Telemarketers and Cell Phones?

jjshoe asks: "I have received one bumbling voice mail from a woman who seemed very confused as to why I wasn't there, like her auto dialer transfered her call to my cellphone in time for my voice mail, one missed call, and one in which I actually talked to the woman. My concern is that this all costs me minutes, which of course equals money. What laws are out there for me? What bills are out there waiting to head their way towards becoming laws? What can I do to be compensated for time? After I screamed at the tele-marketer lady she said she would mark me as a wrong number, but I still don't believe this is enough." Considering most tele-marketers use auto-dialers, would it be so hard to grab the definitive list of area-code/extensions that are exclusively used for cellular phones and just apply that to their dial-out lists?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's website was the only site I could find that had any information on cellphones and solicitation.

Note the first question from 'JOHN PUHATCH':

Q: Regarding the sole use of wireless phones as an alternative to a land line connection, as I have done for nearly two years: You stated that tele-marketers do not call wireless phones. If only that were the case. Tele-marketing agencies have regularly contacted me on my cell phone concerning everything from vacation homes to long-distance service. My assumption is that these agencies secure my cell phone number by buying information from the plethora of forms and applications that require home telephone numbers but leave no place for a cell phone.

And the answer basically amounts to, although we do have some protections, we can still be screwed:

'A: [...]In short, John, you lost your chance at a telemarketing-free life when you filled out those forms with your phone number. May others learn from your mistake.'

Does anyone have any advice on things I can do to get these tele-marketers to stop calling on my cellphone?"

Most land-based phone companies allow anonymous-call blocks these days. Are there cellular phone companies doing anything similar?

Comments

Redirecting home phones to mobiles.

[Saggi]

Even if you mask out mobile numbers for the auto diallers, several telecompanies are providing a combined service that will redirect you home phone to you mobile. In that case you will end up receiving the message on you mobile phone anyway.

In regards to time, I'll usually just say goodbye...

But time is an issue. Just think about spam, commercials, etc... but I believe it would only cloud up things if we should start making new laws. What about using existing laws about harassment.

Cash in!

[Chmarr]

According to the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), it is illegal for a business to dial mobile phone numbers for unsolicited telemarketing. Unless there are some weird circumstances on how they got hold of your phone number, you've just earned yourself $500-$1500. Congratulations! You now just need to figure out how to claim it :)

A good resource for this kind of thing is Junkbusters

Two words: caller pays

[_Quinn]

Not _all_ European ideas are bad ones. :)

-_Quinn

thats nothing...

[r00tarded]

wait till they start sending you SMS messages. its easy as hell to crapflood your phone with automated text messages.

hard to get a good phone exclude list

[Mirri]

would it be so hard to grab the definitive list of area-code/extensions that are exclusively used for cellular phones and just apply that to their dial-out lists?

That's not so easy as a lot of people forward their home phone to their cell phones. I do always take in telling the telemarketer who thought they were calling home that they have called me on my cell phone and that it's costing me money to talk to them. Some guy actually told me to send him a bill.

this is why

[Anonymous Coward]

..in civilized countries we pay for making phone calls, not for receiving them.

more than you ever wanted to know about telemktg

[randyest]

http://antitelemarketer.com/

I'm not connected with this site in any way, but I've used info from there to rid myself of 90% of telemarketing calls. And I've had some fun with telemorons in the process. :)

Re:Don't answer

[dattaway]

You can tell them it's your cell phone, and ask them where you can bill them for your minutes, but they just hang up on you.

I did this. They didn't hang up. But I did find out it was FirstUSA who gave out my number. After telling them I wished to be put on their no call list, they told me it would be three months before that would take effect. I told them this was unacceptable.

I also learned that these no call lists are only valid for one year at which time they can opt me right back in. Nine months of no calls by that *one* company? It was a coincidence that I was over my airtime minutes that month and paid 25 cents a minute for that nonsense. No thanks.

I promptly cancelled my credit card and the calls still came rolling in. It was satisfying to tell them why I was cancelling my card. That didn't stop the calls either. My final solution was to change my phone number. Other companies know this is my "home" phone number, yet I haven't been getting calls since.

Re:I did this for a living

[SLASHDOT EDlTOR]

TROLL ?

Why not check this and do a search fro "direct wireless outbound".

Cough...Sykes...Cough.

Re:Do not call list

[DNS-and-BIND]

Ah, naive faith in the legal system...how refreshing.

Good luck finding out who they are. Good luck finding out the correct address so you can serve them. Good luck getting a judgement, and even if you do have a judgement, good luck collecting even a single dollar from them.

Note also that this process is rather arduous, requires several inconvenient trips through traffic to the bad part of town where the courthouse always is, and many hours on your own time performing research, looking up the law, etc. Skip tracers don't work for free, either.

Re:"Put me on your do not call list."

[Tackhead]

> In the U.S., ask what company is calling. Then say "Put me on your do not call list." Say nothing more. That is very effective, since they can be sued in small claims court if they call back. Use exactly that language and nothing else, the sentence has legal meaning. This works perfectly for me.

Although this has cut down on some of my phone spam volume, folks should be aware that:

1) It only has meaning for the telemarketing company that called you. When XYZ Phonespammers of Texas puts you on their DNC list, they can rename themselves to ABC Phonespammers of Texas.

