Leadership

Join the 'Take Back the Beep' Campaign

By CC Holland

Updated on: July 30, 2009 / 6:57 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

David Pogue of the New York Times is on a crusade, and I'm signing up.

What's his beef? Turns out it's one of the same ones I've long had: those stupid, annoying, 15-second recordings you get before you can leave someone a message on their cell phone.

You know what I'm talking about -- those lame instructions that follow your recipient's personalized greeting. They usually go something like this: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more options." Finally, after all that useless information, you get the beep.

I hate those messages, and not just because listening sucks some small part of my productivity away every time. They're also completely useless. As Pogue eloquently puts it,

"Do we really need to be told to hang up when we're finished!? Would anyone, ever, want to 'send a numeric page?' Who still carries a pager, for heaven's sake? Or what about 'leave a callback number?' We can SEE the callback number right on our phones!"

And it turns out there's a motive other than helpfulness causing companies to append these mandatory messages to your voicemail: plain old greed. You see, those 15 seconds you're listening (or not) to that spiel while waiting for the beep add up to big bucks for the carriers. By Pogue's calculations, if Verizon's 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. Of YOUR money.

Not to mention that you've wasted THREE HOURS of your time over a year listening to that same message, over and over and over.

We need to take action, says Pogue:

"(I)t doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to sit there, waiting to leave your message, listening to a speech recorded by a third-grade teacher on Ambien. (I)t's time to rise up. It's time for this crass, time-wasting money-grab to end for good."

To that end, he's spearheading a campaign to get those "time-wasting, money-leaking messages eliminated, or at least made optional." It's called Take Back the Beep. Want to join in the fun? Here's how:

Verizon: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/FJncH.
AT&T: Send e-mail to Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations: MS8460@att.com.
Sprint: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/9CmrZ
T-Mobile: Post a complaint here: http://bit.ly/2rKy0u

And share this information -- via Facebook, Twitter, blog post, e-mail, carrier pigeon, or just plain word of mouth -- with anyone you know who'd like to get straight to the beep.