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Any time our organization gets a call from a telemarketer, I would sic our marketing person on them in retaliation.

Hopefully that will no longer need to happen. Just before reading this article, I got a junk mail, and the guy at the company I spoke with told me about the Canadian Marketing Association's do not contact list.

I registered it for all the names and contacts I could think of in our organization. (Personally, I have a cell phone and a PO box. My mailbox at home is duct-taped shut with "RTS - No junk!!!!!!!!!" written on the tape.)

- RG>

The Canadian Marketing Association has a Do Not Contact service for both mail and telemarketing. I signed up when I moved, and I never get junk mail, and rarely get calls from telemarketers.

I get occasional telemarketing calls from Bell Canada and Rogers Cable but I'm an existing client. Rogers hires the worst, most aggressive call centers to peddle their internet service. The last guy to call me just needed me to say my name to sign up. After refusing the service a few times, he tried to get me signed up by saying my name and asking me if that was my name.

They are pissed off that marketeers who do not belong to their organization are not required to do the same.

Actually Canada does have a 'do not call' list. I have been on it for 5 years and it largely works, I just get the odd local realtor who suddenly gets the idea of telemarketing and the like who are not members of the CMA, maybe 3 or 4 calls a year. This is down from the dozen calls a month I used to get.
You can join at
http://www.the-cma.org/consumer/donotcall/dnc_serv ice.cfm

http://www.the-cma.org/consumer/donotcall/dnc_serv ice.cfm

Certainly not legally binding, nor as extensive as the US Do-Not-Call list. I think this is what an earlier poster was referring to (though I could be wrong).

Alternately, just fake your death!

Actually, there is a similar service in Canada called the CMA (Canadian Marketing Association).
You can register here.

The CMA says that 80% of direct marketers in Canada belong to their organization and are apparantly obliged to honour this list.

you can register to have your telephone numbers removed from marketing lists by mailing your request to the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA), P.O. Box 706, Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T6, or faxing it to (416) 441-4062 or by completing the registration form at www.the-cma.org .

Found on the CRTC site

I got an error on my area code when I tried to register.

This seems to be a Canadian do not call registry, but it's private sector. So it wouldn't be as effective and may be open to abuse.

Does anyone know if there's a Canadian federal goverment equivalent service?

There are reverse phone number directories, as well as address/number directories available online.

Back to the general topic:

We just turn off the ringer of the phone. The answering machine explains that a child is sleeping, so leave a message. Usually we get to the phone while the answering machine is quietly talking to the caller. Seems to work great.

Combined with the phone and mail preferences services offered by the Canadian and the American direct marketer's associations, we get very little junk mail or phone solicitations. In addition we try to always ask to be put on "do not call lists". We have not gotten a phone call solicitation in months.

The Canadian DMA forms can be filled out online for free, the American ones charge a fee online or do it free via snail mail.

You could turn off the ringer of the phone you know - that's what we've done. The answering machine explains that a child is sleeping, so leave a message. Usually we get to the phone while the answering machine is quietly talking to the caller. Seems to work great.

Combined with the phone and mail preferences services offered by the Canadian and the American direct marketer's associations, we get very little junk mail or phone solicitations. In addition we try to always ask to be put on "do not call lists". We have not gotten a phone call solicitation in months.

The Canadian DMA forms can be filled out online for free, the American ones charge a fee online or do it free via snail mail.

Canada has a similar organisation that offers the same service: the Canadian Marketing Association...