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FCC Proposes Fining AT&T Over DNC Violation
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The FCC has just announced a proposed $780,000 fine against AT&T for violating the recently enacted Do Not Call telemarketing rules. The FCC charges that AT&T marketers called 29 consumers on 78 different occasions after those consumers had signed up on the Do Not Call list. The FCC has posted a press release (pdf) to this effect on their web site."
Glad to hear that there is an enforcement of the DNC happening...getting legal precedent set is important, so that we know that the law is truly in force.
On a practical note, this way when the telemarketers call, we can know that we're dealing with a felon, and proceed accordingly.
can you hear me now?
I guess not...
Personally, I support the DNC list - I hate being interrupted at all hours of day or night for solicitations. My motto? - If I want your product/service - I'll come to you to find out what you have to offer.
The FCC isn't messy around when they give it dry!!
The journey is better then the end.
let them email me at netdemon@netdemonz.com
i'll take care of them
me and my alien death ray
I say this is great because if AT&T gets fined, it shows that nobody's above the rules and will send a message to all the smaller telemarketers who might be tempted to ignore the DNC. It's nice to know that nobody, no matter how big or small, is above the rules.
On the other hand, as we all know, the DNC is hotly contested in court as possible free speech violations, among other things. I don't think the courts really care about the small telemarketer and their rights, but someone with the size, lobbying ability, and lawyer teams that AT&T has really could put up a good fight to the law.
It's a nice precedent to see AT&T fined for this, but I hope it doesn't backfire.
SEARCHING FOR SIG
SIG NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.
This is based on the rules that have long been in place that you can request that a company put you on their internal do not call list.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
I guess the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
Having a DNC list is great and all, but if you either can't or don't enforce it, it's worthless.
I'd say AT&T is testing their limits, seeing what they can get away with. If the FCC lets them go on this one, I suspect the DNC list will become pretty useless.
no comment
I'm glad to see AT&T being held accountable in particular. I've got a personal vendetta, you see... they called us all the time before the DNC, trying to get us to switch to them as long distance providers. Despite never agreeing to switch to them, we suddenly began recieving bills for long their long distance program. The funny thing is, we never use long distance... that's what cell phones are for. Suckers.
if ATT etc move their callcenters to India/China, will they still be bound by USA law ?
It must all be a mistake.
Surely the consumers had opted-in with a business partner.
Caution: Do not look into laser beam with remaining eye.
That's particularly interesting, since isn't it AT&T that was contracted to run the Do Not Call registry? I guess they really have no excuse for not following it...
-- dR.fuZZo
Figure that 1 out of 100 consumers who receive calls in violation of the DNC submit compaints.
Out of 300 who complained (probably slightly less, since some may have complained multiple times), 29 of them were accepted, or about 1 in 10.
So one could assume that for every violation that was reported, investigated, and verified, about 1000 went unpunished.
So the actual penalty comes out to about $10 per actual violation, reported or not.
According to this article the fine is not for violating the recently enacted DNC list, but rather for violating separate FCC rules. Specifically if someone asks you to remove their name from your list you are required to do so.
What is also interesting is AT&T's reaction in the above article, as I have had telemarketers call me offerring me things like identity theft protection on my AT&T Universal card, yet they aren't at all affiliated with AT&T.
ATT's press release, stating that:
We want to stress that this FCC investigation is not based on the nationwide do-not- call list that went into effect in October. Instead, it concerns claims by customers who believed they were on an AT&T-specific list and received a call they think was from AT&T.
I am impressed. The DNC registry has worked for me. I used to get calls all the time. The only people who call now are the bill collectors. I did get one charity, which quickly added me to their DNC list after I queried why they were calling me and I got one real pollster doing a real poll, which I don't actually mind.
The only thing left is for the year to end so that the Must Transmit Caller ID information is in force. I thought it took effect the same time as the DNC, but it doesn't actually take effect to the new year. Anyone automated calling to your house must transmit caller ID information and they have to take proactive steps to actually transmit the information. No excuses.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
this shit is just bizarre .. it must come from some emotionally disturbed 12-year old's journal. Time to get all zero-tolerance on his ass if you ask me.