2) It only has meaning for a year, then they can call you again.

Those of you lucky enough to have statewide do-not-call lists are in a somewhat better position, because all your state's telespammers are required to use it. Problem is...

3) ...your entry on the Colorado no-call list doesn't protect you from XYZ Telemarketing of Colorado opening up a call center and operating as XYZ Telemarketing of Nevada.

The only solution is a nationwide do-not-call list.

I know this solution will work because...

the DMA is scared shitless of it.

You don't have a lot of credibility, to be perfectly honest," Harrington, the FTC's director marketing practices, told the audience of approximately 50 telemarketers.

If telemarketers had adhered to the present rules, which give each company one shot at each consumer and require them to honor all DNC requests, a national DNC list would not be under discussion, Harrington said.

Am I just being paranoid? No - my experiences with telemarketers evading the current TCPA regs mirror those of Eileen Harrington - FTC's point-person on the do-not-call issue.

In her own personal experience, Harrington said, she was aware that telemarketers often try to circumvent the rules by hanging up when consumers ask to be placed on their DNC lists, or by denying that their calls are for sales purposes, then trying to make a sale. Technology, such as predictive dialers, is being abused, Harrington said.

Finally, in what were probably the first honest words to come out of a telemarketer's mouth in all of recorded history, we have this gem:

<WHINE> Eventually, everybody is going on the list," said Art Conway, president of DialAmerica Marketing. "If you create this national do-not-call list, the way you have it proposed, we're going out of business." </WHINE>

Hey, Art. Fuck off, and stay fucked off!

Re:Damn cell companies...

[Anonymous Coward]

This phenomenon has been routinely happening to me now for the past week or so.

It is called "predictive dialers" and they should be made a capitol offence. I.e., death penalty.

Here's how they work. Telescum make money based on how many people they talk to. They make no money if the scum they hire aren't talking to someone. They use a computerized system that PREDICTS how soon one of the scum is going to be done with a call and starts dialing the victim's number BEFORE there are any telescum ready to talk. The THEORY is that by the time the victim answers and says "hello", one of the scum will be done and ready to talk to them, and the computer will switch the call to them. They won't even waste time having the hear the victim say "hello", they get the call after that point. (That's why you have to say "hello" to the scum more than once. The computer detects your voice on the line and THEN passes the call to the scum who wants to scam you.)

So, what happens if the PREDICTION is wrong? Well, there is nobody available to talk to the victim. What can they do? They HANG UP. That's right, if there is no scum free to talk to the victim, the scummer's computer just hangs up.

Marvelous system, huh? You go to the trouble of trying to tell these jerks not to call you, and they just hang up before you can tell them not to call you anymore.

So, let your answering machine take the call, if they hang up there will be no message, right? WRONG. The timing of their hangup is just perfect so that your machine answers, plays its message, and you get to record the phone company recording "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again...".

Like I said, execute the scum that use these. After the third scummer gets toasted, maybe they'll learn not to harass potential customers anymore.

Re:Impediments to telemarketing reform

[jat2]

Telemarketers are people too.

Yes. They are rude people who think they have a right to interrupt me and violate my privacy because they are too lazy to get an honest job. I am so sick of people saying "they're only trying to earn a living," refering to telemarketers. Elephant poachers are only trying to make a living. That doesn't excuse them! I have taken all the precautions to avoid telemarkets, and, for the most part, I only receive a call once every few months (and that is usually a wrong number). However, I still take it upon myself to give the caller the hardest time I can. My reasoning is this -- if everyone was incredibly mean and rude to telemarketers, few people would be willing to do the work and the cost of labor would be prohibitively high. Don't even get me started about the jackasses that actually buy something from telemarketers. If they would all just stop the problem would disappear.

Re:Don't answer

[nanoakron]

Here's an idea: Why don't you guys in the USA switch to the billing-style employed by the rest of the cellphone-enabled world, where the CALLER pays?

If the USA is all out for 'may the best economic model win' then it's settled - 70% cellphone usage in the UK proves that the non-US billing scheme is the best way to increase uptake and not penalise people for owning cellphones.

This is not US-bashing (a change for me) but an honest recommendation - go petition someone. Seriously.

And believe me, I'd be just as pissed off to recieve a cold call even though they are paying if it was to my cellphone - I consider that to be my private airspace.

-Nano.

Re:Damn cell companies...

[(714)liquid-X]

I'll tell you exactly what's happening.

There's a sub-industry within telemarketing called "voice broadcasting". These are the jerks who leave voicemail messages advertising various goods and services.

I used to work for a company who had an entire OC3 dedicated to doing this (their phone bill comes shipped on a crate -- litterally), so I know how their technology works. They get paid based on how many messages they leave. So, when a live person answers, their equipment cheerfully hangs up. Nice, huh?

Oh, and that partial message you received? I'll bet your voicemail system plays your personal greeting, and then pauses for a second and skips into an operator message that says "to leave a message, press one now or stay on the line" or some such thing. That pause between your greeting and the operator message throws things off -- it starts playing the message before your voicemail starts recording.

For fear of retribution, I can't give you any more info than that. If you do a google search on "voice broadcasting" you will probably be able to find the company responsible.