No, I Am Not A Robot

Telemarketing is reaching new levels of invasive methods.

In a Time NewsFeed article, Meet the Robot Telemarketer Who Denies She’s A Robot is a report, with actual recordings, of conversations in phone calls, where a robotic telemarketing voice denies being a robot.

Be warned that the Soundcloud recordings place cookies on your computer.  So if you listen, you will need to clear your browsers cookies.

I have prepared a transcript of Recording 68 for those who do not want to bother with the cookies:

Okay?

Hi I’m good. How are you?

Well I’m calling about an online request you once made about health insurance coverage.

Okay.

We work with all major companies and compare ...  (sudden stop & pause)

Hey are you a robot?

Heh heh, what? No, I am a real person.  Maybe we have a bad connection. I’m sorry about that.

That’s crazy. You sound so much like a robot.

I am a real person.  Maybe we have a bad connection. I’m sorry about that.

Will you tell me ... you’re not a robot?  Just say, “I’m not a robot.” Please.

I am a real person.

I believe you, but will you just say, “I’m not a robot”?  That would make me feel better to hear you say it.

Ha, heh, heh, heh.  There is a live person here.  Heh.

I know there is.  It would just make me feel so much better to hear you say “I’m not a robot.”

Ho uh what?

If you could say the words, “I am not a robot” it would mean a lot to me.

Heh uh, I am a real person.  Can you hear me OK?

Yeah, I can hear you fine.  I just want to hear you say, “I am not a robot.”

Yes, I’m a real person.

Right, but will you say, “I am not a robot”?

(Pause)  Ha, heh, heh, heh. (Pause) (Garbled with words over words) Hi-are-enrollment center- you-there? (Slight break) Are you there?

Yeah, I’m here.

Well let me ask you a couple of questions.  Are you currently on medicare?

Uh, no.  I’m not.

OK.

Now let me ask you a question.

(She talks over him asking) Are you on medicaid or looking for medicaide?

We’ll go...You ask me a question, then I’ll ask you a question. How ’bout that?

Sure.

OK.  Are you a robot?

No.

Will you say, “I am not a robot”?

(Silence)

Heavy sigh.

This is very much like many overseas customer service encounters, where the so-called customer service representative uses a script from which he or she barely deviates whatsoever.  But this is even more annoying and troubling.

The Time NewsFeed article states that their investigation of this included calling the company, Premier Health Plans Inc., and visiting the website.  After speaking with several company employees, finally Martin was addressed.  They reprort:

Martin also said he would inquire internally about whether Samantha West worked for the company, but would not be able to respond to the request Monday night. TIME will update the story with any additional information he provides.

They additionally report:

UPDATE: As of Dec. 11, one day after this story published, the phone number listed above was no longer answered by Samantha West. Rather, it diverted callers to a busy signal. Also the website, premierhealthagency.com, had been taken offline.

Sadly, the National Do Not Call Registry no longer seems to be enforced.

I have challenged many telemarketers regarding this law and many have not even heard of it.

The NSA and other government agencies are so prolific in their spying activities directed at US citizens, and the complications of the Affordable Care Act and the NDAA and the Patriot Act and the host of Presidential Executive orders quite effectively make any laws for the protection of the private citizens nothing more than showpieces.

. . .

Obligatory Charity?

Yesterday the phone rang and yet again another caller invaded my presence with a demand for my money. She barely even mentioned the group for whom she was collecting money, but was urgently pressing to send me a contribution packet in the mail.

I explained that we do not contribute to any phone solicitations. I explained this repeatedly, but she persisted, as is the way with phone solicitors.

After a few minutes of this she said, “So you are saying that I should just go ahead and send the packet.”

I responded, “No. I am saying that you should not waste your time.”

She responded with a tone of indignation as though I were unreasonable, but politely wished me a good day.

I continue to be amazed at the presumptions of these callers. Is it because most people have no ability to say “No”? Is it the entitlement mentality that the government and media and government schools and the churches have taught for so long?

