I loathe telemarketing calls. That’s why our home phone is on the National Do Not Call Registry. When a telemarketer calls, I alert them to this fact and ask them to remove our number from their list. They usually apologize, and we never hear from them again. Fair enough. Mistakes happen.
Unfortunately, Wizard Carpet Cleaners can’t seem to clean up their own act. First of all, they use an auto-dialer with a recording of a woman claiming to be “Susie” and trying to alert me to a deal on carpet cleaning. You can listen to the message and then connect to a representative by pressing 1.
Pressing 1 sometimes gives you an answering machine, but is usually answered by a man. I have received several calls (about 2 weeks apart, usually) and the same guy always answers. He answers by mumbling “Wizard” and that’s it. If you didn’t know the company name, you probably wouldn’t figure it out.
When questioned about company name and phone number, this person becomes rather belligerent and asks why you need this information. Excuse me? What legitimate business isn’t proud to let people know who they are and how to get in touch? He sometimes gives the information, sometimes doesn’t. The law requires that he give the information out, so there’s one violation right there at least half the time. Of course, any call after the first is a violation since I asked to be removed from their list.
I have Wizard Carpet Cleaning to simply remove us form their auto-dialer. But he doesn’t want to do that, so I am going to post here. Hopefully the search engines will pick this up as he doesn’t have a web site, and potential customers can avoid them. If they don’t follow the law regarding their telemarketing practices, I’d be pretty scared about using them in my home or office.
Today’s conversation was the funniest. I told him that he is in violation of Federal law by calling a number on the Do Not Call Registry and wanted to give him one last chance to remove my number. Rather than listening, he tried to get clever and accused me of pretending to be a federal attorney, whatever that is. I never claimed or even remotely implied that I was an attorney, but simply someone who wants “Susie” to go away.
At that point, he got really angry and hung up. Too bad. He now has yet another complaint at the Do Not Call Web site and will continue to get them every time I get a call. Hopefully everyone else in Las Vegas will report Wizard Carpet Cleaning and we can get his magic calling wand taken away.
By the way, they might have terrific service and clean carpets like nobody else. I’ll never find out, though. Their marketing approach is so odious that I would rather lick my carpets clean than have these guys touch them.