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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."
Surveys are indeed a loophole here. Since Indiana's do-not-call list went into effect (which is a MAJOR success), I have gotten some thinly veiled "research survey" calls, which offer a free sample of a product as the compensation for participating. They're pretty few and far between, though.
I still can't believe that a legislature actually passed a reasonably effective and useful law, despite the opposition of lobbying groups!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
My first thought was that this list could cut down my telemarketing calls received by about 90%. But what is that you say? It may not apply to phone companies? Well, I suppose cutting my telemarketing calls received by 5% is still some sort of progress.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Now if We can just get a "Do Not Spam" List to go with the "Do Not Call" list.
First Post?
People Talking in Movie shows.. people smoking in bed.. people voting republican.. GIVE THEM A BOOT TO THE HEAD!
* ring ring *
Hello?
Hallo, dees iz Al Quaeda fund raising group, please geef uz moe-nee.
I'm on the National Do Not Call list!
Ah.. forgiff my mistake, American Infidel. I shall call next perzon on list. Haff a nice day.
No problem, g'day.
Trolling is a art,
I would personally like such a thing considering my volume of spam, but aside from anyone who lives by spamming, does anyone find issues with the extended concept?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I just signed up to the UK version, www.tpsonline.org.uk. It takes a month to work its way into the system, then I'm promised a big reduction in unsolicited phone calls, currently running at around 2-3 a day. As I have to work from home some weeks, so this will be a great relief. I'm glad you guys have it too.
Macka
Phase 1:All telemarketers stop for n months.
Phase 2: No fines = no funds to enforce law.
Phase 3: Resume telemarketing
Phase 4: Profit!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
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.
Hello Sir/Madam, while on your way to vote for Diamond Joe Quimby and donate to Guns for Tots, pick up some of our effective, 100% legal herbal Viagra substitute.
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.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i, j, k;
for (i = 100; i <= 999; i++)
for (j = 100; i <= 999; j++)
for (k = 0; k <= 9999; k++)
printf("(%03d) %03d-%04d\n", i, j, k);
}
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
I'm running for congress... would you be interested in switching to AT&T?????????
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.
My current solution is to use an auto-attendant wherein a caller needs to press my extension number to ring me. Now, their machine talks to my machine, and I never even hear a phone ring.
But I'd still like to cause them some pain.
Don't worry, they'll call you and ask if you want to sign up!
According to the ftc's website http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/ju mp.html
It'll be phased in over 8 weeks region by region starting in July. You can register either by a toll-free call, or online (Yea!).
Sometimes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut.
Yet Another Web Site
can be found here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/in dex.html.
[/end whore]
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
"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.
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.)
Now, you want to see a loophole - how about the exemption for anyone with whom you have a "business relationship". Bought a widget from me in the last 18 months - I'm exempt. I called you for product info in the last three months - you can feel free to start calling me whether I'm listed or not. Fortunately even in those cases (and I think with charities as well) you can tell that specific business/charity to stop calling and they must honor it.
Better still, they must start transmitting caller ID info - no more "ID unavailable" and must have a person on the line within 2 seconds of your answer (the telemarketers hate this since they can't cram in as many calls per person per hour with their predictive dialers).
The other giant loophole is that there are a variety of exemptions for financial institutions, airlines and telecom companies but it appears from the FTC web site that this could be just procedural in that they are already regulated by other agencies and it just needs some interagency coordination to bring those into the fold as well. Still, those exemptions bear watching. Perhaps someone more familiar than I am with the laws would care to comment.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The provisions for surveys are meant to prevent the government from fighting itself. The government, at various levels, spends billions of dollars per year funding survey research. My employer (the University of Wisconsin) recieves millions each year from the state alone.
If you feel a survey is not of academic nature then the call is illegitimate (per Wisconsin law) and the caller can still be punished. Since Wisconsin's do-not-call list went into effect at the beginning of this year we have recieved phone calls from various areas of the government ensuring our credibility.
A "Do Not /." List for websites.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Cool, and do-no-call activists can write up a nifty perl script that will register every number from 000-000-0000 to 999-999-9999.
./ member taking a few hundred thousand numbers.
Yes, I know that the above can be pared down considerably by removing invalid area codes and prefixes.
We could set this up as a distributed effort, with each
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Hook up ELIZA with her own voice and let the telemarketer spin their wheels for half an hour or so:
Telemarketer: Would you like to learn how to save on your long distance bills?
Eliza: Oh, i like to learn what to save on my long distance bills.
Telemarketer : Well, with our super saver program you can make long distance calls for just 39 cents a minute!
Eliza: Oh, i can make long distance calls for just 39 cents a minute.
Telemarketer: Uh, yes. So can I sign you up?
Eliza: You are sure?
Telemarketer: Um, yeah. Are you interested in signing up for our long distance service?
Eliza: Would you prefer if I were not interested in signing up for our long distance service?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
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 have always felt that abusing predictive dialers (by under-staffing the call center and simply hanging up on some percentage of your victims) was against the spirit of the law. Now it's against the letter of the law.