41 Million Sign Up for National Do-Not-Call List

ejbst25 writes "The first wave of the do not call registry sign up ends 8/31. There is plenty of news coverage but they say there is already over 41 million numbers registered."

Comments

Cell Phone Number

[gsparrow]

Can telemarketers call your cell phone number? Do you need to put your cell number on the do not call list or is it already protected since you pay on a time basis?

Re:Cell Phone Number

[inimicus]

From the page:

"You can register your home and mobile phone numbers for free."

Almost makes me wish I still had my old cell-phone account with Caller Pays...

Re:Cell Phone Number

[afidel]

Right now any legal telemarketing company that is not incompetant will run as one of their first checks a national cellphone block check and remove all numbers that are from the cellphone number blocks. The exceptions would be new numbers that have not yet been registered. With telephone number portability this will become possibly less reliable because the FCC is thinking of making numbers portable between cellphone and landline services. If that comes to pass then telemarketers will be able to legitimatly state that they can not reliably block cellphones, at that time you may need to add your cell number to the national DNC list.

Re:Cell Phone Number

[Gleef]

gsparrow asks:

Can telemarketers call your cell phone number?
Of course they can. However, barring certain exceptions, it is illegal for them to do so if your name is on the national do-not-call list. Alternately, it is illegal for any telemarketer to call you if you have requested to be added to their own "do-not-call" list. Note: telling them "don't call me" or "take me off your list" might not be sufficient, you must ask to be added to their "do-not-call list".

Do you need to put your cell number on the do not call list
You don't need to put any number on the list, but it can be useful if you want the protection that the list offers. It could be especially useful for a cell phone, given the pricing structure of most cellular plans.

or is it already protected since you pay on a time basis?
My understanding is, the fact that you pay for time spent on incoming calls doesn't protect you in any way from any call. If anything, it makes you more vulnerable, and makes registering the number on the do-not-call more useful.

Re:Cell Phone Number

[Anonymous Coward]

She must be pretty busy, between that and yelling down to the basement for you to clean it up.

Re:Cell Phone Number

[Dharzhak]

My understanding is, the fact that you pay for time spent on incoming calls doesn't protect you in any way from any call.

Incorrect. From the Telephone Consumer Protection Act:

a.No person may
1.Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,
iii.To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call;

So, while cell phones are not protected from *all* calls, they are protected from those that use "an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice," which is a significant percentage since most telemarketing companies use an automatic dialer.

Hrmph. doesn't work for Canada it seems

[zptdooda]

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?

Re:Hrmph. doesn't work for Canada it seems

[SandSpider]

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

I knew it! Even the Canadians don't know it's a different country!

=Brian

Do not patronize

[Offwhite98]

My guess is the people who are not on the lists will now get more calls because there is a smaller pool of numbers to use. In that case, I would like to see a "Do not patronize" list for companies that bother people at home with sales pitches. If a company wants to get their word out, they will have to learn to use advertising and not my home phone.

good for 5 years

[LinuxHam]

I even signed up my cellphone just in case someone decides to repeal the law protecting our cellphones from unwanted solicitation calls. If you register prior to the deadline, your numbers are blocked as of October 1. If you register after the deadline, your phone will be blocked 3 months later.

Summarized

[TopShelf]

The whole story boils down to:

FROM: The American People
TO: The Telemarketing Industry

Fuck you.

Sincerely,
The American People

Re:Do-Not-Spam

[rylin]

Hi!
I run just such a service.

Please provide your email address so I can add it to the list.

Would you also like a copy of our daily news letter with funny jokes, links to herbal stores and mortgage help?

Bit of info....

[Akasha]

While the Do-Not-Call list does protect you from unsolicited calls from private groups, it does not protect you from non-profit groups (such as charities).

While I'm glad I some protection from telemarketers I know I am still going to get calls from the police asking for donations and silently threatening to ticket me if I don't donate.

Re:Bit of info....