It would be nice to see them actually enforce the list. Levy the fines.
Evolution or ID?
Too sad it is an american court and too sad I already know the result.
$780,000 for AT&T? Isn't this just a slap on the wrist for such a big company? Maybe it will frighten the smaller companies into compliance, but I'd rather hear that a large number of smaller violators were being fined, instead of a big player being singled out.
The question is will they give any of this money to the people bothered by the calls? They were probably bothered once or twice during dinner, or at some other point of the day, but they took the time to call AT&T about it, and were called anyway... Maybe, just maybe, they will get some of this `pain' reimbursed...
AT&T Called me about a week after the list was turned on.. of course I got the name and number of the person calling me and then explained that I'm on the DNC list. Would believe she freaked out and asked to not be identified or report her company.
I was like "I've been bombarded by spam from all directions for the last 15 years.. it's on my truck, my answering machine, my email and the d**n phone. You bed your telemarketing arse I'm reporting you."
I did however leave her last name out of the complaint but ya know what.. at work if I screw up the FAA can fine me 10k.. they should be just as careful.
They were calling to sell me broadband access... but they made sure to preface their call with "you recently purchased a laptop from us". As this Do Not Call thing swings into use I forsee the value of knowing who companies sell their products to significantly more valuable than it's ever been. It used to be that only Radio Shack asked who you were ... get used to EVERYONE doing it ... because they'll be able to partner with other retailers and cross-sell products using that loophole in the Do-Not-Call law.
Here's a telemarketing situation where I'm just waiting for the payoff. Our office has several blocks of 100 numbers each, most of which aren't in use and are forwarded to the front desk (because a client may have an old number). Some months ago a mortgage company started autodialing our blocks. Our receptionist went from calm to frothing at the mouth in 60 seconds flat, and eveyone else was getting either a hangup call or a voicemail left for them.
I called the 800 number in the voicemail I personally received, got a manager on the line in record time (it helps if you sound like you want to confirm your satellite recon for the imminent airstrike) and explained that we had a block of numbers, that they were calling ALL of them and to please stop right-fucking-now. I then did the usual bit about do not call lists and a copy of the policy (which I never got). The do not call list was tough, since numbnuts didn't grok the "I have several hundred consecutive numbers" part very well.
The next day they did it again. I got another manager on the line, who was significantly less than understanding about the whole affair. In point of fact, he seemed dismissive of the whole fact that I had complained the day before and tha the was perhaps a bit offended that I was trying to interfere with his attempt to rescue a failing mortgage business. I reminded him about the FCC's $500 per call regulation and he got offended. Go figure. Apaprently the fact that the Federal government might put him out of business wasn't a factor in his worldview. I rang off.
And called the local police department and reported a couple hundred harassing phone calls. I leaned heavily on the second manager's attitude toward my request of the previous day and on his utter disregard for Federal codes covering his business. I named both managers in the complaint. These guys are less than fifty miles from us and in the same state, so it could happen.
We have a case number. Some day they'll screw up, and then a telemarketing manager will do the Perp Walk. I'll be sure to put whatever details I can on a website so we can all share the joy.
Why the hell is this "proposed"? It should just be - the law's in place, ATT is violating it, and they should pay the fine - end of story.
Jeezus, I'd love to have a "proposed" fine the next time I get a speeding ticket.
Seeing AT&T held to better business practices can only be a good thing, I think, even if it takes a hefty fine for them to see it.
By way of example:
Up until I got a cellphone a few months ago, I had long-distance from them, then decided to shut off the service afterwards. After calling and doing so (and being asked if I wanted service again, in the same breath as they told me they closed the account), it took weeks and three more phone calls (along with 3 more attempts to sign me up again) before my account was finally zeroed out with the last payment i'd sent.
And then on top of that, until just last week I was recieving overdue notices on a balance of $0 and postal letters trying to bribe me into signing up again. Took two more phone calls and an email ripping into them for their practices to finally stop it...Just unbelieveable.
But when I tried to file a complaint the interface was down, then I got really busy and spent a lot less time at home (I suspect the calls still come, they just probably ring out on the answering machine now).
