Posted on 09/21/2007 5:02:27 AM PDT by indcons
The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list.
The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years.
Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do not enroll again.
"It is incredibly quick and easy to do," Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. "It was so easy for people to sign up in the first instance. It will be just as easy for them to re-up."
But Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., says people should not be forced to re-register to keep telemarketers at bay. Doyle introduced legislation this week, with bipartisan support, to make registrations permanent.
"When someone takes the time and effort to say 'I don't want these kinds of calls coming into my house,' they shouldn't have to keep a calendar to find out when they have to re-up to keep this nuisance from happening," Doyle said in an interview.
The FTC built the five-year expiration date into the program to account for changes, such as people who move and switch their phone number, Parnes said.
Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers.
People can register their home and cell phone numbers or file complaints at http://www.donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222.
The registry prohibits telemarketers from calling phone numbers on the list. Companies face fines of up to $11,000 for each violation.
Organizations engaged in charitable, political or survey work are exempt. Companies that have an established business relationship with a customer also may call for up to 18 months after the last purchase, payment or delivery.
In the first week of the program, people signed up 18 million numbers. The registry now has more than 149 million phone numbers.
"I think it's fantastic," said Bonnie Darling of Arlington, Va. Darling placed her name on the list this year after being flooded with calls from roofing companies, chimney sweeps and construction businesses. She has not heard from those companies in months.
Darling is not worried about the five-year expiration. She said she expects it to be just as easy to register as it was a couple months ago.
The FTC plans a consumer education program next spring on the re-registration process.
While polls have shown consumers reporting far fewer unwanted phone calls, some telemarketers continue to violate the law.
Since the registry began, the government has filed cases against more than 30 companies, resulting in $8.8 million in civil penalties and $8.6 million in redress to consumers and forfeitures.
Most of the penalties were paid by satellite television provider DirecTV Inc., as part of the largest settlement in the program's history.
DirecTV agreed to pay $5.3 million in December 2005 to settle charges that it and several telemarketing companies it hired had called numbers on the list. The company said then that it had stopped working with those telemarketers and taken steps to avoid calling numbers on the list.
Telemarketers are required to pay an annual subscription fee to access the FTC list so those numbers can be blocked from their dial-out programs. The companies also must update their own calling lists every 31 days to ensure there are no numbers from the registry on them.
The annual subscription fee for the list costs $62 for each area code, with a maximum cost of $17,050 for access to all U.S. numbers on the list.
The FTC reported this year that 6,824 companies and other entities paid $21.7 million in fees to access the database in fiscal year 2006. All told, 15,218 entities have paid $59 million in fees to access the database since the program's inception.
Most of the fees charged by the government are used to support the Do Not Call program.
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On the Net:
Information on the House bill, H.R. 3541, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov
I wish there could be the same registry and penalty for spam and junk mail.
The Do Not Call Registry didnt seem to help me much. I still get crap calls all the time.
Unfortunately email’s not a closed system from an international standpoint. While it’s true that the majority of spammers originate from the United States, it wouldn’t be hard for them to offshore it to another country in the event of the passage of a ‘feel-good law’ like that.
And junk faxes.
Why don’t we just have govt provide everybody with a body guard so no one has to deal any annoying people?
It has worked for me; I don’t get any calls from telemarketers anymore.
It certainly helped me. You ought to report who calls you if you can identify them and maybe they will get fined and quit.
And junk faxes.
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There are legal remedies for that ... you could make a few thousand $$$ ..
You obviously don’t get dozens of crap faxes that tie up your lines. And suing these phantom companies isn’t the answer.
Same here with one exception.
The Young College Republicans
They not only cost themselves money, but they cost the Republican Party a hell of a lot money.
Because, in person, you have an opportunity to do something about it yourself.
I don’t know about you folks, but five years ago we used to get multiple calls A DAY from those telemarketing scum. And there’s no way to avoid it, since you don’t know who’s on the line until you stop whatever you’re doing, get up, and pick up the phone.
If there was a guy standing outside your window trying to sell you basement repair every half hour and he wouldn’t shut up, you could go outside and deal with him. There’s no comparable way to deal with these phone-slime, so IMHO this is one instance where the government actually proved useful.
Rodent candidates calling you, too ?
It is not that simple.
Unwanted calls also flood businesses. Neither I, or other people wish to expend a single second of our lives responding OR paying an employee to respond to these unsolicited calls.
Using the government regulation to prevent people from wasting MY TIME and MY MONEY is what the government is there for.
I guess you are right.
It doesn’t matter. I still get them, even when I tell them I’m on the Do Not Call list. Hell, I even had a couple of law firms CONTINUE to call me looking for a previous holder of my number, even after I told them (TWICE) that if they persisted I would see legal action against them for harassment.
I agree with your assessment that we should be independent of government, but this is a private property ownership issue with me.
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