I was recently hard at work (this is a recording) and I received a telemarketing call from verio.com. Now there are two things that are rather unusual to me about it:

1) Verio.com is (at least from what I can gather) one of the larger players in the industry and while I am a growing web designer of one employee (me), I'm still a web designer of one employee.

2) They're based in Colorado, and I am based in Toronto, Ontario, C-eh-N-eh-D-eh.

So I guess my question is twofold: is this a sign of desparation on their part, and has anyone else (particularly in Canada) received these calls?

Did you register any domains lately? They may be gathering WHOIS information.

They call our customers often, and might even have called us, in fact (a large competitor of their hosting service).

Kevin

Not recently (in my own name or company name that is). I don't think they're calling my customers either because I generally have a very strong rapport with them and if they were being called, they'd tell me and ask me what was up.

Sign of Desparation?
No

Many companies no matter how much $$$ they have, use telemarketers to market new products and services to their customers.

Although this hasnt happened to me yet. I was skimming through their website the other day and in just a few minutes I had a couple of sales reps paging me with their lil website pager to chat. I guess this shouldn't surprise me too much with all the money they probably have rolling in from what they charge customers.

Originally posted by sigma
Did you register any domains lately? They may be gathering WHOIS information.

They call our customers often, and might even have called us, in fact (a large competitor of their hosting service).

Kevin

I think they be losing customers to you. I noticed you had some rapid server increases (up to 300? + 43 db?). They have strict pricing. Also depending on the server group you are in at Verio, upgrades to a different plan can be a mess, with additional fees. I think you upgrade your software quicker than Verio they are still on FreeBSD 4.4.

Most huge companies telemarket that's most of the calls I get VISA, Mastercard, and et al pushing their credit cards. Wells Fargo offering refinance. I rank telemarketing side by side with spam for annoyance and a sure fire way of ensuring they won't get my business!

Originally posted by Alex042
[B...I was skimming through their website the other day and in just a few minutes I had a couple of sales reps paging me with their lil website pager to chat. I guess this shouldn't surprise me too much with all the money they probably have rolling in from what they charge customers. [/B]

Wow I went over to Verio to snoop around and sure thing a window pop ups with a sales rep asking if they can be of help. Kind of funny it's like walking in a store and having reps ask you for help. Once is fine but what they keep pestering it gets annoying. And I thought paying yearly was crazy they have a five year plan! :eek: And they want 14.95 for 7.5 GB if BW and 200 MB of disk space and you have to sign up for FIVE years to get the $14.95 price. Yikes!