Hang up on telemarketers -- for good

MSN ^ | Liz Pulliam Weston

[Cultural Jihad]

Hang up on telemarketers -- for good

You really can fight back against those blasted calls. Here's how you can sign up for the new National 'Do Not Call' Registry, plus some ways to fight e-mail spam and junk mail.

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Your home is about to get a lot quieter -- especially around dinner time.

The Federal Trade Commission will put a leash on telemarketers July 1 by activating a national do-not-call list.

Once you sign up -- a free service, by the way, and don’t let scam artists tell you otherwise -- the government promises a substantial drop in telemarketing calls within three months.

“We think it’s the most significant improvement in consumer protection in a decade,” said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp., which fights spam and marketing intrusions of all kinds. “It’s going to make an enormous difference in the lives of Americans.”

Sign up via phone or Web site
You know it’s a good law by the sheer volume of gnashing teeth emanating from the Direct Marketing Association and other groups representing telemarketers, who will be required to purge their databases of registry phone numbers at least quarterly.

You can sign up for the National "Do Not Call" Registry online starting July 1 (see the link to the registry Web site at left under Related Sites), or you can call a toll-free number (to be announced in late June) if you live west of the Mississippi. Folks east of the Mississippi can call in to register a week later.

Your peace isn’t entirely assured, since there are bound to be scofflaws willing to risk the $11,000-per-call fine. You will, however, have an easy online way to report the scoundrels, and you can still take them to small claims court if you want. The consumer’s right to sue under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act has been preserved.

Also, several types of businesses are exempted from having to use the registry, at least for now:

• long-distance telephone companies
  
• banks and credit unions
  
• airlines
  
• insurers
  
• political campaigns
  
• charities
  
• companies with which you already have a business relationship. (These can call you for up to 18 months after your last purchase, or three months after you make an inquiry or submit any type of application). But if you ask these callers to stop bothering you, they, too, are required to obey.

Even if you choose not to sign up for the registry -- it’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t, but for the sake of argument let’s say you like constant interruptions -- you’ll have new ways to know who’s calling and why. The same rules that institute the do-not-call registry also require:

• A ban on blocked IDs. Telemarketers will be required to transmit their phone numbers and, usually, their names to your Caller ID service.
  
• No more hide-and-seek. Telemarketers are required to tell you upfront who they are and why they’re calling.
  
• Less dead air. There should be someone on the line when you pick up the phone -- or you should at least get a recorded message saying who’s calling.

Telemarketers have long violated federal law by using automatic dialing systems to ring more victims than they have operators to handle. Now the FTC finally seems determined to kill this practice with tougher enforcement so you won’t have to “wait to be annoyed,” as Catlett put it.

Many of the businesses currently exempted from using the registry, said FTC spokeswoman Cathy MacFarlane, may eventually be required to use it. The Federal Communications Commission is considering extending the do-not-call requirements to the businesses it regulates, which include long-distance phone carriers, airlines, banks and credit unions.

Spread the word
If you previously signed up for a state do-not-call list -- many states instituted them in the decade or so it took to get this national registry -- your number will eventually be added to the federal list, but it may take awhile. There’s nothing to stop you from speeding things along by signing up for the national list as soon as you’re able.

You might do what you can to spread the word to friends and family, as well -- particularly if you have an elderly relative who seems to be on every sucker list in the country. Some older folks are too polite to hang up on a telemarketer and thus get conned into every sweepstakes, scam and swindle going. You might offer to sit with them while they call the registry.

What you shouldn't do is sign up with any company that promises to “pre-register” you for a fee. The FTC says it won’t accept sign-ups from these companies -- you have to do it yourself when the registry opens.

The federal do-not-call registry is almost certain to be more effective than the methods we currently have for combating the two other major marketing intrusions: junk mail and spam.

Fight spam and credit-card offers
The Direct Marketing Association maintains do-not-mail lists that you can sign up for on its Web site (see link at left). But only the association’s members are required to scrub their mailing databases against the list, so you may not see a huge decrease in junk mail.