[bryanthompson]

From the Do Not Call FAQ:

Q: If I register my number on the National Do Not Call Registry, will it stop all telemarketing calls?

A: No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most, but not all, telemarketing calls. You may still receive calls from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or companies with which you have an existing business relationship.

I think the allowed types of organizations are a lot more tolerable than someone trying to sell me into a book club.

Useless...

[Bull999999]

I signed up for it but I still get calls from my in-laws.

Re:Useless...

[Odin's Raven]

Bull999999 quoth: I signed up for it but I still get calls from my in-laws.

Didn't you read the exemption list?

Brother-in-law: Bull, we're a little short on cash this month, could you lend us a bit to tide us over until payday?
DNC Status: Exempt, charity call

Brother-in-law: Bull, would you rather keep working in that dead-end programming job, or get a great job selling Amway products like I do?
DNC Status: Exempt, poll

Sister-in-law: Bull-wife, I don't know why you stay with that good-for-nothing man of yours. You ought to kick him out and look for a better partner. There's a guy in my AA meeting who's an ideal candidate.
DNC Status: Exempt, political campaign

Mother-in-law: Bull, my daughter deserves someone better than you.
DNC Status: Exempt during first 18 months of marriage (purchased product from caller).

great

[Cyn]

Excellent reminder slashdot - thanks - I'd hate to miss out with the deadline only 2 days away... now I'll just hop on over to the site.... oh hmm well it's not responding. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be back before the deadline - I mean, it's not like it got slashdotted.

Oh.

Out of a total 110 million "households"

[Peter Simpson]

(from the US census) Now, I realize that's probably not a valid comparison, there are probably many more phones than "households", but it's got to be close (within an order of magnitude?).

That means 50% of the households don't want junk phone calls. I'd say that's a pretty big "get stuffed" to the telemarketing industry.

And those are only the ones that cared/figured out/remembered to sign up!

Congress & FTC...are you listening?

Re:Out of a total 110 million "households"

[Sphere1952]

"That means 50% of the households don't want junk phone calls. I'd say that's a pretty big "get stuffed" to the telemarketing industry."

That means 50% of the households don't want junk phone calls so badly they rushed to sign up the instant they heard about it.

You get 50% doing anything in the U.S. and that means there's 49% that just didn't get around to it.

In other news

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The government has managed in a surprisingly small amount of time to compile a database linking phone numbers and email addresses with 41M entries.

I'm sure it'll be used only for opt-in telemarketting. I mean, what else could be done with such a database?

Re:In other news

[aardvarkjoe]

You've got me. What could be done with a database of email + phone numbers?

Now, what's really frightening is that somebody has created a database linking phone numbers with names and home addresses. Imagine all the horrible things that could be done with this.

Watch out for the new ticks

[_LORAX_]

Be wary of the following if you have signed up for the list.

• Freebies: Often they come with the fine print that you exempt yourself from the list for 18 months.
  
• Sweepstakes: Ditto
  
• Checkout phone requests: If you give them your # they can call you
  
• Many many other tricks
  

Basicly there are only a few cases where you can legitimatly recieve calls.

• Charities
  
• Politicians
  
• To set up a personal meeting where no selling occurs over the phone
  

So just watch the fine print on anyhting that you put your phone # on or you could end up making the DNC list useless.

Re:This would be great if it worked

[N7DR]

I am on the Colorado list. Not long ago I got a call and, since I had nothing much better to do, talked to the telemarketer nicely to extract as much info as possible (since it's my experience that as soon as you take a combative approach, they hang up before you've got enough information to report them).

I then went to the Web site to report them. The Web site makes it clear that the whole do-not-call system only works properly if violators are reported. So I went through a few pages of filling out forms with all the tedious details of the call. Then I hit the "submit" button and get a "your submission could not be processed" error.

OK, thinks I. This is because the morons expect me to be using IE. So I went through it all again using IE instead of Firebird. Same thing.

