Links and Minifeatures 09 10 Saturday

Well, the Do-not-call violations have slowed down. The browser window is still open today, though. I'm sitting at 36 calls, 31 complaints filed, including one guy who evidently did not understand what I told him and called back to solicit me again, and so got turned in twice for two solicitations. He and another guy whined about how could I be "so callous to a fellow agent". Very simple. This exactly is what the Do Not Call list is about. I don't see where I should be any softer on a guy looking to make thousands of dollars per transaction for themselves than the company paying a ten dollar an hour telemarketer hoping to make fifty. In case you're unaware, I can find predictive dialers (what telemarketers use) in most real estate and mortgage offices, as well as other places. If anything, the requirements for big transactions should be tougher, as the guy looking to make the thousands of dollars per transaction needs to check fewer numbers to make the same money. The Do Not Call lists are equally available, and I happen to know that most of these companies subscribe. The State of California makes certain you know about the requirement. The violations are willful - they didn't accidentally dial my number. I let the ones who did not explicitly solicit me off the hook, and I did not lead any of them into soliciting me. My exact question was "What is this call about?" and let them take it from there. It was their decision to solicit my business when they clearly should not have.



Personally, I find cold call telemarketing somewhat repugnant, and wholeheartedly support the do not call list, as you might guess. I have made a choice not to telemarket, despite the fact that it is the most cost effective method of gathering business. If I did telemarket, I would want to check every number before I dialed.



I'm also fed up with professional incompetence and misrepresentation in this field. Agents and Loan Officers promise clients something that can't be done, and they know it can't be done, or they make promises that are not theirs to make. Some of these are truly outrageous claims, not just marginally impossible but out of the solar system in which possibility is found. Clients who don't know any better believe them. I haven't heard of anyone literally promising the moon yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. The reason this happens is simple. Homes are an emotional issue for most people. Getting people to sign up with you is usually all about being personable and charming and promising a Bigger Better Deal, not whether you can actually deliver. Agents and Loan Providers can blow all the pink smoke they like out of their hat which is in the immediate vicinity of their tailbone, and the client signs up. Then they basically welsh - they either fail to deliver what they told the client they would in order to get them to sign up, or they deliver it with an ungodly GOTCHA! This is not coincidence. Demons did not possess them and force this person to give out wrong or bad information. Demons most certainly do not do it on a repeated basis (like every time they talk to a prospective client, by an amazing coincidence). It is either incompetence or deliberate misrepresentation. In either case, it needs to stop. It is rarely a lie that they can be accountable for in either the legal or civil sense, so they see no reason not to do it. No loan officer can ever guarantee a loan will go through (only an underwriter can do that). But we can give a guarantee that if it goes through it will be on a given set of terms (assuming the client tells the whole truth and nothing but). If I can eat the difference when I'm wrong (which isn't often), and I'm down at the low end of profit margin (which I am), somebody who makes two to three points on every loan and every sale certainly can. And they can certainly check the do not call database, rather than relying upon an appeal to pity. "I'll never do it again! (Until next time) Please don't turn me in!"



I want to call them twits, but that would be insulting the twits of the world. They are lazy vultures, which means I wouldn't be giving them any of my business anyway.

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Captain's Quarters has an article about the difficulties Christians are facing in the West Bank. First glance, I agree that it looks like what would have been called a pogrom in Russia a century ago.



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Seems to me as if all sorts of things are seriously out of whack. I've been checking the RINO and LLP blogrolls today, starting with what Blogrolling is telling me are the most recently updated. Some are updated. Some are days old while others not showing as recently updated are, including some Powerblogs based which like mine automatically ping Blogrolling. There's always some of this, but it's gotten really bad. TTLB hasn't been updated in over a week, although I can understand that due to the Katrina efforts he put in.



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Neat! Astronomers Find Infant Star System. I suggest reading the links out of the article to other stuff as well.



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I think that Israel means it, folks. Israel Warns Gaza on Any Future Attacks. The only justification for Israel giving the territory up to the Palestinians or for the Palestinians getting control is for there to be peace. If that doesn't happen (Does anyone think it will? Buehler? Anyone?) Israel will be fully justified in permanent conquest or anything else they decide is in their best interest.