You also can reduce credit card solicitations by calling an opt-out service run by the three major credit bureaus: (888) 5-OPT OUT. You’ll need to provide your Social Security number as an identifier. You probably will notice a decline in the number of credit card offers you receive but, again, the list is voluntary and many marketers don’t honor these requests.

Fighting e-mail spam is even more of an uphill battle. Sites like Junkbusters and Fight Spam on the Internet (see links at left under Related Sites) offer suggestions and links to filtering software. The best way to reduce spam, though, is still the same: trying to keep your e-mail address off the spammers’ lists in the first place. That means not posting it on public Web sites if possible and choosing an unusual handle that won’t be guessed by “dictionary spamming” software that simply creates endless lists of names, hoping to find ones that work.

And one more thing . . .
Finally, a word to you telemarketers who are about to e-mail me with angry denouncements of the federal do-not-call list and to complain about losing your jobs:

I once cleaned houses to make ends meet, which means I quite literally scrubbed toilets to make a living. That, my dears, is honest work. You might give it a shot.

[scourge]

Call it what ever you want, when all comes down to it, its still just a phone call.
One man's annoying call, is another man's time in jail. Call me in a few years and we'll talk. Unless of course, we're forced to email each other, because were all afraid of jail or law suits.

[norton]

Your 'free market' happens to house so many scams and loop holes as to make your statements either absurd or indication that you are part of the boiler-room culture.

My mother is on course for an early nursing home almost strictly due to her inability at 80 to understand the results of those 'friendly' and helpful people who call her with offers and stories of starving disabled firefighters.

With that other blessing of a free maarket - electronic withdrawals - she'd managed to zero out her monthly income several months in a row until I got hold of the bank statement.

("But son, see there, it says 'VOID' right on it....")

Odd how those free marketeers refused to accept delivery when I mailed their "save your credit" books and "fraud stopper" 'phone buttons back.

Odd that when one is shut down, a near clone emerges with the same call list.

The idea that government should not be involved is absurd on it's face: the no call list calls for a voluntary act by a free individual, in order to take some action to protect the individual's privacy, finances, and free choice (the real free market). Meanwhile your operator/pimp has NO protected right to my time, let alone my money.

Absent federal standing, it would be another 'voluntary' (meaningless) self regulation or a patch-work providing far less protection. Part of the government's role is to provide a stable and legitimate environment for business' to flourish - cutting out the vermin is a good way of doing that.

Oh, the electronic toys to tell the marketers to go away?
Cute, as soon as I get mom to understand those gizmos I'll be sure to give you a call; I know I'll get through your un-blocked line.

[m1911]

No, I didn't.

The FTC created a regulation based on a law Congress passed. That regulation makes it illegal for persons employed in a telemarketing campaign to call me "to induce the purchase of goods or services or to solicit a charitable contribution", if I choose to put my name on a national do-not-call registry.

[scourge]

if I choose to put my name on a national do-not-call registry.

Don't worry it won't be long until they realize the NCNCR isn't working, and they need stiffer regulations. If your not smart enough to hang up a phone, your certainly not smart enough to add you phone number to the list. They will have to do it for you. Again, welcome to your Paradise!

[m1911]

You may be right. Predictions of expanding regulation are often correct. Under these regulations, customers have to add themselves to the list, and the penalties apply only to solicitation callers.

[scourge]

I have a caller I.D on my home phone, If the person calling shows up as 'UNKNOWN' or 'NO DATA' I don't answer the phone. I let the answer machine take it. If its important, the caller will leave a message. Seldom do telemarketers leave messages. If the person leaving the message is someone I want to talk to I pick up. Sometimes I just turn off the ringer and let everyone leave a message, I'll call them back later if I want to. I'm more comfortable with doing it this way, than I would ever be signing up for some Government run program.

