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Telemarketers to Target Cell Phones
sik puppy writes "According to this article on msnbc, telemarketers may soon be targeting cell phones." The article discusses how some of these will be accidental, but others will be in response to things like the do-not-call registry.
...for the squandering of my incoming minutes?
In the UK we've been getting SMS spam messages for years already.
Of course, the cost of sending these messages means that you don't get many, and they won't come with a 150KB attachment for no good reason.
Nokia? Motorola? Anyone listening?
(Pardon My referencing of the US code, i'm not a lawyer and thus don't know the proper way to cite things)
8 &mode=thread&tid=126&tid=111&tid=99&tid=12 3
Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Section 227, Article b, Item 1, Subitem B, Instance iii
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice 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;
Thus anyone using an auto-dialer (i.e. 99% of telemarketers) are inviolation of the law and subject to a $500 fine in small claims court.
See these for more info:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/227.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/05/11623
http://www.panix.com/~eck/telemarket.html
Ban telemartketing unless people explicitely opt-in.
Guy: Hello?
Telemarketer: Hello! I am running for Mayor in the City of Ritzville, so this is a political call exempt from the Do Not Call list. I am running for mayor on the platform of keeping our wonderful vacation timeshares as cheap as possible for the good bargain hunters. In fact, you can get this beutiful timeshare right on the beach for less than you might think. Would you like to hear more about these wonderful deals that happen to be in the city I'm running for mayor in? If so, press 1 to talk to a representative now!
What are telemarketers contributing to society? Why do we need to keep them employed? It is an unfortunate side-effect of our screwey economic system that everyone must be employed somewhere even if they are not doing anything productive.
Unless I missed something, the TCPA is still valid law, and it explicitly prohibits telemarketing of cellular phones, or any service where you have to pay by the minute.
:)
(47CFR64.1200)
(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;
Violation of this constitutes an automatic $500 in statutory damages, for which you can sue the caller. Plus, a judge can triple the damage award if you show that the caller knowingly violated the law.
Also, if the person in the article was getting prerecorded messages advertising something, that's probably not legit either:
(47CFR64.1200)
(2) Initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line
using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without
the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is
initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted by Sec. 64.1200(c) of
this section.
With all the hoopla about the do-not-call list these days, people seem to have forgotten about how powerful the TCPA is. You can actually sue and extract money from the people who pester you, typically in a small claims court, which makes it easy. With the do-not-call list, you file a complaint with the federal gov't, which passes the complaint on to your state's attorney general's offices, which may act on the complaint when they get around to it, and the state keeps the fine. Tell me which one sounds better to you?
(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Don't take this as legal advice.)
1) Put into their terms of service that the user agrees to use the phone company as an agent for their $500 Title 47 small claims court actions against telemarketers, giving the phone company a 50% cut of any awarded damages
2) Give users a special dial code to call immediately after receiving a telemarketing call, like you can use *57 for harassing calls
3) Deliver the telemarketing companies a weekly invoice for their calls to cell phones
4) No, this isn't the stupid joke you thought it was, move along.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Court in session, Glib Telemarketers are appealing a ruling that they can't call cell phones. Aide to judge notifies the judge that there's a call on his ultra-private emergencies only cellphone. Judge retires to his chambers to take the call...
Voice: "Hello. I'm Sodum, and I'm calling on behalf of Glib Telemarketers. Would you be interested in one of our free unlimited-credit credit cards today?"
Judge returns to court and sentances everyone at Glib Telemarketing to a slow and painful death.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This idea won't fly. The reason is simple: money. On landlines it costs nothing to receive a call, so consumers can complain but that's about it as far as the telephone carriers are concerned. Cel phones and SMS are a different story. When a telemarketer calls a cel phone or sends a text message, the phone's owner can point to a line on his bill and say "This unwanted call/message cost me $X.". Now the phone owner has proof of an actual dollar amount to go with his complaint, and he can demand reimbursement. If the phone carrier reimburses, it's going to turn telemarketing into a cost for the carriers and they're going to do something about it. If phone carriers refuse to reimburse, we'll see something like the junk-fax law passed ASAP. One way or another, when the telemarketers start generating provable costs to the recipients of their calls there's going to be a major backlash against the telemarketers.
Telemarketers, take note: if you won't compromise, if you insist that it's either no limits at all or nothing, you may find that the rest of us consider giving you nothing at all a perfectly acceptable outcome. :)
It seems to me that somebody could make a heck of a lot of coin by setting up a business specifically for the purposes of suing telemarketers.
You'd charge, say $20/offence, and require a form granting access to the customer's phone records and listing as much information about the call as possible (though time & date should be enough)... then go ahead and sue (maybe on behalf of hundreds of other people complaining about the same firm as well). Keep 90% of the judgement and send the remaining 10% to your client(s).
It sounds to me like you need the Anti-Telemarketing Counterscript.
