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Sales Pitch Spiked

Aired July 09, 2003 - 15:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you won't be surprised to hear that efforts to restrain telemarketers and e-mail spam have met with almost universal acclaim from consumers nationwide.
Our Bruce Morton has more on America's fading tolerance for the sales pitch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Selling is as old as America. George Washington made and sold whiskey at his farm, Mount Vernon. Salesmen are part of our history: funny, the door-to-door guy with the brushes or the brand new can opener; tragic, Arthur Miller's Willy Loman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I put 35 years into this firm!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORTON: But at least they were people. Now it's high-tech. First, junk mail, still big, a $32 billion industry in 2002, according to the Direct Marketing Association, easy to believe. How much junk mail, how many catalogues came to your home last Christmas season? But the thing about junk mail is, you don't have to open it. You can just throw it away.

Not so easy with the telephone. You have to answer or, if you're out, pick up your voice mail later. And there they are, all those wonderful people who give you credit cards or a new mortgage, or whatever. It is, its spokesmen say, an industry that employs 4.1 million people and generated $274 billion in sales in 2001, an industry that calls 104 million homes every day.

Starting October 1, the Federal Trade Commission is offering relief: a national do-not-call registry; 26 states already have some form of registry. And the FTC expects 60 million Americans to sign up for the national one. Telemarketers who call you anyway can be fined up to $11,000 per violation.

(on camera): It doesn't cover charities. It doesn't cover political groups. It doesn't cover industries like the airlines, which the FTC doesn't regulate. Still, it's a start. Then there's spam. Internet services like AOL try to block it, but it's so cheap. Mailing lists are so cheap. Sending e-mails are so cheap that blocking spam is very hard. "The New York Times" reported on one woman who was selling those most-wanted-in-Iraq decks of cards who said that, if she got $200 in sales out of one million e- mails sent, she was making a profit. Block spam? Don't hold your breath.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 9, 2003 - 15:22   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you won't be surprised to hear that efforts to restrain telemarketers and e-mail spam have met with almost universal acclaim from consumers nationwide.
Our Bruce Morton has more on America's fading tolerance for the sales pitch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Selling is as old as America. George Washington made and sold whiskey at his farm, Mount Vernon. Salesmen are part of our history: funny, the door-to-door guy with the brushes or the brand new can opener; tragic, Arthur Miller's Willy Loman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I put 35 years into this firm!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORTON: But at least they were people. Now it's high-tech. First, junk mail, still big, a $32 billion industry in 2002, according to the Direct Marketing Association, easy to believe. How much junk mail, how many catalogues came to your home last Christmas season? But the thing about junk mail is, you don't have to open it. You can just throw it away.

Not so easy with the telephone. You have to answer or, if you're out, pick up your voice mail later. And there they are, all those wonderful people who give you credit cards or a new mortgage, or whatever. It is, its spokesmen say, an industry that employs 4.1 million people and generated $274 billion in sales in 2001, an industry that calls 104 million homes every day.

Starting October 1, the Federal Trade Commission is offering relief: a national do-not-call registry; 26 states already have some form of registry. And the FTC expects 60 million Americans to sign up for the national one. Telemarketers who call you anyway can be fined up to $11,000 per violation.

(on camera): It doesn't cover charities. It doesn't cover political groups. It doesn't cover industries like the airlines, which the FTC doesn't regulate. Still, it's a start. Then there's spam. Internet services like AOL try to block it, but it's so cheap. Mailing lists are so cheap. Sending e-mails are so cheap that blocking spam is very hard. "The New York Times" reported on one woman who was selling those most-wanted-in-Iraq decks of cards who said that, if she got $200 in sales out of one million e- mails sent, she was making a profit. Block spam? Don't hold your breath.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com