I worked for Rick for many years and can not believe what is happening to him. I would like to express that there was never any calls that I made getting donations for many foundations that were not up and up and legal. It was a pleasure working for Rick and he employed many people that otherwise would not have had a job. He gave people a chance and treated everyone with respect and kindness. I would love to work for him again and anyone that thinks this man who worked hard to accomplish everything he has was doing wrong or breaking the law is out of their mind.
A Message from Rick Zeitlin
Thank you for visiting this “TRUTH” website and for your interest in an all too common situation; where a person like me need to defend my personal and professional reputation. I must strive to fight a coordinated government effort to shutter my business and take away my right to earn a living and to support my family.
In the years before the development of soundboard technology and the efficiencies, accuracies and professionalism soundboard offers to the client, caller and the respondent, I owned a telemarketing company that employed around 300 agents in several different states and markets. My reputation was outstanding, my clients were happy and my business was growing despite continuous efforts by the government to regulate me and my competitors into the unemployment line. Industry operations were commonly called “boiler rooms” (among other derogatory names) and people who worked there and owners like me were ridiculed and castigated by the media and some in the public alike.
To this day it strikes me as odd that an industry that has over the years hired hundreds of thousands of people (perhaps millions), many of whom had trouble holding down more traditional day jobs, would become such a punching bag for government and the media, and the well-funded, government grant and taxpayer funded self-proclaimed consumer advocacy groups which, themselves routinely pan-handle the consumer for money through environmentally wasteful direct mail.
Admittedly of course, that over the years, there have been “bad apples” in the telemarketing basket, (as there have been in every industry) and owners who have not always held themselves to the highest standards. I freely admit as well that state and federal regulators have had every right and reason to enforce sound and equitable laws to reign in those that violate the law. At times, it seems they have done that without overstepping or intruding on the many legitimate call centers including my own.