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U.S. National Do-Not-Call Registry is Law
extra88 writes "Bush has signed the
Do-Not-Call Registry into law. The registry will be run by the FTC and funded by fees collected from telemarketers. Telemarketers can be fined up to $11K for calling someone on the list. Politicians, surveys (loophole?) and charities are exempt from using the list. The FCC oversees certain industries (airlines, banks and phone companies) and will have to "buy in" to the registry for it to affect those industries. Slashdot covered this story when the bill went through House of Representatives."
Why are surveys and charities exempt? They're no less annoying, and have no right to call you out of the blue either.
bkr
So, if someone calls from within the US, you can haul them to court where there's an $11K fine... but what if the call originates in... say... Tijuana? Ottowa? Bombay?
I get the feeling that, in order to survive, junk phone callers will resort to some dirty tricks.
...where are all of the loopholes that you just know are in there. maybe i'm a bit cynical by nature, but there has to be at least one big enough to drive a truck through. i know about the survey thing and the non-profit, but where's the real built-in escape for that $11k fine?
hmmm...
You know what? It's all their faults anyway. If they hadn't been so aggresive and so intrusive (I used to get around 15 calls from 6pm to 9pm ... right smack dab in the middle of dinner), they wouldn't have pissed off an entire nation of people and legislation like this wouldn't be required.
But they were, so it is needed.
Hm. I guess that thought applies to SPAM as well.
My comment to telemarketers: Here's a dime, go call someone who gives a damn (but make sure you check The Registry first!). As my mother used to say: you made the bed, now f**king sleep in it.
How the hell would I prove that a telemarketer called me? Is it my word against their word? Do I obtain phone records? Does the government obtain phone records? Now granted, my cell phone does a pretty good job of breaking calls down to incoming and outgoing, but I don't recall if it tells you the phone number of the incoming call on the bill Seems like yet another political feel good move that the government has no way of enforcing. Hey if it works and the iron the kinks out, then sign me up! Hell lets figure out how to do the same thing as spammers, since I think that cause more pain and cost more money.
Money not found! A)bort, R)etry, D)eclare Bankruptcy
How would you enforce it? I assume that most of my unsolicited telephone calls come from within the US, and are therefore subject to US laws.
The callers could move outside the US, but the cost of making the phone calls would increase dramatically.
However, it's easy for spammers to move outside the US to avoid an unfavorable law, and doesn't really change their costs much.
I see one potential problem here. Is the law prohibiting "Telemarketing calls" or "Sales calls".
I'm in a state that already has a list that I'm on and my volume of "Telemarketing calls" has gone up while I've recieved no "Sales calls". esentially the companies that call me just want to inform me that if I could request information from them on a certain product or service but they weren't calling me to sell said product of service.
BIG ASS LOOPHOLE that esentially gives telemarketers a big list of valid phone numbers.
Maybe to really screw the telemarketers, people could put their cell phone numbers on the list and wait for the calls to come rolling in (an FCC violation)
I used to work in a market research firm based in the US. However, we had a significant portion of our operations in Canada, specifically, our call centre. I know that alot of companies do this in order to take advantage of cheap wages available in Canada.
I wonder if this law takes into account companies operating out of different countries, or if this would be a way for telemarking companies to find a way around this. Since some of these companies are unscrupulous by nature, this might be a viable option to some.
Any insights?
"Telemarketers say the registry will devastate their business."
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If anything, a do not call list would help them reduce the costs by eliminating unnecessary phone calls. The people who sign up for this list are those who are least likely to purchase anything through a telemarketer. Now that they have a list of numbers not likely to buy anything, they can skip over that and save the cost of a phone call.
This law exempts charities, and will only apply to phone companies and banks if the FTC want it to... That means 90% of the telemarketers who call me are exempt. What's the use of that?
The FTC has limited authority to police telemarketing calls from certain industries, including airlines, banks and telephone companies. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees calls made by those industries, has been working with the FTC and is considering adding its clout to the program.
The FTC is CONSIDERING adding its clout?!?! Banks and telephone companies are the biggest telemarketers in the first place. If I get one more call about changing my phone company, credit card, or morgage (after I get on the list), I will [insert unlikely and irrational threat] the FTC!
Do me a favor and double it!
And I'm sure there are other ways such an enormous compendium of phone numbers could be abused.
Not that I'm saying this law is a bad thing. I'm thrilled about it. But I'm just listening for the other shoe to fall.
Gee, if everyone wants to be on this do-not-call list, don't you think your business model kind of sucked in the first place? Get a real job, losers! All I have to say is good ridance.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Thanks for making up my mind for me. I'd rather evaluate the merits of receiving telephone solicitations and make the decision to sign up on a do-not-call list myself, and I'm sure there are millions of others who agree.
And just so you know, some people LIKE to receive telemarketing calls, credit card offers, etc. Maybe they're lonely. Maybe they need toilet paper. It doesn't matter. If you sign me up for something that I didn't ask for, you are violating my privacy just as much as the guy who calls me in the middle of dinner.
> I do work for a company that does market-research. Read the law - there are reasonably strict restrictions on what counts as charities, surveys, etc. I may be in the minority but I have done focus groups and do reply to some surveys if I'm not otherwise occupied (well, I used to - working for a research company disqualifies me for most of the now). I hardly think that sending a FREE product, gift certificate, etc. as a thank-you makes a survey somehow evil. (I should note, we hardly do any call-out work and on the rare occasions we do we adhere strictly to the allowed hours and other restrictions.)
Your fundamental mistake here is that you still think your organization's got more rights to call me than I have rights to refuse to be called. A disturbance is a disturbance - I Don't CARE who is calling. Telemarketers == charities == political calls == surveys == undesired calls taking up my time.
Hey,
The callers could move outside the US, but the cost of making the phone calls would increase dramatically.
In the UK, some companies cut thier costs by moving thier telephone call processing facilities to India. It's actually cheaper to get a big international connection than paying a living wage.
Michael