time and date stamp was less than 1 minute after I had hung up on that telemarketer and while I was on the phone with my wife. Apparently my phone won't tell me if an anonymous caller leaves a voice mail while I'm actually on the phone..Not sure but the voice mail didn't register until a couple days later Ya, cancel the red-alert.. obviously this telemarketer needs to learn a bit about rejection.
Is it legal for a telemarketer to behave this way? Or, more importantly, are there any teeth in the law to prevent this type of thing? If so, please guide me. They shouldn't be doing things like that.
Some background info.. I'm in Michigan, I own a small company that does business via internet sales and I spend a lot of time on the phone providing technical assistance to customers and potential customers. My phone number (cell) and contact information is listed on my website so customers don't have to look for it.
On January 12th, a telemarketer called my wife's cell phone and asked specifically for me while confirming my company name. He claimed he had spoken with me a few weeks ago and asked if I was available. My wife isn't much of a phone person and just carries a flip phone for emergencies or when she calls for a kitchen inventory check when she's at the grocery store. (You know "do we have milk?) Her phone number is almost never shared with anyone but close personal friends.. all "official" documents for our family will always have my phone (also a cell) listed.
So this telemarketer calls her phone and says he's trying to contact me by name, she says he has the wrong phone number and gives the guy my phone number thinking he was a customer.. He calls me and acts like he's my best buddy.. starts off with "How is your wife Betty doing?" He states that I had just talked to him a few weeks ago about some equipment.... When I ask him what his name was and what equipment we talked about, he offered only his first name and was very vague about our previous discussion.. I immediately knew he was just a machine dealer cold calling any business in the machinery industry. I've had these types call me before and so I'm adapt at recognizing the "get them talking" technique to get their foot in the door sort-to-speak. I asked how he got my wife's name and says he had just talked to her, I then asked him if he was selling something and he said in a vague way that he wanted to talk to me about some equipment.. I told him "You've never called me before and you've never talked to me before, stop calling and don't call again". And I hung up on him.
Please note that while I don't remember the specifics of every customer I talk to, I do tend to recognize their voice and speech patterns as being familiar or not.
I immediately call my wife on her cell (at her work) and told her what had happened.. Both of us were confused as to how he connected her phone number with my name and company but we have since figured that out.
A couple days later, I get a very disturbing anonymous voice mail message that goes as follows:
"Hey (my name), I'm just calling you to give you a heads up man, your wife Betty has been fu**king er buddy Mikes now for a while, hey man, its all good, if you want to be a fu**face I'll go ahead and f**K Betty too, you fu*** and then inaudible mumbling..
So here I am about ready to tag her vehicle with a magnetic GPS tracker, get a paternity test done on our two year old child, and going through facebook profiles to see how many guys named mike are in some way connected to her or her coworkers.. My wife doesn't even use facebook or any other social networking site.
During my "investigation" I went into the voice mail message system on my phone and looked at the message details, the phone number was blocked but the time and date stamp was less than 1 minute after I had hung up on that telemarketer and while I was on the phone with my wife. Apparently my phone won't tell me if an anonymous caller leaves a voice mail while I'm actually on the phone..Not sure but the voice mail didn't register until a couple days later Ya, cancel the red-alert.. obviously this telemarketer needs to learn a bit about rejection.
Is it legal for a telemarketer to behave this way? Or, more importantly, are there any teeth in the law to prevent this type of thing? If so, please guide me. They shouldn't be doing things like that.
