Right, so shortly after I dealt with the last round of Rogers bullshit incessant phone-calling, it started again. Seems to be taken care of now, so, hopefully to assist others…

The Rogers-representing company that called was from the number: 1-866-616-6010. Typically it’s an auto-dialer, but usually no one answers if you do. Beyond that, if you call back, you get dumped into an automated system with no way to connect to a real person or even a mailbox that’s not full and accepting messages. Fancy that. (Once I waited and a girl started saying hello, but then when I responded it disconnected.) Lovely. I was getting the calls several times a day.

The company’s apparently Teleperformance Canada, more info here.

What seems to have finally worked was going to the Rogers Marketing Permission Opt-out page. You can opt out of cable and cell phone contact there.

As I recall, after you submit your information, you get some bullshit message about it taking a couple of weeks to kick in, but it did eventually. Which leads me to believe they have no idea how databases work, or it’s dumping all the info into a text file or spreadsheet somewhere, and some monkey is having to manually complete this stuff…

Aaaaanyway, then today Scotiabank got in on the action. That number that called was: 1-888-882-3811. Again, clearly automated and no one answered when I did. Immediately after hanging up I looked it up. More info here.

I called the number back to try getting myself removed. The automated system thanked me for calling Scotiabank, and the rep who answered identified himself as a Scotiabank rep. Except when I asked him if he had the ability to remove me from telemarketing lists, he claimed Scotiabank doesn’t telemarket. RIGHT. He also seemed a bit displeased that I wasn’t very friendly. Gee, how rough…

Anyway, he took my info and said he’d communicate not to call me. I’ve no confidence in that since — hey — they don’t telemarket. Also, I’m not a Scotiabank customer, and typically this shit is done by two-bit back room companies with a bunch of kids and phone books. Where, exactly, does he plan to record this information?

Anyway, he also asked if I had a Scene card, and I do (though I didn’t get it recently). He said I was probably being contacted by them for some great offers. Uh huh. He recommended I go to the Scene website, login, and unsubscribe from any comms I didn’t want. I told him I’d never signed up for communications from Scene or anyone.

So I hung up and logged in to the site. Sure enough I’m signed up for EVERYTHING. Newsletters, telemarketing, partner “offers”, you name it. So I unsubscribed from everything… and I guess we’ll see.

Now, if only I could get the Blue Jays and MLB.com to bugger off with the endless emails and newsletters I never signed up for…

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