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
AT&T's quarterly gross profit ending 6/30/2003: 4.129 billion (read the nearest 10Q)
:-)
:-D
Divide by 90 to get daily revenue (approx): 45.8 mil
Divide 780,000 (the fine amount)into that 45.8 mil and you get 17% of their daily revenue for last quarter...
IMHO that isn't a whole lot...tho that's an FCC warning shot probably
Disclaimer: I'm not the best at math, make your investment decisions elsewhere please
...in bed
I'm not suprised in the least that AT&T got tagged for violating their own (not the FCC) DNC list. They are one of the most relentless telemarketers.
I was getting about a call a week from them when I finally demanded to be placed on their DNC list. Immediately sfter the request, they began calling 2-3 times a week.
When I asked why they kept calling, they lamely said it took 6-8 weeks for the DNC request to be propagated throughout all of their call lists. Only after roughly 8 weeks (and my launching into a profanity laced tirade on each call) did the calls cease.
I got a telemarketing call "from a 501 3c" who was offering me a loan at "a great rate". As this particular "charity" was not listed with the IRS, I reported them for both a DNC violation (calling me) and a fraud violation (claiming to be a charity but not). I hope those a-holes fry.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
If they don't enforce it or lose in court, we're back to square one.
And now you can get fined for swearing at a telemarketer... what the f#$@!?
With all the potential revenus from the fines... who gets to profit from it?
It's not like the FCC needs 3/4 of a M$ to stay afloat.
Is the money re-injected in federal-funded communications?
Last week, I got a telemarketer call - yes, I'm on the DNC list. I started slyly asking them,"so, what's the name of your company, again?" Then asked them, "what number are you calling from?"
The lady then freaked-out saying that,"You're oon the DNC list! We're downloading the list now." and gave a bunch of other incredibly stupid reasons why they were breaking the law. In the mean time, I kept repeatedly asking for the number. They never gave it to me.
So, I repported them to both the Federal and the State. And on the State's (GA), I placed in my complaint that the company refused to give me their number.
I have a funny feeling that nothing will come of it, since I didn't get their number.
Which leads me to another issue, how do you file a complaint when these shitheads know to game the system? Is the FCC just going after the big fish in hopes of curtailing the little fry? Which means, the little fry can make calls with impunity?
My 3 cents
There is no spoon or sig.
1. Get a Caller ID Box. Your telco probably will charge you a fee for sending the information, since as they see it, you might decide not to answer the phone based on who is calling and therefore they will not earn the connection charge on the call. 2. Block Withheld Numbers if you live in a jurisdiction where withholding your number is still legal. Your telco probably will charge you for this, but it's worth it. {before I had mine blocked, I used to say to Number Withheld: "Are you a paedophile? Because your number is withheld." That saw them off. On my mobile, where there is no such service available, I have to resort to doing an impression of a recorded announcement: "Anonymous calls are not welcome on this line. If your business is important you may ring back without withholding your number. Goodbye." 3. Don't say anything if you don't recognise the caller's number. This spins them out, because they think it could be an answering machine. A legitimate caller will ask for you by name. A sleazeball telemarketer will just hang up. 4. Ask them how they got your number. This distracts them from the purpose of the call and maybe gets them into an infinite loop. 5. If all else fails, remember that it is your line, and you are under no obligation to be polite with unwanted callers. Any obligation of politeness would fall on the originator, not the recipient. I think the best solution would be for the do-not-call list to be in the phone directory, by placing a symbol next to the numbers of people who did not wish to receive unsolictited sales calls. I'm not so anti-social that I'd consider going ex-directory, because that would jeopardise things for people who might have a legitimate reason to call me {and because I like looking up my name in the new phone book every 18 months or so, it gives me a kick without harming anyone else}. Having the "do not call" list in the phone book itself would be almost foolproof. Everyone with a phone line gets the phone book, so there would be no shortage of witnesses to the fact that your number was on the list. The only downside is that you might have to wait till the new directory was published in order to get your name properly DNC'd. But the telemarketing companies could be made to subscribe to an update list as a condition of their operating licence.
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
I hipped up to the "put me on your do not call list" trick a long time ago, but recently I started getting woken up (I work late shift) by recordings...long ones! What's at the end???!? "leave your number if you would like to be called by a rep. at a later time concerning this offer". Great so I can either get called by another equally annonying call the next morning or I can request a call from a rep. at which time I will be added to their explicit "Call" list.
