Telephone Sales

Telephone sales of tickets to 13 sports events at the Olympic Games open Saturday. Olympic Arts Festival tickets also will be available. On opening weekend, telephone lines will be staffed from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Prices range from $7 to $133. Consumers must purchase tickets with a Visa credit card.. Call (404) 744-1996. It may be easier to get tickets than housing.

Don't worry if you're one of the 100 or so Academy Award nominees who will go home empty-handed Sunday night. On Tuesday, you'll be able to buy yourself an Oscar. A record 15 Oscar statuettes will be sold to the highest bidders during an online and telephone sale conducted by a Brentwood auction house. The sale of the statuettes, which include those awarded for such classics as "Citizen Kane," "How Green Was My Valley" and "Wuthering Heights," is expected to generate as much as $4 million in bids, according to auctioneer Nate D. Sanders.

The former secretary-treasurer of a Long Beach telephone sales business was sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding investors by persuading them to send money for non-existent currency contracts or foreign coins. William Pearson is the last of four men to be sentenced for their operation of the now-defunct International City Investors Inc., which ran the high-pressure telephone sales operation in 1984 and 1985, costing 132 investors a total of $981,000. U.S.

SACRAMENTO -- More than a million Californians are fighting back against unwanted telephone solicitations by signing up for a "do not call" list of numbers that will be off-limits to telemarketers. Starting in October, telemarketers who ignore the prohibition will be subject to a federal fine of $11,000 per call. State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who is handing off parts of the fledgling state program to the Federal Trade Commission, reported that, as of Friday, 1.

A federal ban on automated, tape-recorded telephone sales pitches was upheld Monday by a federal appeals court, which said Congress accurately identified commercial auto-dialing as a threat to privacy. The ban was blocked in December, 1992, two days before it was to take effect, by U.S. District Judge James Redden of Portland, Ore. He said it was too broad and did little to protect residents from unsolicited calls, the majority of which are made by live callers. But the U.S.

The get-rich-quick business is quickly getting poorer. Consider Ed Beckley, a skinny, squeaky-voiced man with choir-boy looks who sells a $299 "Millionaire Maker" package of cassettes and books promising to teach people how to get rich buying real estate even if they are broke.

A Hollywood couple who defrauded 1,500 customers of $1.1 million through two telephone sales firms pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court. Leslie Burke, 58, pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and $4,000 in fines. His wife, Judith, 55, pleaded guilty to two counts and faces up to 10 years in prison and $2,000 in fines.

San Diego's three largest financial institutions plan to dial for big dollars this year through telephone sales operations. Imperial Savings & Loan Assn., Great American First Savings Bank and Home Federal Savings & Loan Assn. are all hoping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new deposits through direct solicitation of consumers by phone.

A law enforcement task force seized records of a vitamin company in Brea Tuesday after some consumers complained that the firm was not paying off on promises of prizes ranging from new cars to bars of gold in exchange for vitamin purchases. Omni Pharmaceuticals, on Tamarack Avenue, has been operating three shifts of at least 20 telephone sales workers a day, Orange County prosecutors said after the raid. The company began operations in 1983. Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick S.

About the only thing people living in Southwestern Bell's service area hate more than visiting the dentist, sitting in traffic or reporting for jury duty is getting a call at dinner from someone pitching a long-distance service. About half of 1,000 households surveyed by the company this spring said they would rather undertake the aforementioned unpleasant activities than hear from a telemarketer while they're eating. The survey was conducted in Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.

On the surface, it looks as if the telemarketer might go the way of the door-to-door salesman or the Avon lady. Growing consumer opposition to cold calling has caused a growing number of states to start compiling "do-not-call" lists, through which people can banish telemarketers from their lives. Improved technology, such as caller ID and phone screening, is also thwarting the phone sales rep from reaching his quarry.

The bankers didn't want it, nor the telephone companies, mortgage brokers or newspapers. Virtually every business that drums up customers by phone was against it. But a measure allowing residents to put their name on a "do not call" list for telemarketers swept through both houses of the Indiana Legislature unanimously, even though some lawmakers said privately they didn't want it, either. The sponsor, Rep.

Steven Perlmuter worked in advertising and marketing for 14 years before he took over the Southern California arm of You Name It Promotions, a Bay Area company that sells personalized promotional and gift items. In a business where he must do a lot of cold calling, Perlmuter has learned that knowing how to talk to whomever answers the telephone can make the difference between a new account and a dial tone.

State regulators wrapped up five days of hearings into allegations that Pacific Bell's sales methods are misleading and result in customers being signed up for services they do not want or need.

Pacific Bell's aggressive sales pitches and advertising are under investigation by state regulators and at least three district attorney's offices acting on complaints that the company's methods are deceptive and a form of fraud, according to sources familiar with the probes. Investigations underway in Alameda, Monterey and San Mateo counties mirror an ongoing inquiry by the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates phone and energy companies.

About the only thing people living in Southwestern Bell's service area hate more than visiting the dentist, sitting in traffic or reporting for jury duty is getting a call at dinner from someone pitching a long-distance service. About half of 1,000 households surveyed by the company this spring said they would rather undertake the aforementioned unpleasant activities than hear from a telemarketer while they're eating. The survey was conducted in Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.

Two former officials of a Costa Mesa company were sentenced Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court for their role in schemes that bilked more than 1,000 consumers with a phony credit card offer, authorities said. Unlike other fraudulent telephone solicitations, the credit card scam involved asking consumers to send a relatively small amount--$198 for a one-time processing fee--instead of the thousands of dollars that hustlers of precious metals or other phony investments demand.

A California law that makes it illegal to use an automatic dialing device to send recorded phone messages was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday. The state law that was challenged by Orange businessman William Bland is part of the public utilities code that requires companies making phone solicitations to have a live person on the line. If a resident consents, a solicitor can play a recorded message, but calling with "an unsolicited prerecorded message" is illegal.

Telephone sales of tickets to 13 sports events at the Olympic Games open Saturday. Olympic Arts Festival tickets also will be available. On opening weekend, telephone lines will be staffed from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Prices range from $7 to $133. Consumers must purchase tickets with a Visa credit card.. Call (404) 744-1996. It may be easier to get tickets than housing.