Turning the Tables on Junk Calls : Phone pitches: For a small annual fee, subscribers serve notice that telemarketers must leave them alone--or pay for each call.
To find Robert Bulmash’s phone number, you have to know two things: his middle name and his philosophy. Combine them and you’ve got his listing in the phone book: No Solicitation Stuart.
Bulmash is the terror of the telemarketers, president of a group of feisty “junk call” haters. To borrow a line from messianic newscaster Howard Beale in the movie “Network,” they’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more.
The group is Private Citizen. Their battle cry is “my time is your money.” And they mean it.
Twice a year Bulmash sends out his subscriber’s list to hundreds of telemarketing firms. He warns them in writing that if any of these folks are called, the companies will be billed at $100 a pop.
“We are not going to let this intrusive industry barge into our homes and treat us as nothing more than a wallet!” Bulmash says, his tenor rising with Elmer Gantry fervor. “This is OUR home, not THEIR store!
“This is a business out of control,” he booms. “It’s pulling us out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, from caring for our children, our elderly, from living a life of peaceful enjoyment. It is imperative it gets regulated effectively.”
If Bulmash’s strategy of having the seller pay the customer sounds supremely silly, be assured that he is sober, serious--and successful.
The 45-year-old paralegal claims that his subscribers, for a fee of $20 annually, see their telemarketing calls fall off 70%.
And the threat to make companies put their money where their mouth is has paid off: Bulmash says he has collected about 10 times--amounts ranging from 97 cents to $100 plus court costs. A few subscribers have collected too.
Naturally, Bulmash’s adversaries don’t speak of him in the warmest terms.
“He’s making money off an industry that he despises. It seems ironic,” said Maggie Yost, spokeswoman for the American Telemarketing Assn.
Telemarketers also say they don’t necessarily disagree with Bulmash’s mission.
“The industry doesn’t want to be calling people who don’t want to be called,” said Ken Griffin, the group’s past president.
But, he added, Bulmash’s “criticisms are rather shrill at times. We’re responsible business people, not the devil here. . . . Whenever you have a new, young industry, there are a lot of people who try to abuse it. . . . We’re trying to remedy that.”
So are lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where three bills are pending that would regulate both computer-dialed and live telemarketing calls. Sixteen states already have outlawed computer-dialed calls.
The industry itself has a no-charge Telephone Preference Service that allows people to add their names to a list of those who don’t want to be called.
Bulmash dismisses that service as ineffective. He said it doesn’t get the word out to local companies and doesn’t head off computer-generated calls.
Bulmash leads his 4-year-old crusade from his home in suburban Warrenville, where he guards his own privacy with his “No Solicitation” moniker. He refuses to pay extra for an unlisted number.
As president of Private Citizen, he mails lists of his 800-plus subscribers to more than 900 companies along with a notification and offer that states, in part:
“I consider junk calls . . . to be an annoying invasion of privacy and an interference with my ability to peacefully enjoy my property. You are now instructed to carefully respect my rights in this regard! I will accept junk calls, placed by or on your behalf, for a $100 fee, due within 30 days of such use. Each such call will be a separate acceptance of this offer. . . .”
Bulmash says the point of the message is not to collect tolls, but to stop sales calls. A few subscribers have collected, among them Andrew Greatrex, a former New Jersey banker who said he twice challenged ChemLawn.
Once, he said, he received a $100 check. Just before the money arrived he was called again. He said he worked out a deal with ChemLawn, which already serviced his yard, and $100 was trimmed off his bill.
“I don’t want to sound priggish,” he said with a very proper British accent, “but I happen to think it’s a matter of principle.”
So did Frank Howard, a Minneapolis photographer who won two cases in court against a telemarketing firm that later filed for bankruptcy.
“My home is my castle,” he said. “If they call, they’re invading my castle. . . . You’ve got to hit them in the pocketbook before they realize it doesn’t make any sense to call.”
Not everyone has found Private Citizen’s order legally binding.
Bulmash says he lost a $100 suit against Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. that took him to court about 10 times before a judge ruled against him.
Over the years, Bulmash has collected his share of telemarketing horror stories: the cave rescue squad whose answering-machine tape was filled up by an auto-dialer, a disabled woman who couldn’t hang up on a computer while awaiting a doctor’s call, a physician called while awaiting four accident victims in a hospital.
But, he said: “It doesn’t have to be horrific to be insidious. They’re losing their basic fundamental right to be left alone.”
Bulmash gets fan mail, too. A North Carolina minister, he said, wrote and said: “Go get them. These calls almost caused me to lose my religion.”
Bulmash vows to press on. His group even has a toll-free number, 1-800-CUT-JUNK.