[Modernman]

This is called circular reasoning. "I don't want talking on the telephone to be outlawed, but if you call me on the telephone, then you are guilty of a crime"

You're guilty of a crime because the legislature, which has the job of passing laws, has passed a law. Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, which telemarketing surely is. It's how our system works.

[Modernman]

Yeah! Down with free speech and the NRA members "calling" congress to stop anti-gun laws from being passed. Hip Hip Hooray, no more dirty fiflty-- Cancer, Goodwill, Childrens hospital, or any charity anywhere, trying to raise a couple bucks for a good cause. Welcome to Paradise!

This law specifically excludes political and charity phone calls. It would not in any way affect phone calls between regular citizens.

[scourge]

As far as I can discern from what I've read so far, they didn't pass a law that says telemarketers can't call out of state, all they did was create a program where if you join they can't call you. (Of course it will stop nothing) but it makes people feel good. When they realize that people are still getting called, they will have to take the next step. That is what I dread.

[scourge]

Oh, and leave it to the politicians to exclude themselves from any laws they pass. If they included themselves, the database of names would be every person who owned a phone.

[kmiller1k]

Has anyone else gotten spam text messages on their cell phones? I have been getting them fairly regularly (costs me 2cents each time) usually they are financial in nature but a few have been for "enlargement" supplements that are guaranteed to work.

Notified Verizon about this however because each of the texts are from a different and I think offshore ISP, they can do little to stop them from getting thru to my cell phone.

I've added all my cell phone lines and the home number to the DNC list.

[Feiny]

I LOVE to have fun with the folks calling me....I have a wide range of "material". I ask them for their home phone number so I can call them back at my convenience. Other options include acting very excited to hear from them & pretending to know them from high school....ask them lots of questions....it is pretty funny. Or, I tell them I am under house arrest and can't leave so I am very happy to talk to them....then I go on and on about how I was unfairly prosecuted and that I am completely innocent. When they start with their schpeil right away and don't allow for intteruption, I just put the phone down and walk away or stay listening but don't say a word....both are fun.

When my husband answers, sometimes he pretends to be my Pakistani butler and he talks to them about the dolphins in the ocean and other things using a very thick accent. I almost pee myself when when he does that!

[m1911]

We do exactly the same at home. It's actually worse for the telemarketers than the no-call will be. It costs them time to call my number and telephone charges when the answering machine picks up.

I'm not bothered by telemarketers (ok, a little), but I don't see this reg as the end of the free market either. It'll push some jobs offshore - we're already getting calls from telemarketers in Nova Scotia.

I think it's also possible that the telemarketers will come out of this smelling like a rose. The government is supplying them with a list of people who are their least likely buyers. I wouldn't bet my own money on it, but it could be that this will end up as taxpayer-funded cherry picking for the telemarketers. Unintended consequences abound.

[scourge]

Those are good points, Plus, the Feds will have a database filled with names of people (and their phone numbers)who they know don't mind more Govenment programs. As long as the program is "cost free" and can give them a little break from having to deal with the small everyday annoyances in their lives.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I have been getting a couple of calls a week from MCI. I really enjoy telling the caller that I want to have nothing to do with an Anti-American company like MCI that would hire Danny Blubber to advertise for them.

You know they fired his ***?

[Jeff Gordon]

You know they fired his ***?

Yes, but they hired him. They aired him through out the Iraqi Conflict. MCI is done. Stick a fork in them.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

All the same to me. I hate MCI as much as anybody... I used to work for them! LOL

[Djarum]

In the same way, telephone solicitations, and commercials featuring Carrot Top are preserving my freedom, because they are part and parcel of the free market.

ROFL! Why didn't you warn us to start the national anthem before reading this post?

Hiding behind the flag won't save your telemarketing business.

[Djarum]

I tried to check his profile and the account is banned/suspended.

[Skywalk]

Crap, the dead air is how I identify them!

I hang up as soon as I don't hear a response after I say "hello."

That's my way around telemarketers.