AT & T Shoves Ads In Your Ear
 

I am glad I dropped these long distance clowns years ago.


Ghosts of Lily Tomlin's alter ego.....

AT&T tries "force-feeding" ads before connecting calls

By Patricia Horn
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

If you use AT&T for long-distance service, the company may soon try to hold you captive – that is, as a captive audience for its marketing pitches.
In tests, AT&T is playing advertisements over the phone before connecting some customers' long-distance calls in markets across the country.
The messages - which an AT&T spokesman preferred to call "an alternate way of communicating with customers" - last 10 to 15 seconds. They give customers a toll-free number to call to review calling plans.
When customers call, AT&T representatives discuss their long-distance plan and may pitch other products, such as AT&T wireless-phone, Internet or cable service.
The AT&T customer's phone call is not connected until after the customer hears the ad. In some test ads, the company tells customers that they will be rewarded with free minutes because they are good customers.

Read it all at: http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/9...page/ATT04.htm

It seems like this would have to be in violation of some FCC regulation about timely completion of calls - unless they were sneaky about putting in some sort of opt-out permission clause in the fine print of a bill some day.

Greg