Has anyone else experienced this??
How have you handled this?
I've told a few telemarketers that the number they called was on the Do Not Call list... and they all said, you have to tell us you are on the DNC list.. That's horse crap right? Do they have acccess to the list?
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
All the bastards? We're going to need a bigger wok.
If we have to have a Big Brother (which apparently we do), at least it's nice to have one that will beat up people who keep bothering you.
Someone posted the opinion that $780,000 is just a slap on the wrist for a company as big as AT&T. Somehow, I doubt that AT&T will agree with that sentiment. IMHO, a fine of $10,000 per phone call is excessive. Perhaps the FCC has previously warned AT&T to honor DNC requests; the article fails to mention this fact & I couldn't be bothered to read the FCC's press release. If they've never even warned AT&T in the past, this is overkill. I'm not a big fan of AT&T, not for that matter the FCC... I'm just of the opinion that the punishment should fit the crime.
A quick Google search turns up the history. To summarize, it's a matter of whether or not commercial interests have the same rights as citizens. The Nike case that the Supreme Court recently dimissed highlighted very passionate arguments from both sides of the issue of Corporate Personhood.
The DNC does restrict speech. It restricts the ability of a telemarketer to call you up and talk to you. "Free speech" in its most literal form cannot be taken to mean anything different. However, the Supreme Court has ruled numerous times that several forms of speech are not protected. Libelous or slanderous speech is not protected. Speech that leads directly to physical harm, such as the classic "yelling, 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" is not protected. Speech that somehow violates your property rights, such as political or religious campaigning on your doorstep or in your house is not protected. For many years, neither was commercial speech in many ways, and discrimination of content based on the fact that it is commercial in nature has been allowed. This is the discrimination that the telemarketers seek to attack.
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Once you make a DNC request, the company is not allowed to call you for 10 years. That is as straight forward as it gets.
2 003/db1103/FCC-03-267A1.pdf
:"... We note, however, that unsolicited facsimile advertising is unlawful under section 64.1200(a)(3) of our rules even when a consumer has not requested that such transmissions be halted."
The part where it gets interesting is that you cannot bring about your own private right of action unless they call you at least twice, in violation of your DNC request, within a single 12 month span. So only on a third call, assuming that you had made the demand at least twice before, can you sue, however you can bring about action for all the violations once your private right of action exists. The most recent FCC M&O did not change the rule.
Here is the URL for the spanking that FCC is giving AT&T. http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/
For those keeping up with such things, there is a good footnote for those against junk faxers.
#23
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Law was passed saying don't call people on the DNC list, or get a $10,000 fine. AT&T repeatedly called people on the list, AT&T gets fined. What could be simpler?
5. If all else fails, remember that it is your line, and you are under no obligation to be polite with unwanted callers.
..." and i said back "they could have always hung up"
i actually got into an arguement with my roommates over this. when i had a land line i would answer telemarketing calls and if it was a woman either 1. hit on her 2. describe acts with me and her with unmentionable pieces of our bodies. or 3. tell them i had sex with their mother/their mother was dead. stuff like that.
my roommates mad fun of me saying they could sue me and i was like "how they called me" and they were like "but you said
had a lot of fun doing this. one time i kept a telemarketer on for 70 minutes just making them redo their script like "ok tell me more about this" then say "i don't have any money" they were so scripted that they would just keep going.
about the don't call me again thing. i had ADT call me 3 times a week when i first moved into my condo. after about 3 weeks i told the guy to come down and would always schedule a time i wasn't home. funny thing was they kept calling back.
I interrupted the sales rep two or three times, saying each time, "Please put me on your do not call list." Eventually, he stopped his canned presentation and started going through another script -- a rather long-winded speech telling me that it would take up to 30 days before I was removed from their call list.
My reply was, in essence, "It better not take 30 days. There is no provision for a delay on your part within the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Remove my name from the list immediately." The rep maintained that it could take 30 days.