-r
I believe there are some... and an increasing number that give you a certain number of (prepaid) incoming minutes that are included in the plan.
Don tinfoil hat: is it possible that the cellular companies instituted these plans precisely in order to be telemarketer-friendly?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I don't think they get the point that the national do-not-call registry allows cell phone numbers to be registered.
My cell number was registered on the list as soon as it was started. Telemarketers would have a nice $11k fine if they called me on it.
-bm
Because there's no marginal loss in terms of services. Paying by the minute is a vastly different concept, and they are undeniably wasting your resources. The only loss you incur picking up a plain old telephone and answering is the opportunity cost of having the phone line open when waiting for a call, or being on the phone yourself, which is arguably zero, as you can hang up at any time. With a cell phone, if I answer, hear it's a telemarketer, and immediately hang up, I'm officially losing 1 minute of airtime. In that model, the time lost is much more tangible financially.
--- What
I dont plan on having any telemarketers calling my cell.
Yes, and we know companies never use marketing tools that they fear we won't like. That's why webvertisers never use spam, pop-unders, stupid animated banners that cover the page....
How many millions did X-10 make from pop-unders? As they chuckled all the way to the bank, I somehow doubt they were shedding tears about my "annoyance and antagonism."
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
Boys, boys... When WILL you learn?
Turn those cell phones off, "to conserve energy". Say it; it rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? "Honey, I'm 'conserving energy'!" Then you cannot be called, period -- and almost no telemarketers are crazy enough to leave you a message. Check your messages from time to time, to see that your wife has a flat, etc, but leave the phone off when you're not checking messages or dialling out.
That's what I do... And, the side benefit is, no one is capable of bothering you. Consider this scenario:
Wife (to self): "I wonder where my husband is... The lawn's getting long and we have shopping to do. I think I'll call him and tell him to drag his butt home, I bet he's just in the bar with the boys anyway..."
Ring, ring, "Please leave a message."
Wife (out loud): "Dack, Nabbit! His cell's off! Ooohhh!"
(four hours later, sun going down, too late to mow).
Husband: "Wife, I'm home!"
Wife: (icily) YOUR CELL PHONE WAS OFF.
Husband: "Was it? I turned it on this morning... I wonder if the battery's going dead?"
Wife, grabbing cell phone and repeatedly stabbing the 'ON' button with her thumb: "YOU TURNED IT OFF!"
Husband: "Oh, yeah, I forgot, I was conserving energy... You yelled at me yesterday for turning all the lights on and..."
Wife: "AAAARGH!"
Husband: "Jesus, lose your temper, too. Man... I'm leaving! I'll see you later. While I'm gone, you think about your abusive attitude..."
(Husband goes back to bar. Wife calls mother and shrieks for half an hour straight. When husband gets back, wife is asleep and things are quiet).
Husband: "I win!"
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Telemarketers on cell phones bear a lot in common with junk mail faxes, which are illegal. Junkfax.org explains all about that, and why you should be hearing a cash register every time you get an ad for a cheap tropical cruise!
Telemarketer cell phone calls are similar to unsolicited telemarketer faxes in that the recipient of the ad is required to pay to get the message in front of them. It doesn't matter if it's toner and paper or minutes, the cost is there.
IIRC, cellular numbars are relegated to seperate 'precincts'. At least around here, you can tell which numbers are cell numbers and which are landlines by the second set of 3 numbers: 250, 251, 257, etc. for cell phones, 252, 253 for land lines. This might simply be due to the fact that seperate companies have control of these numbers, though.
What I wonder is how companies get cell phone numbers in the first place, to 'accidentially' call. Cell phones are all unlisted for a reason. This means they were either sold the numbers by the cell company, or they're randomly calling folks.
Going through numbers in random/sequential order is illigal, IIRC. It's considered right up there with prank phone calls and the like, which (again, IIRC) you can be prosecuted for if found out. The problem is, you can rarely find out precisely who called you. Phone networks don't exactly have whois. That, and the only realistic way to do something like this is a class-action suit. That involves a lot of dirt digging by many people - something that isn't practical in the least.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Arg, I'm tired of reading these turn your phone off responses, why should i have to take the burden of not being able to receive calls from others who know only to call if its IMPORTANT. You know IMPORTANT things cant just wait sometimes, things happen, the wives car won't start so you have to pick up Timmy from football practice.
But i should be the one to stop using my phone service because some companies cant go through the hassle of running their business correctly and ethically.
Hell, maybe people should move out of their house to their backyard to keep from getting a door to door salesman? --not the best analogy but good enough for this post
Wife: "Hello Mr. Locksmith, can you come over and change all my house locks? I'll make it worth your while (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) if you have it done before my no good loser of a husband gets back from the bar."
Wife (looking outside to husband who is waiting outside the home at 4am in the rain):
"I win!"