Slashdot Mirror
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?
(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
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!