What I wonder, though, is this: Can I really get onto them, via the FCC or whoever, if they call me back within the 30 day period? I honestly don't know if the TCPA gives a grace period or not. Plus, I'm curious if the 30 day period will play in AT&T's defense against the FCC's suit.
Wow. That's quite a bit to remember. I make it simpler. The only reason I even have a land-line is because my home security system and DirecTV both insist on having a land-line. So, I have a land-line, but I do NOT answer it--unless I accidentally set off the alarm. :) The land-line rings constantly, but they are only marketers.
To this point, no marketer has called my mobile phone. Even so, I just ignore all 'Unknown' calls.
Your right of free speech stops at my mailbox. The constitution does not give you the right to electronically barge your way (uninvited) into my home, demand the use of my equipment and ink and paper supplies to present your message, shifting all your selling costs to me without my permission or request.
0 3/022705P.p df
Can you imagine a whole new class of "door-to-door" salesmen who knocked on your door, entered your house uninvited, demanded the use of your possessions, showed their product and then claimed that you had no right to stop them because it would violate their right of free speech?
The TCPA has been around for over 10 years now and has been upheld to be constitutional, but that doesn't prevent lawyers from trying the same old arguments again and again. They include: Destination Ventures, Ltd. v. FCC, 46 F.3d 54, (9th Cir. 1995), and Moser v. FCC, 46 F.3d 970 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1161. See also Kenro, Inc. v. Fax Daily, Inc., 962 F. Supp. 1162 (S.D. Indiana 1997). Linder v. Thrifty Oil negates the popular "minimal harm" argument.
Because cert to the US Supreme Court was denied in the 9th Circuit, it means that the operating law is the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which unanimously upheld the TCPA as constitutional. The 9th Circuit is the largest of the 13 federal circuits so this ruling holds a lot of weight. It covers California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands. In addition, federal district courts in three circuits have also upheld the constitutionality of the TCPA.
An 8th Circuit District Court (Eastern District of Missouri) judge ruled (March 13, 2002) that the TCPA is unconstitutional. The judge was none other than Rush Limbaugh's uncle, Steven Limbaugh, Sr. Limbaugh's bogus ruling was reversed, as we predicted, by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 21, 2003. (it is important for you all to understand the differences between a ruling being reversed, remanded, or otherwise directed. Reversed pretty much means that something was in such gross error, it should have never existed.)
http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/03/
More infor can be found at junkfax.org
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Is $780,000 a high enough fine to make AT&T stop violating the law?
Digital Citizen
You'd be emotionally disturbed if CmdrTaco invited you over to watch anime and then made you suck his meat popsicle!
I thought they had attacked the RNC.
You have a "proposed" fine when you get a speeding ticket. When a police officer proposes that you have a fine, you can either accept or challenge that proposition.
If you accept the proposition, then you pay the police officer. In this situation, the fine is no longer merely a "proposed" fine, it's an actual fine.
If you challenge the proposition, then you go to traffic court. If the judge finds you not guilty, then the proposition is dropped and there is no fine. On the other hand, if the judge finds you guilty, then the once-proposed fine becomes an actual fine, and you have to pay it. However, the judge may impose a lesser sentence depending on the exact circumstances of the case. (I think it's unlikely he could impose a greater sentence, but maybe that's possible?)
davidh
Is when I already am a customer and they keep calling me. I obviously know who they are, since I'm using their service and paying them monthly.
They already advertise by sendming me a bunch of joke with my bill.
Why must they call me as well?
Both my cable company (comcast) and my phone company (cingular) continue to do this.
Actually, CNN just reported that this has nothing to do with the DNC registery but existing laws that were in place previously that ordered companies to maintain their own lists (and in this case violating by calling people who told AT&T not to call).
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Interestingly enough, I believe that att may actually not fight the fine. Fighting it would be a PR nightmare. How can they justify with public support the position that they have to call people who explcitely desire to not be called?
Fining att was a smart move by the fcc. If it was some scumbag telemarketing company that got fined they would probably care less what their PR appearance was.
love is just extroverted narcissism
They aren't that well researched in the demographics department. Here's a typical sample with the cast of AT&T Rep and myself:
AR: We're offering a special long distance package for you. May I ask who provides you with your long distance service?
