It was a surprise the other week when a dear friend received a mailing piece from AT&T asking her to “Please confirm delivery to your Ericsson LX788 wireless phone.”
Red letters on the lower right side of the envelope screamed, “SHIPPING DATE: TOMORROW.”
As one of the few people remaining in New York – if not the nation – who actually reads more than she watches TV, hasn’t much use for personal computers off the job and dislikes how wireless phones seem to turn up in virtually every place the public gathers, it’s quite odd she’d be looked on as a prospect by the telecommunications giant.
The opening line of the letter tells her that she’s “pre-approved” to get one of these phones “activated and ready to use – risk-FREE for the next 30 days!”
Haven’t telecom companies learned anything from the heap of trouble the credit card industry got itself into by making too many pre-approved offers?
It could be that the wireless phone industry is resorting to such hard-sell tactics because some people may still believe cell phones are linked to health problems, as some reports have suggested.
Or maybe it’s because some people agree with the conductor of a recent medieval music concert in a New York church who likened the ubiquitous ringing during his performance to the theme of the evening’s music: The world is going to hell.
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