Anti-Telemarketing List Opens For Registration
from the sign-up-now dept
I very rarely get telemarketing phone calls, but as if they knew that the national “do not call” list was starting, I received two telemarketing phone calls Thursday evening. Hopefully, that won’t be happening much longer, as the much talked about national “do not call” anti-telemarketing list is now open for business. Of course, there will be plenty of telemarketers who will ignore the list, or figure out ways to exploit loopholes. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear each telemarketing call begin with a political message, since political telemarketing is still legal due to politicians who always seem to exempt themselves from the laws they put on everyone else. There are also a number of scams going around pretending to be the national do not call list (and sometimes charging to get on their list). So, you should be sure to register from the official DoNotCall.gov website, so that your phones will (hopefully) be telemarketer free as of October 1.
Comments on “Anti-Telemarketing List Opens For Registration”
No Subject Given
The “political message” trick won’t work — they need to be a non-profit organization. 🙂
Call the FCC or FTC when you get a scam caller, and if they can catch the company they’ll be fined $11,000 for each call they’re caught making.
Re: No Subject Given
Okay, if this will actually work for phone calls (and I’m a bit skeptical; I actually wonder that if I register my cell phone, if I’ll suddenly start to get telemarkting phone calls there), then why couldn’t this work for spam. Creat the email database. Anyone sending out spam will have to pay the $11,000 or whatever fine per offense. It won’t take a lot of legal examples before it has some impact.
from Edupage
The way I see it, it has no effect. Just a lot of hot air.
FEDERAL DO-NOT-CALL LIST OPEN FOR BUSINESS
The federal do-not-call list went into operation this week, taking
phone numbers from citizens who want not to be called by telemarketers.
Similar to do-not-call lists in many states, the federal list will be
made available to telemarketers, for a fee. Companies found to have
called numbers on the list face fines of up to $11,000 per call.
Exceptions are made for politicians, nonprofit groups, those conducting
surveys, and companies with whom the person being called has an
existing business relationship. The phone numbers on some of the state
do-not-call lists automatically transferred to the federal list. People
in states whose lists do not transfer will have to add their numbers
separately to the federal list. The list is administered by both the
Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, a
combination that covers some wide loopholes in early plans for the
list.
Wall Street Journal, 27 June 2003 (sub. req’d)
Screen Machine
I bought a Screen Machine for $49.95. It has been 100-percent effective in stopping telemarketing calls so far (I’ve had it about a year). It does throw some personal callers off the first time, but more often than not people who call me seem to think it’s a great idea.