Well, at any rate, I would like to remind people that these various callers do not hold a valid obligation over you. You do not owe them anything whatsoever. Moreover, the resources that God has entrusted to you are first and foremost for the support of your family’s daily needs, which He teaches us to call our daily bread. The desire to help others flows from the love that He gives to us in Baptism and renews in His Holy Supper. Within His Holy Communion He strengthens and renews His love to us continually so that we are moved to respond to one another with the same love that He has for us.

But this does not mean that we OWE anything to those who attempt to solicit our resources from us. With the amount of internal fraud in most of these agencies and foundations and societies and churches we are actually obligated to refuse their demands.

How many of our neighbors, living very nearby, do we even know? How many people living within the same block could use a friend? Is not our time and energy and resources better used in getting to know our immediate neighbors and their needs, especially their need for God’s love proclaimed in the Gospel?

If we all had functional relationships with our immediate neighbors and we truly looked to one another with the love of God in Christ, would we not accomplish far more than all of these soliciting groups put together?


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Courtesy Calls

Don’t you love it when a company has one of its phone representatives to call and the person says: “This is a courtesy call”?

I recently asked the person: “In what way is this a courtesy call? What courtesy are you doing for me? Oh, you mean that I will be doing you a courtesy!”

She responded, “Oh no. This is courtesy call. We just want you to answer some questions for a survey.”

I said, “So what courtesy or favor are you doing for me that you label this a courtesy call? I did not ask you to call. You do not even have permission to call. You are asking me to do something for you. How is this a courtesy call?”

She was befuddled and returned to the company imposed mantra.

I was not trying to be annoying, though I’m sure that she thought so. I was making a point, especially for those who would be listening in to the recorded conversation, something else that I did not grant permission for them to do.

I finally explained politely that I was not interested in doing them a courtesy and ended the phone call. I doubt that the person understood. I spoke politely and made a polite attempt to make my point.

This, by the way, seems to be what is meant by “courtesy” when these callers call. Courtesy seems to be used with the double meaning of “not costing me anything” and being extended “politely.”

Both, however, are false presentations. The call costs me my time, my privacy, and my patience. It also is not at all polite to interrupt what I have planned with an uninvited and unwanted phone call for a request that I do not have any desire whatsoever to grant.

By the way, my challenges listed above were not presented angrily or with raised voice. They were presented politely, but determinedly.

I seriously doubt that I accomplished much of anything, except that I have learned that by handling unwanted phone calls in this way that I usually do not receive more of the same from the same callers. They don’t make any money off of such attempts, so they call someone else.

There certainly is no reason to be mean to the caller. That person is usually entirely clueless, simply a hireling trying to earn some income.

However, working as such a caller is something that a Christian had ought to question for oneself. I had a friend, a Baptist minister, who sometimes spoke of how much he hated being called by telemarketers. Yet, he sometimes worked as a telemarketer to earn extra income. I asked him how he could do to others what he did not want others to do to him? But he often expressed that he believed in a separation between what is done in business and what is done in ministry and in personal life. I challenged this, also, but without effect.

Can a person really make such distinctions and separations validly? Can a Christian really draw a line between what one does in business and what one does in life? What happens within a person where such allowances are made? When the Holy Spirit dwells within a person, does He allow such contradictions to continue? If a person ignores the urging of the Holy Spirit for a long enough period of time, what is the result?

Does David answer this in Psalm 51:11?

St. Paul admonishes the Ephesians not to make sorrowful the Holy Spirit of God in Ephesians 4:30. Taken in connection with Psalm 51, should we be concerned about such grievances against the Holy Spirit? What happens when the Holy Spirit is ignored and resisted to the point of becoming sorrowful? If He urges us to acknowledge where we are wrong and to be turned to what is true, but we continue to ignore Him, what is the eventual result?

Is any sin too small to matter? Is there any sin that can be counted as insignificant? Is there any sin that does not result in damnation apart from the repentance that the Holy Spirit works?

Interesting that this question is the result of discussing courtesy calls, is it not? The Holy Spirit does extend us courtesy calls that have our best interest as their concern. How do we respond? Do we imagine them to be something to ignore? Do we consider them to be undesired invasions into our lives? Or do we give thanks to God that He has not yet scratched us off of His list?

For me, the latter is counted as cause for continual thanksgiving and confession and absolution.


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