My wife fielded a call this afternoon from a telemarketer looking to speak with the owner of chuggnutt.com (which is what I use as the registrant for my domain names), and was confused to find out it wasn’t a business he was calling. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except for the fact that the guy identified himself as working for Yahoo! and was trying to sell their Pay Per Click ad service.
Since when does Yahoo—or any of the big internet players, for that matter—resort to telemarketing? Cold calling no less? I would have thought that Yahoo especially would know better. I may or may not have looked into their ads in the future, but I’m pretty sure I won’t at all now. Here’s a hint: I don’t like telemarketing. I used to work for a telemarketing company in Spokane, so while I can totally sympathize with the individuals who have to actually make the day-to-day calls and deal with people that basically hate them, I really, really don’t like the companies/corporations behind telemarketing, especially the ones trying to sell something. It’s a sleazy business.
In the interests of transparency, here’s the info from call: the number was 888-254-2716 (toll free, which was kind of odd), and the person my wife spoke to was Walter. He specifically identified himself as working for Yahoo. I Googled the number (heh), but didn’t find much, just enough to indicate that it points to Yahoo/Overture.
Comments
10 responses to “Yahoo is cold calling me”
More than likely he’s not on Yahoo!’s payroll. I’ve gotten cold-calls from folks who are trying to sell search engine placement, and most of these folks are NOT on the search engine’s payrolls, they just are good with Yahoo/Overtures/Google’s various pay-for-click ad programs.
Throwing the number into google only shows up one hit, and reading through that, I’m still not 100% convinced that Yahoo is behind it.
If you search (888) 254-2716 (note the parentheses), you get additional results, including one indicating it’s Overture. If Yahoo’s not directly behind it, there’s still the problem of the telemarketer claiming they are…
Wow, I got sick of just email and snail mail spam related to my domain registration. Never got any phone calls. At least get your number on the do-not-call list.
I went ahead and paid a few bucks extra for a private domain registration to stave off some of the spam.
Mike–We *ARE* on the Do not call list.
Jon–You’re not conveying how awkward the guy was….
I picked up the phone and said "hello" and he hesitated and said "is this a business" and I asked who was calling…he said his name. I asked who he was trying to reach and he said "Chuggnutt.com" and I said something like "why, what do you want".
He said hesitating again…he said "it’s about search engines"…I’m thinking…you’re wanting to talk to a software engineer who does their own search engine placement…this idiot is stupid. He said he’s from Yahoo and I asked Jon (who was home for a later lunch), "do you want to talk to someone about search engines or something with Yahoo". You said no and I said something sarcastic about what I was thinking earlier (that had to do with the software engineer/website designer thing)…what did I say? Can’t remember now.
He was so taken aback by someone just saying "hello" and was just hesitant in his tone.
I had same experience from same toll-free number. I googled first and found your information which saved me from calling — a big help. thanks for the post!
Follow-up — it was a "Jason" calling from Yahoo at 888-254-2716 – for sure a sales cold call.
Just called to chew them out for calling my personal number. Their position is my website is linked to a business, so they can get around the PA Do not call list because they are trying to call a business.
Scumbags.
Can the blogosphere get something going where yahoo and this company get BOMBED with phone calls and complaints for this BS?
I just got a call from the same number. I Googled it and found this post. Thanks for saving me from another marketing call!
They got smart and hired "Infinate Market research" from "623-878-4178" calling on Yahoo’s behalf.
They are still using the number. I got a call from a person named Brittany. Person did not even know that we use Yahoo already. That is up for revision now