Drugs and prostitution in the office: 'Telemarketers' doc illuminates world you don't know

[Jilly_in_VA]

The mere thought of telemarketers might make your chest tighten or eyes roll. Annoyance might wash over you because of intrusive strangers interrupting your day. But when Sam Lipman-Stern thinks of his time as a caller at a fundraising center in New Jersey, he envisions utter chaos.

Lipman-Stern started at Civic Development Group in 2001, as a 14-year-old high school dropout. His parents urged him to get a job, and when McDonald's and Burger King said he was too young to flip burgers, he landed at CDG in New Brunswick. That business is at the center of Lipman-Stern’s three-part docuseries “Telemarketers” premiering Sunday (HBO, 10 EDT/PDT and streaming on Max).

There were a few employees his age, says Lipman-Stern, but the majority were former convicts. “I'd have a murderer sitting to my right, a bank robber sitting to my left,” Lipman-Stern says. “They were selling massive amounts of drugs out of the office. There was a heroin kingpin that was working there. … There was prostitution in the office.”

Physical fights broke out between callers and managers, Lipman-Stern says. Employees would get high at work. “I was told by owners of other fundraising companies, and then also managers at CDG, that drug addicts make the best salespeople,” Lipman-Stern says. “They know how to get whatever they want out of people.”

Audiences are introduced to Lipman-Stern’s co-workers and CDG's shady practices in Sunday’s premiere. Then the docuseries filmed over two decades shifts to the telemarketing industry at large. “They didn't care what we would do as long as we got those donations,” Lipman-Stern says, adding that his former employer set donation goals of approximately $200 per hour.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2023/08/13/hbo-telemarketers-doc-exposes-lawless-office-and-industry-scams/70566161007/