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Sick of “Rachel from customer service?” Tired of those calls about your car’s warranty? Had it up to your eyeballs with the IRS calling about your “2016 income taxes?” This story should bring a tear of joy to your eyes. In Houston federal court on Thursday, the kingpin of an overseas “call center” that scammed thousands of people out of millions of dollars admitted to coordinating a three-year-operation that bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars, an ending which was lauded by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the first time such a takedown had been made. The...

On the morning of Oct. 1, 2015, a middle-aged telemarketer arrived at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission. His name was Aaron Michael Jones, or possibly Michael Aaron Jones, and in any case, he went by Mike. According to court documents, Mike was a father and widower. He lived well, paying $25,000 a month for a Spanish Colonial Revivalin a gated community near Laguna Beach, Calif. He also employed a personal chef, drove a couple of Mercedes, and maintained a gambling account at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Jones sustained his lifestyle by spamming people with robo-calls....

Changes are coming to Wisconsin's Do Not Call Registry effective Aug. 1, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said Friday. Users will no longer be required to register their phone numbers every two years, and their numbers will be placed on the national list aimed at preventing unwanted telemarketing calls and text messages. Consumers can sign up once and not have to worry about whether their registrations lapse. Also, new registrations will be handled by the Federal Trade Commission's national Do Not Call list, and those registrations will become effective the following day rather than weeks later,...

I need to keep my land line, but I'm about ready to turn the ringer off which means real calls won't get my attention. This all really started at the change of the year, and may have something to do with the small political donations. Maybe. I don't know. But it starts in the morning and ends in the early evening. One is particular is GE Capital and I do absolutely no business with them. I went throught the "don't call" years ago. Anyone else experiencing this?

Please Note! As I have not had a chance to fully compile the list of every Small Claims Court in the United States yet, please visit this list until such time. If and when I get my list fully compiled, I shall be including a lot of extra data such as links to the applicable court rules and which courts allow the filing of claims online as mine does. Suing Telemarketers - Simple and Cheap When most people think about the process of suing a business entity, they naturally consider it a complicated and expensive process. They consider having to...

So much for silence from telemarketers at the cherished dinner hour, or any other hour of the day. Complaints to the government are up sharply about unwanted phone solicitations, raising questions about how well the federal "do-not-call" registry is working. The biggest category of complaint: those annoying prerecorded pitches called robocalls that hawk everything from lower credit card interest rates to new windows for your home. Robert Madison, 43, of Shawnee, Kan., says he gets automated calls almost daily from "Ann, with credit services," offering to lower his interest rates.... The agency said this month that it was mailing refund...

Have telemarketers found a way around the do not call list? I have been getting calls from telemarketers where they always ask for the wrong name. When I reply that they have the wrong number, they say, "well, maybe you can help me." The first time it happened, I listened for a minute, wondering why this person on my phone would be asking a stranger for help. When I realized what they were up to, I simply hung up. I've had several calls since, with the caller using the same tactic. Anybody else have any experience with this scam?

World Privacy Forum's Top Ten Opt Outs As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about “opting out,” and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. The list below does not contain all opt outs that are available. Rather, it contains the opt outs that we believe are the most important and will be the most useful to the most consumers. Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We...

Business think tank, Direct Marketing Directions, has released their findings on the worldwide effect of ‘Do not call’ lists throughout the English-speaking world based on six months worth of research and interviews.

Excerpt - Responding to a wave of consumer complaints, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it will bar telemarketers from making prerecorded sales calls unless a consumer explicitly agrees to receive such calls. The FTC also will require all recorded sales calls to provide an opt-out feature to allow consumers to place themselves on the caller's do-not-call list immediately. ~ snip ~

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Politicians have finally found an issue they all can agree on: Telemarketers calling at dinnertime are a scourge that must be repulsed. Congress on Wednesday sent to President Bush two bills that would make permanent a program to protect consumers from unwanted phone calls from telemarketers. Its hallmark is the national "do not call" list. "This initiative has proven to be one of the most popular laws in history," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C. Extending the program was necessary "to avoid the wrath of millions of angry constituents." The Do Not Call Registry, initiated in 2003, has...

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...

Paul Burnett enjoyed four years with almost no calls from telemarketers. That is, until Saturday. The 64-year-old Alameda man is among more than 100 million Americans registered with the National Do Not Call Registry, which bans most telemarketing calls to people on the list. The automated message Saturday sounded liked it was from a local carpet cleaning company. When Burnett tried to call the company back, the phone number wouldn't accept incoming calls. Instead of shrugging it off as a minor annoyance, he filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and posted the company's phone number on http://www.800notes.com, a...

I'll make this short and simple. Is anyone else as sick of all these pre-recorded political calls as I am? How about if we demand of whoever gets elected, Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, Liberals, all of them, that by the next election they end the exemption for political calls on the Do Not Call list. I have repretedly called both the National Democrats and Republicans (National Congressional Campaign Committees) and asked them to remove my phone number from their calling lists. I have been promised that it would be done. To no avail. The calls continue. Can anyone think of something...

Political automated phone calls are the most cost-effective way to reach your constituents. The cost is minimal compared to other media, and the effectiveness is unsurpassed. Automated calling will allow your campaign to target your message to your constituents, give them valuable information, and help you capture valuable data to win your election. Also, unlike other media, you will be able to reach your constituents exactly at the time of day of your choosing. You can place your calls in the middle of the day to target answering

The Truth about Cell Phones and the National Do Not Call Registry If you’ve received an e-mail telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database, rest assured that this is not the case. Telemarketing to cell phone numbers has always been illegal in most cases and will continue to be so. In response to recent e-mail campaigns urging consumers to place their cell phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission issue this advisory to...

The New York Times today said they have conclusive evidence that President Bush violated the 'National Do Not Call Registry'. A spokesperson for the Times, who asked not to be identified, said they have a person willing to testify that the President did knowingly violate the Registry. Gertrude Reems of Chicago said she was just sitting down to eat on April 1st 2003 when the telephone rang. The caller asked Mrs. Reems if she had Prince Albert in a can. Reems said she would have to check and asked who was calling. The person on the other end was laughing...

Just days after the New York Times released classified information about eavesdropping by the NSA on Americans linked to international terrorists, President George Bush at a news conference today announced creation of a new website which allows people to voluntarily exclude their phone numbers and email addresses from NSA wiretap lists. The new National Do Not Wiretap Registry (DoNotWiretap.gov) follows the successful DoNotCall.gov model of allowing citizens to opt-out of harassment by electronic means. “If you’re concerned that your civil rights might be violated simply because some al Qaeda member has your information in his cellphone or computer,” the president...

Firm to pay $5.35 million in FTC's largest civil penalty protecting consumers. Updated: 11:46 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005 WASHINGTON - DirecTV Inc. will pay $5.35 million to settle charges that its telemarketers called households listed on the national do-not-call registry to pitch satellite TV programming, Federal Trade Commission officials said Tuesday. The proposed settlement, if approved by a federal judge in Los Angeles, would be the FTC’s largest civil penalty in a consumer protection case. The DirecTV complaint, filed by the Department of Justice at the FTC’s request, named the company and five telemarketing firms it hired, as well...

The dead could soon be less likely to be haunted by telemarketers. The nation's largest direct marketing group has set up a registry to remove dead people from its phone, e-mail and direct mail lists - for a one-dollar charge. The fee is for credit card verification and for checking that those on the list are really dead. The Direct Marketing Association says its Deceased Do-Not-Contact list was designed to help families dealing with the loss of a loved one. The idea follows the government's popular Do Not Call list, which allows consumers to sign up online and imposes fines...