Telemarketers: Review

A chaotic and ramshackle three-part documentary, Telemarketers feels occasionally drawn out in its back end as it investigates an American telemarketing scam that's as shocking and entertaining as Wolf of Wall Street.

Starting off as an expose of telemarketing, but becoming something else, the series follows the exploits of Sam Lipman-Stern, a worker at the Civic Development Group, who from 2001 would cold call members of the public to solicit donations on behalf of the police force.

Lipman-Stern taped the antics at the call centre, given its population consisted of drugged up members of the public and former criminals, all unable to find work anywhere. Looking at times more like a fraternity than a workplace, the staff got to party as long as they managed to hit targets, which they frequently did.

However, Lipman-Stern and a fellow employee Patrick J Pepsas decided to investigate what happened to the money after discovering that most of the donations were kept by the company's founders.

As the duo go further down the rabbit hole, the series becomes more about the duo and less about the company involved - and it's here that Telemarketers starts to retain more of its shabbier edges and the shaggy dog elements of the story sadly come to the fore.

A bloated second episode contains some great revelations but as the focus of the camera switches from the front to the behind of it, it becomes less interesting and a little more unfocussed. Though a fascinating coda finds AI has an involvement as technology deepens and scams become more sophisticated.

Stranger than fiction it may be but with hoarier edges, Telemarketers feels like its story is looking at the wrong subjects. Thankfully both Lipman-Smith and Pepsas make for good bedfellows and companions on this 20 plus year journey.

There's a chaotic energy to Telemarketers and while parts of it may leave you wishing someone had done a more expeditious edit at times, the journey is well worth taking.

Telemarketers is streaming now on Neon NZ.