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Telemarketers Sue to Block Do-Not-Call List
chumpieboy writes "A story on Yahoo tells about about the DMA's attempts to stop a national DoNotCall list, essentially claiming that Opt Out is not a viable model for telemarketers. Yet they claim that Opt Out is a viable model for email marketing?"
"But telemarketers say 27 existing state do-not-call lists and a voluntary national list run by the Direct Marketing Association trade group should provide consumers enough protection."
I live in a State (CT) that has such a list but we still receive numerous unsoliticed calls and subsequent hangups when we inform them they've violated state law. Problem is that the state apparently doesn't have juristiction and/or not enough bandwidth to go after some of the out of state companies. I'm all for a Federal list.
buy a Telezapper or make your own with these tones. Simply put these on your answering machine before any speaking. The tones will play and will fool most of the remote machines into thinking you have a disconnected number.
Trolling is a art,
Its time for everybody to start posting telemarketers' phone numbers just like they did for the mail address of the spam guy.
- Telemarketers who have a prior or existing business relationship with you.
- Telemarketers who have received an express request from you to call.
- Telemarketers with whom you have an existing debt or contract.
- Telemarketers soliciting only donations for charities.
- Telemarketers who call your business.
Seems fair to me.I opt-out of EVERY spam email I receive. My state has laws which allow me to seek punitive damages for unsolicited bulk emailers who continue to send me email after I unsubscribe or opt-out. When I continue to receive spam from a company, I send them a nice form letter which cites the specific laws and the amount of damages I can sue them for.
(And I often go to a web page, perform a who-is, etc and send it to ALL of the company's emails I can find, be it advertising, licensing, technical contact, etc.)
Daily, between two different email accounts which have been widely used by spammers, I receive less than a spam a day.
Yeah, I've probably wasted a lot of my personal time getting angry and putting together email complaints, but I think its working so far.
The DMA loves state no-call lists, because state no-call lists only affect businesses within the state. A vast majority of telemarketing calls are state-to-state, which makes state-based no-call lists ineffective, since state governments have no authority to regulate inter-state commerce.
Unfortunately, even the federal no-call list will shortly become ineffective as DMA companies lay their US-based call-centers off and move their operations to India, where a leased T-3 link back to the states costs a whole lot less than the money they're saving by using Indian labor.
According to their (BS) argument, a required list would be too much trouble to use, even though they already "recommend" the use of their optional list to member companies.
Go sign up for the optional list now. And don't pay the $5 online fee . . . you can do it by mail for free.
Actually the state DNC lists ARE effective because by doing a substantial ammount of business in the states in questions the telemarketers have opened themselves to regulation. Trust me my brother and friend both work as analysts for telemarketing firms and they are VERY sure to make sure no one from a DNC list is called. The DNC lists do have teeth, and even if they didn't it would be futile to call on anyone on the lists because they have already stated their intention not to patronize telemarketers.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What you want is the asterisk pbx system.
http://www.asteriskpbx.org
Write your own AGI script that takes into account things like time of day, ringing caller id, etc etc.
If every handset in your house is an asterisk extension, and asterisk is the only telco-facing system, you will have 100% control of when your phones ring (and how, as asterisk will send any ring-pattern you want)
For legal reasons, you may want to have one other traditional phone plugged into the telco-facing network, with its ringer permanantly off. That way in the event of a PBX failure, you can still dial 911, but the phone will never ring.
I planned on doing this so my grandmother would _always_ go straight to voicemail, with no internal extensions ringing, whenever she tried to call me before noon.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I'm not sure if it's the right number, but it could be a starting point ! Have fun
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
"Please put this number on your do not call list," and in a week or two you won't get any telemarketing calls.
After signing up for the state and national do-not-call list a couple of years ago...i have not received one single telemarketing call. So in my experience it works.
As far as I know, the idea is not to give the Do Not Call list out to telemarketers, but to take the telemarketer's list, run it against the DNC list, and remove all phone numbers on the DNC list from the telemarketer's list.
Seems like that would be hard to abuse as you suggested.
Most of my family members live in Colorado, which has a working DNC list, and they've all signed up for it. My mother, who is retired and at home during the day at times, says it has significantly reduced the number of calls she gets. Since she also signed up for the DMA's DNC list, the only people that call her any more are scam artists who set up boiler rooms in Florida, and politicians, who (of course) exempted themselves from it. <wry grin>
Apparently she doesn't get many of those, however, because she never even lets them finish their spiel. ;>
Catherine
This is evidently not the case. Missouri AG Jay Nixon has collected a substantial amount of money from out-of-state telemarketers who violate the No Call Law.
http://www.ago.state.mo.us/nocalllaw.htm
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
An article pretty much similar to what I read the other day is here (Kennebec (ME) Journal Some quotes:
Maine launched its do-not-call initiative in September 2001 and experienced a surge last September when the state began offering online registration on the Internet. Maine forwards its names every month to the Direct Marketing Association, which maintains the registry.
Louis Mastria, spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association, said state do-not-call laws are growing in popularity -- as evidenced by the 7 million people who have signed on in just a couple of years. Another 8 million names are on the association's "telephone preference service" list, a voluntary do-not-call list that was created in 1985.
Mastria said telemarketers like the idea of do-not-call lists because it saves them money --and earns them goodwill -- if they avoid calling people who don't want to be called at home.
"Knowing in advance to not call customers who have said 'Don't call me' is embraced by the industry," he said.
So not only do we have the DMA endorsing Do Not Call lists, but many of the states who have them subcontract to the DMA to maintain them!
The article does go on to say that the many states which have their own lists are a logistical problem. It does mention the DMA's objection to a federal registry, but I'm unclear as to why they think that's worse than 50 states each with their own registry...
To receive fewer unsolicited telemarketing calls, you can register for The DMA's Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which allows you to "opt out" of national telemarketing lists. ...
There is a $5 processing fee for registering with the TPS service online. You will need a valid credit card to register online. We use secure payment transaction processing to protect your card information. This is the fastest way to begin to see the impact of fewer unsolicited telemarketing calls as a result of the TPS program.
Pay $5 to be left alone... aren't there laws against that
sort of thing? Extortion?
The FTC and the DoJ would be their worst enemy. If a national DNC policy became official and it is violated, then it is within the fed's jurisdiction to prosecute. The FTC has teeth that the DMA fears.
The DMA wants to keep the status quo of separate state DNC lists because they know that states aren't as likely to come after their members as the feds would and they know that state resources are limited. But if a federal-funded office like the FTC were to get involved...
Ironic that a national organization sues to keep a national law-enforcing office from becoming involved, isn't it?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10