Making something out of almost nothing at all

I COULDA BEEN A SAILOR Nelly Thomas; Melbourne Town Hall, Tue-Sat 8.15pm, Sun 7.15pm $18 - $25 4/5

Telstra fined $100,000

TELSTRA has been fined more than $100,000 by the communications watchdog after people on the Do Not Call register continued to receive Telstra telemarketing calls even after the telco was alerted to the problem.

Telemarketing gripes fall

COMPLAINTS from people on the Government's Do Not Call register have fallen 60 per cent in its second year as the threat of fines leads telemarketers to clean up their act.

On the spot - Bobby Fox, performer

What would you accept for payment apart from money?

$1.6bn: The Cost Of Direct Marketing

UNSOLICITED telemarketing calls cost Australians $1.58billion a year in wasted time and more than half of households believe they should be banned.

Opt Out - And The Call Centre Keeps Ringing

AUSTRALIANS still receive an average of 8.5 telemarketing calls a month 18 months after the Federal government set up its "Do Not Call" register, a study has found.

Direct Phone Selling 'hated'

UNSOLICITED telemarketing calls cost Australians $1.58billion a year in wasted time and more than half of households believe they should be banned.

Pollsters May Still Be Able To Ring On Sunday, Like It Or Not

POLLSTERS may still be able to call householders on Sundays despite Federal Government moves to protect them from nuisance telemarketing calls.

Life After Legislation: Expert

THE introduction of "do not call" legislation need not spell death for Australia's telemarketing industry, says a visiting US expert.

Annoying Calls Will Continue

I MAY not be the brightest candle in the church, but it didn't take me long to work out the long overdue legislation to prevent the never-ending barrage of annoying calls from telemarketing groups has been well and truly stuffed up before the "do-not-call-me" register has even got off the ground.

Pests Who Take Smile Off Our Dial

UNWANTED phone calls from the $14.7 billion-a-year telemarketing industry have become the biggest source of complaints to the NSW Office of Fair Trading.

Wake-up Call For Tele-pests

Households feel increasingly powerless about the amount of telemarketing and junk mail they are exposed to and equate direct marketing with "intrusion, invasion, bombardment, exhaustion".

Ninety Minutes Of Inane Talk About Rugby League, And You Know Tv Has Gone To The Dogs

True Stories: Diverted to Delhi 10pm, ABC : One of the problems with globalisation is that too often it produces a no-win, rather than a win-win, situation. What would you do if you were a large company eager to engage in a little telemarketing? Would you employ telephone salespeople in Delhi wh

Miserable Failure Poured Into Play

WHEN Ryan Burrett left the Hunter School of the Performing Arts in year 11 he headed to the Big Smoke and took a job in telemarketing.

Public Data And Privacy

The federal Privacy Commissioner will have public support for any reasonable move to regulate the commercial use of public records, such as the electoral roll. Research by the commissioner's office suggests that 70 per cent of consumers believe the electoral roll should not be available for marketing. That presumably reflects the common experience of people unhappy with the invasive conduct of some telemarketing and junk mailing.

Scams Net $400mil

Australians have been conned out of hundreds of millions of dollars by overseas-based telemarketing scams, the nation's corporate watchdog said yesterday.

Thousands Engaged In Call Centres

Telemarketing is booming in the Illawarra. According to ParkTrent call centre manager Rene Cross there are about 4000 people working in call centres in the region.

Invasion Of The Data Snatchers

WITHIN hours of arriving, anonymously he thought, in his new home in Green Brook, New Jersey, and having his telephone connected, Dr Jason Catlett was besieged by telemarketing calls. He hadn't told any merchants he was there. The calls just started.

Big Rise In Use Of Net, Call Centres

Total media expenditure grew 15.9 per cent in 1999 to $13.8 billion, driven by a huge increase in the use of telemarketing, new figures show. The amount of money spent to generate sales through telemarketing increased 19.9 per cent on the previous calendar year to $7.7billion, according to the Co

Arts Graduate Films His Dream

AS a young Melbourne film school graduate, Patrick Hughes could have taken one of the realistic job options: pulling beers, waiting tables, telemarketing and just possibly a runner on a film set. Instead, at 21, a few months after completing his course at the Victorian College of the Arts, Hughe