So I send them an e-mail at the mailto address, telling them that I wanted to report a violation and was unable to do so because the web site repeatedly gave me an error when trying to process the information.

I never heard anything from them.

I'm not sure what to conclude from this story. But I ended up being even more ticked off at the state government than I was at the telemarketer. And that's a pretty high threshold to reach.

I sure hope that the national list has a more effective mechanism for reporting offenders.

Here is how one guy got 'em good...

[twoslice]

Tom Mabe

He went to a telemarketing convention and got a hotel room under an assumed name, dialed up rooms at random trying to sell them shit in the wee hours of the morning. He has produced a CD on it and it is quite funny to see telemarketers really pissed at him...

Got shell scripting?

[JiffyPop]

Am I the only person with a strong urge to write a program to put every number in the US on the list? :) A little wget in a loop, an email parser that waits for messages from register@donotcall.gov... would hardly be impossible.

That would be an incredibly huge finger to give the telemarketers

Re:This is a horrible idea

[boarder]

"At the end of the day, you've taken away jobs and hurt the economy. That's why this is a bad idea."

That is the worst and most idiotic argument for telemarketing I've ever heard... and it is the exact one that telemarketers use.

Yes, it will take away jobs, but you know what? I don't give a crap. Screw those people for taking a job harassing me. It's called capitalism: the market doesn't want them, so they don't prosper. Would you complain if they made SPAM illegal?

As for hurting the economy, I doubt that will matter in the long term. Sure, there will be a lot of lost jobs; but they aren't highly skilled/trained jobs, so those people can move to any other unskilled labour position. The market will adjust.

41 million people DON'T WANT THEM CALLING! That's about as many people as voted for G.W.Bush. I'm on the DMA's no call list, and I still get calls... that shows their self-regulating DOES NOT WORK!

Re:This is a horrible idea

[El]

At the end of the day, you've taken away jobs and hurt the economy. That's why this is a bad idea.

That's why it's a bad idea to pass laws against those people that stand on streets asking for money, then screaming obscenities at the people that don't give them any... you see, if you make this illegal, than you've taken away these people's jobs and hurt the economy. Liquor stores and drug dealers in your city will be forced out of business! Think of the children!

Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Unsolicited callers are clearly infringing on MY rights. If you've got a business model that requires you to make cold calls to attract suckers, I would suggest that you don't have a business model, you've got an extortion racket.

wow, thanks for making my point

[boarder]

"You could have requested to be added to the do
not call lists for each individual call center,
and eventually you'd have been removed from all
the call centers."

Umm, I do just that. Every time any telemarketer calls while I'm home, I tell them that. I also ask them if they are a member of the DMA (which most aren't). This will NEVER stop the illegal auto-dialed calls... it also doesn't stop the calls that come from companies that hang up if they call you and THEIR reps aren't available to talk to you (but keep your number in their list). One company called twice a day for 3 weeks only to hang up because nobody was there on their end (I called the atty general to file a complaint and finally got the issue resolved).

The whole point is that saying "put me on your do not call list" DOES NOT WORK. And, even if it did, it would take a year to get through to every call center that might call me if I waited for them to call. Not only that, but once I move and change phone numbers, the calls start right back up... a central do not call list allows me to quickly stop those calls again.

"And if they called you back within 10 years,
you could sue them. That's the law."

Have you tried to sue a telemarketer for calling? I have. It is not easy, and I did end up giving up. First off, getting the necessary info from them takes knowledge of what you need. Next, you have to go through a long, arduous process of court systems and contacting call centers and proof and stuff like that. It sucks.

"You're probably also the kind of person who
gets mad if we call as early as 8AM or as late
as 9PM, aren't you? Well, that's the US law, so
if you don't like it, contact your government
and get your laws changed."

Ummm... excuse me? Isn't that EXACTLY what this story is about? We, the U.S. people, are saying we don't want you to call. The government is finally listening and changing the law. Now, the telemarketers are getting angry. They don't like it? That's the law, as you say.