I am *pissed*

[jan_andrea]

I just got a phone call that made me really angry.

I didn't recognize the number, but picked it up. Recorded message started. "We are conducting a survey about abortion. If you do not wish to answer, please hang up now." I stayed on the line. Now, I'm not good at verbatim recall, but the recordning was something like this: "If you identify yourself as pro-life, anti-abortion, press 1 now. If you support a woman's right to choose, press 9 now." I pressed 9.

"Thank you for being pro-life!"

WHAT?!??!

"Pro-life organizations have been working since blah blah blah, we appreciate your support, send us money, blah blah..."

I was stunned. I pressed *9*. I am *pro-choice*. Very much so. And now here's this crooked survey, which has clearly just recorded my vote as "pro-life", and there's no more information in the recording about who is conducting it, or how to contact them! When the recording ended, I stayed on the line, hoping I'd get *something*, but no. I tried calling the number back, but no dice. I did a reverse lookup and it's apparently a land line based in Bartlesville, OK, and that's all the information that's available.

The number was 918-876-1170, if anyone's curious, and if anyone else gets this call... listen to it carefully. Maybe they give more information after giving choices 1 and 9. I don't know. But I'll be damned if I trust *any* polling numbers coming from pro-life sites anymore. At least one of them clearly has *no* conscience when it comes to truthful reporting... and without knowing which, I can't really trust any of them.

Bastards.

Comments

[joy-disaster.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is so disgustingly crooked. Goes right along with the greater vote-fixing going on I'd say. They don't care about doing what's right, they care about "winning".

[avalera.livejournal.com]

WTF?! I guess they feel they have to resort to cheating and lying, which really shows high moral standards doesn't it?

The paradoxes these people live with, and are completely oblivious to, just blow my mind -- like those Republicans that are "pro life" and at the same time pro death penality. What?

[zauditu.livejournal.com]

I saw someone else bitching about the same thing on their live journal a couple of weeks ago. I was disgusted then. I am disgusted now. It seems to be a huge big scam, and I can only hope that they aren't using this data for anything significant. What I would be interested to know is if pressing the number makes any difference at all. It might be that if you were to wait on the line without pressing any number at all that it goes to the same message.

Interesting follow-up

[zauditu.livejournal.com]

So, I am distressed enough by this scam that I did a couple of searches for the number - both in the Bartlesville City Directory online (nothing came up even close to the number) and then google searched the number as a whole. Interestingly enough, nothing came up as an exact match, however there IS a Reproductive Fertility Clinic in *boston* with the same 876 1170, but with a Boston area code, rather than Oklahoma. Is this too much to be a coincidence? I'm almost upset enough about it to call Bartlesville, OK chamber of commerce and see what they have to say...or the Oklahoma Better Business Bureau.

[lissie930.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that just sucks.
I know how you feel - I had my signature stolen by anti-Gay marriage people. I used to sign petitions at the grocery store and whatever, and had one where they had me sign twice, and it turns out the second one was a petition sent to the gov't about not supporting gay marriage. Now I do a certain amount of arm chair activism in support of marriage, so NWIH would I ever sign something like that! I was so angry. The worst part was that it became public record and you could look up your town to see who signed it. I wrote to my senators but never heard back. Hmmm, should follow up on this!