So other than the annoyance factor, why does this particular telemarketing call deserve to be in the Marketing Hall of Shame?

First, the call source disregards the national Do Not Call list. Any and every phone number out there can be one of targeted numbers, despite the fact that it’s illegal for telemarketers to bother people on the Do Not Call list. Of course, the spoofed numbers hide the real source of the calls, so disgruntled recipients of the call can’t call back and complain, or even report the number with any chance of the government catching the caller.

Second, the call is not targeted at people who actually have car warranties, or even people who actually have CARS. It’s a blanket telemarketing attempt, conducted nationwide, without regard for who the call recipients are. The “second and final” notice is a scare tactic that isn’t remotely accurate. Imagine the frustration of the public-transit riders out there who get calls about the expiring warranties on their nonexistent cars! These calls are so widespread and so annoying that they’ve generated articles on multiple websites and investigation from multiple state governments. That’s quite a broad scope for a telemarketing scam.

Third, the calls are repeated relentlessly. Some people on consumer complaint websites comment that they’ve received this call dozens of times, often in the same day. I’ve personally received this call on my cell phone about once a week for the past few months.

Fourth, if the recipient stays on the line and speaks to a live person in an effort to clear up the apparent confusion, their requests to be removed from the call list tend to be ignored. Again, many people on consumer complaint sites say that they’ve asked to stop receiving the calls, but despite assurances that they will be removed from the calling lists, the calls continued.

Fifth, for those who actually purchased the extended warranty offered in the calls, the coverage turned out to be less than ideal. The telemarketers don’t represent the car manufacturers, and getting reimbursed for car repairs can be difficult, according to the Iowa Attorney General’s office (as quoted in the New York Times).

Last, for some of these telemarketing calls, there’s more than just annoyance at stake. Some of these car warranty calls are actually attempts to steal the identities and information of the call recipients. The callers use the same “final notice” scare tactics to trick people into giving up key personal information. So speaking to the callers can lead to more than just a useless car warranty; it can lead to a credit and identity nightmare.

What is being done to handle this particular telemarketing scourge? According to the New York Times, several state attorney generals are looking into the companies behind the calls in an effort to investigate legal wrongdoing (such as violations of the Do Not Call list) and whether the companies and warranties themselves are legitimate. Telling people that their warranties are near expiration might also be deceptive and misleading sales practices which justify legal action (this seems like a no-brainer, but the states must conduct their due diligence in looking into this case).

In the meantime, if you get a call that starts with “This is your second and final notice,” hang up. You might get more of them, and you might get annoyed by them, but you can do your part to fight back. Call your state’s attorney general office and complain. Go to the Do Not Call website and file a complaint. Make some noise, and the authorities will do what they can to make the calls stop.

To the companies behind the calls, nice job! You’ve become the first telemarketers in Privacy Council’s Marketing Hall of Shame.

Sources for this article: The New York Times, Caller Complaints, The Internet Patrol, Autoblog

Photo source: www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Here are the things that really jump out at me from this spam message:

1. Of course, it was unsolicited, which is what makes it spam. But it’s so far from anything I might have wanted to know about that it’s not even remotely linked to my buying preferences and interests. I can’t imagine a moment in which I might want to read about colon cleaners in my email, and yet, here it is.

2. “Lose weight with your mate” – What does this have to do with anything? Does my mate have to be a part of this cleansing process? What if I’m mate-free? This phrase is probably there for the rhyming catchiness and for the fact that everyone likes to do things with their mates (although hawking a colon-cleaning product as a bonding benefit for couples might not work the way they expect).

3. “Flush out up to 25 pounds” – I get the charming “flush” reference, but 25 pounds?? I suspect that my entire intestinal weight is less than that, let alone what’s in my system. So now I have a healthy fear of this product, since I’m pretty sure most of my internal organs would have to be removed in order to reach that touted 25-pound weight loss. Truth in advertising? I certainly hope not.

4. “Remove deadly toxic buildup” – There are deadly toxins building up in my body?? Maybe so, but I doubt a laxative will fix that. The use of “deadly,” however, is a classic scare tactic to motivate buyers. Too bad the spammers probably lost most readers before they even reached that line, thanks to number 5…

5. The text above is the entire contents of the spam message. It has no graphics, no fonts, no testimonials, and no more information about the product. It’s so small and plain that it breaks almost every rule of visual marketing. As a means of sucking people in, this falls very short. After all, even if I hadn’t been in the market for a colon cleaner, a snazzy message with bright colors and happy customers might have intrigued me. In theory, anyway.

6. FREE – They mention “free” twice, in big letters. Really, they claim, it’s free! Except for that tiny asterisk that notes the added, undisclosed cost of shipping and handling. They also say you can “try it” free, not just get it free; in most cases, “try it free” means “you get a short trial period until we start charging your credit card for the astronomical recurring costs of this product,” at which point you end up frustrated and trying to cancel the charges before they add up. In just about every case, “FREE” isn’t free at all, but spammers love to use it.

7. The date – What you can’t see in the text alone is that the email was date-stamped on 1/18/2037. Since that’s in the future, the email will stay on the top of the inbox as long as the user doesn’t delete it, keeping the lovely colon-cleansing ad front and center for as long as possible. Lots of spammers mess with the dates on emails in order to manipulate where they end up in the inbox. Some take the opposite tactic and put a much older date on the email, making the new message appear at the bottom of the list so that the user has to hunt for it in order to delete it.

8. The small bit of good news: The spam does include an unsubscribe link and an address for the company, and while either or both of those might be bogus, it’s a nice touch that almost makes it appear that the marketing company would rather not send you colon cleaning ads if you don’t want them.

So for this spam ad’s unsolicited nature, random content, dishonest advertising, manipulation of the calendar and unappealing design, it officially becomes part of the Marketing Hall of Shame! Congratulations! Sort of.