Anita Vandenbeld: Phone spammer

[bunsen_h]

Anita Vandenbeld, the Liberal candidate in my riding, robocalled me yesterday at dinner time.  A recorded message "invited" me to join a teleconference / information "meeting" this evening; I just had to pick up the phone when they called me.

At that point, I hung up, and called her constituency office.  I told the volunteer that I detested that kind of phone spamming, and that though I'd intended to vote for her, if they called me for that "meeting", I'd vote for someone else.

He asked for my phone number.  I wasn't inclined to give it to him, on the principle that any kind of telephone solicitation should be opt-in, but in the interest of expediency I gave it to him.  Then he asked if he could have my name, and I told him "No." and hung up.

I'm on the do-not-call registry.  I know that political candidates don't have to pay attention to it, legally, but... this is a list of people who've made their preferences clear: they don't want to be called.  Pretty stupid to ignore that.

At any rate, they called me again this evening.  Left another automated message on my machine.

So: I was intending to vote for her, because I thought she had the best chance of defeating scummy John Baird.  But I can't vote for someone who is — or who's set up a system — so stupid, so unethical, and so disregardful of my wishes. Never mind that the system should be opt-in by default; they can't even respect an explicit opt-out.  And how stupid do you have to be to call someone who's told you that he plans to vote for you unless you call him?

I just called her campaign office again and told the volunteer that she'd just lost my vote, and why.  Maybe it'll make a difference in future.

I'll probably be voting Green.
 

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Oops.

(Also, having checked the Wikipedia file on your riding - I trust you'll correct me if I'm trusting the wrong source here? - I'm surprised that none of the parties other than the federal "big four" have been able to field candidates there. Same goes for my riding, which still surprises and saddens me more than a bit.)

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

I don't know if the BQ could run in this riding if they wanted to; there sure wouldn't be much point to it. I can't think of any other parties that aren't fringe groups, so it doesn't surprise me that their candidates are sparsely distributed.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

The Bloc would no more be interested than Doug Christie's Western Block Party. Which in either case is a good thing. I was thinking of all the other parties, single-issue or not.

[deakat]

The Liberal candidate in my riding did the same thing, so I suspect that it's a party-wide system that they had no ability to modify.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

That could be. But if they can't respect a simple "take me off your list" as a result of a system set up at a higher level, that just points to problems at that higher level. They fed a list of numbers in, in the first place; there must be some way of changing the list.

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

Do not assume that it is the liberals calling you. Cbc has learned of fake calls done precisely to elicit this reaction. Many of them originate in the US. You should, if you can, get the number of the spammer who called. Apparently, this is an oft used scam in us elections.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

That phonespam farm in North Dakota?

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Not likely in this case. She definitely had that "teletown hall" last night, per her twitter. The volunteer I talked with the night before took my number and tried to take my name to get off their list, and didn't say anything about them not having made such calls. The message left on my machine last night told me that I could connect with the "meeting" by pressing '1'.

[ambiviolent.livejournal.com]

Jesus, how annoying.
Chefcat told the (live) person calling on John Baird's behalf that if we received another phone call, we would immediately start spending our leisure time and disposable income campaigning for someone else.
They haven't called again, but that could be happenstance.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think you handled it right; I'be been annoyed by the calls, but have just ignored them.

Politics gets scummier all the time.