A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Getting Unsoliticed Spam From Coding for MTs Courses - Getting Very Tired of It!

Posted: Sep 13, 2012

Watch where you leave your name, phone number, and/or e-mail unless you don't mind getting spam e-mail (mostly) and unwelcome phone calls. I don't think you can get them to stop unless you want to get a reply with more pressure to enroll. In the future I will be very careful about putting my e-mail or phone number on anything. All I wanted was to be able to view the information online, no e-mail, no phone calls, no invasion of my privacy. What is this world coming to! Nobody respects the fact that you may not want your time wasted. If you did want to talk to them, you would request for them to call you or send information to you. I'm tired of it.

browse in private - and they cannot find you

[ In Reply To ..]
Search for info having private browsing activated. If you find something you're interested in, open a Word document and copy and paste, save the document for future use. If you're on a website not providing more info without revealing yourself, you probably don't want what they are offering anyway.

A friend of mine just told me she also is getting inundated with e-mail - Not into Aggressive Sales

[ In Reply To ..]
A friend said she is also getting obnoxious e-mail that just keeps coming from two of the new MT to coding courses. You can block the e-mail and probably the phone calls too, except I don't know how to do that.

I advise everyone never ever click to get more information if it requires that you give them your information. It isn't worth it. They are overly aggressive to the point that they seem desperate, and then even rude when you ask them to stop.

They don't start out that way though - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
They start out as if they were your best friend. It's all very relaxed, warm, and inviting. Then when you want to think about it and ask not to be contacted again, things get a little less warm and fuzzy.

I felt pressured - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

I told my family I felt I was being manipulated - see message

[ In Reply To ..]
Pressured isn't strong enough. It's manipulation. You are led to believe that you want to be in this group, and I didn't. Manipulation doesn't sit well with me. It's unprofessional, almost like a high school or sorority group. I'm more interested in education than socializing.

I did a little investigation and found out some disturbing info - What to do if this happens to you

[ In Reply To ..]
So far I've found two courses that aren't operating legally or have failed to list their license information as required by their state. If they had, it would be a simple matter to contact those agencies and report them for over-aggressive and/or inappropriate advertising tactics. I think one that I looked at last month that was operating illegally without a license may be out of business now. I hope they got a hefty fine too. I've been reading online about the high number of schools that are in trouble with the DOJ for misleading students and other unlawful behavior. Some of them continued to do business until they were taken to court and shut down. That's a good reason to look for and find the licensing information on the web site before even contacting them to get information about a course. No license means they are illegal. They can twist their words around all they like, but if they are teaching skills needed for a vocation, they are a vocational school, and require a license. If they are hiding that information so people can't access it, it may mean that they are already in trouble.

I would give them a chance to stop spamming you first though - Just Me

[ In Reply To ..]
First I would look for the license. If no license is displayed on their web site, I wouldn't consider them.

If they have a license and the course information isn't available unless you contact them and give them information, I probably wouldn't bother.

If I was curious enough to click 'more information' and they require my e-mail address, phone number, etc., I would hope there would be a place there for a note so I could say, "I am requesting information by e-mail, once. Please do not put me on your mailing list, your blogs, or anything else. Do not call me. Thank you.' If they called me or continued to bog down my e-mail box with solicitations from their various blog memberships, etc., here's what I would do. I would come on here and rat them out, in public, by name. That ought to stop it real fast.

If they aren't licensed, you can't do a darn thing - Good reason to avoid them like the plague

[ In Reply To ..]
You have no defense against unlicensed courses. None. They can do anything they want and there's not a thing you can do about it. Nobody will be there to see that you are refunded if you drop. Nobody will be there to protect you if they go out of business and you're left having paid them but without the education you paid for. It's anybody's guess what kind of instructor qualification policy they follow, because they have no rules. They can do anything they want. You are powerless, and you deserve it for not being more careful. Learn from it and move on.

Like our local MT course that failed and went out of business - and refunded nobody

[ In Reply To ..]
Everybody lost the money they had paid. They said it was because they had no money, and that's why they were going out of business, but I doubt they would have refunded anyone anyway if they didn't have to.

We were asked if they had a bond on file with the state licensing agency. If not, we were on our own because they were illegal. We could take them to court and sue for it, but who has money for lawyers?

Some are crooked and others are just ignorant and careless with others' lives - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm convinced that some of these people are just evil. Others are crooked, and some just don't have any respect for anyone but themselves. They would waste your time and money just as they waste their own. Anything to keep from putting in an honest day's work. It's easy to fall for these things because the worst of them are the best at speaking and promoting.

It's easier to promote schemes than it is to get a job and work hard enough to keep it like the rest of us do.

Nobody cares about licenses until something bad happens - just like insurance policies and car alarms

[ In Reply To ..]
Little things like companies being legally licensed sounds kind of boring until something unforeseen happens. Then it's a lot like umbrellas, insurance policies, and car alarms. You're really glad it's there or really sorry it isn't.

If you knowingly enroll in an illegal course, what does that make you? - You wil be Flea-bitten

[ In Reply To ..]
If you sleep with rhetorical dogs, you'll very likely wake up with rhetorical fleas!

Not really funny, but - LOL!

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

Funny, but seriously true - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

There are reasons why they choose to operate illegally - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
It costs money to get a license in anything, so anyone who is not financially solvent can't do it. They wouldn't want to do it if they could avoid it because they can operate free of any regulations or oversight. There will be no protector of the student if something goes terribly wrong.

They obviously just hope nobody notices - Still laughing

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

What could possibly go wrong when you deal with people ignoring the law? - Worth thinking about

[ In Reply To ..]
Also, remember the Titanic: Nothing can go wrong. Let's just go faster and ignore that ice over there. LOL.

I don't care why they decided to go illegal. They are just - not my kind of people

[ In Reply To ..]
It doesn't matter to me why, but it matters that they chose to be illegal. I don't associate with people like that.

Why not just unsubscribe - Curious

[ In Reply To ..]
Just unsubscribe from their mailing list. I did that and the emails stopped.

That didn't work for me. In fact - see message

[ In Reply To ..]
On one of them I unsubscribed and still kept getting them. Then I blocked their e-mail address. That worked for several months and then they changed it and I started getting them again. I blocked that one and it happened a third time.

Wow - Curious

[ In Reply To ..]
That's the part that's not okay. There is a law that prohibits that and you could complain to their hosting service. Mailing lists are supposed to all contain an "unsubscribe" button at the bottom and if someone unsubscribes from the list, the company/person isn't supposed to send them things anymore. If, however, someone is managing their list manually that might be what happens, they neglect to take someone off the list. That's why so many companies use a service or technology to automate that.

The fact that they keep changing the e-mail so you can't block it - sounds intentional

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't think they 'neglected' to take people off the list. It sounds intentional. Do they really think that this kind of high-pressure sales gimmick gets people to enroll? Well, I guess they do. It must be working for them. I agree. Complain to their hosting service for abuse!

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