Me: Yes. I don't have a long distance service.
AR: You don't have one?
Me: Yes.
AR: Sir, do you make any long distance phone calls?
Me: No. (pause to enhance clueless consumer effect)
AR: Sir, we'd like to-
Me: (interrupts) Actually, yes, I make local long distance phone calls.
AR: You don't have a long distance service provider but you make local long distance calls?
Me: Yes.
AR: How is that sir? Do you use pre-paid phone cards?
Me: No.
AR: Uh... How do you place local long distance calls sir?
Me: I use my mobile phone.
AR: And, sir, who is you wireless phone service provider?
Me: AT&T.
AR: Oh... (long pause)... Thank you for your time sir, you have a good night.
I've had this conversation with AT&T three times now. The novelty has not yet worn off. I wonder when they'll compile a list of existing customers, so they can save money on long distance calls.
=D
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
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Was it really necessary to name this woman and possibly get her fired? I mean she probably makes slightly more than minimum wage and is just trying to put food on the table for her children.
Well at least being an anal retentive prick is a good quality to have if you are working for the FAA.
The amount comparsed to gross/net/whatever doesn't matter -- As long as telemarketing costs more (in fines) then the profit from sales, then the fines will be effective, it just might take a little longer.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Host a basic webpage, including your physical location (city/state/whatever).
Google does the rest.
Trust me, if I care about theatre, I'll find you.
about the don't call me again thing. i had ADT call me 3 times a week when i first moved into my condo. after about 3 weeks i told the guy to come down and would always schedule a time i wasn't home. funny thing was they kept calling back.
Answer their next call with "Back for more, huh?" and go from there.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
That the judge is Rush Limbaugh's Uncle is a fact [1] irrelavent to the topic. He ruled based on what he thought was right. Linking something he does to being related to someone else is flamebait unless you intend to accuse him of some sort of fraud. You undercut your argument by making most of your point stand on being related to someone controversial.
[1]I'm assumeing your claim of relation is correct.
Has anyone else noticed that AT&T is becoming increasingly desperate in their marketing tactics? From relentless telemarketing for long distance to constant advertisements for AT&T cellphones. Nearly every day I get some sort of ad in the mail for an AT&T cellphone. It sounds to me like AT&T is dying. They no longer have the ability to rape people on long distance charges and most people who have their crappy wireless service drop it after the contract is up, so their business must really be falling off. It really does not surprise me at all that AT&T would violate telemarketing regulations, as dense as they are. Next large telecom bankruptcy: AT&T.
Got a call from one of these sleazebags (after 9:30pm) and after I whipped out the DNC on them they backpedaled and said they were simply conducting a "Survey" of my attitudes on long distance - and therefore were exempt from the DNC.
... blah blah blah ..."
..
You know the kind of survey - with questions like - "Did you know that AT&T now has the lowest per minute rate
Phuckers - hope they all burn in hell
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
AT&T Consumer and Business Services is a different company from AT&T Wireless.
I don't mean independantly operated, I mean a different company.
AT&T Wireless moved from independant operation to independant in 2000 over 3 years ago.
Trust me, if you had been foolish enough to buy the stock (AWE) you would remember.
The Credit Card is yet another non AT&T company carrying the AT&T brand.
If that's all the violations they've had then they have done quite well. Or I should say thier contractors have done well.
The problem with fines is that they end up being looked at as the cost of doing business. We need more appropriate penalties for corporations. Corporate death penalty, anyone? What would be analogous to imprisonment for a publically-traded company?
Did anyone else read "DNC" as that or am I the only strange one here.
(and I'm Canadian too!)
This isn't the national DNC registry that's been debated to the (n+5)th degree in recent months - that's the Federal Trade Commission, not the Federal Communications Commission. This is the older set of rules where you could inform individual companies not to contact you again.
Don't you love alphabet soup?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Or, another way to look at it was simply that, after a number of strange occurances including moving the case from the area where it happened to an area where there was tremendous racial support for OJ, there was a bad jury verdict, and that just about any 12 reasonable people would have indeed found him guilty in criminal court.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The funny thing is, I didn't know that the "Democratic National Commitee" had anything to do with the FCC.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
...to this problem. We simply require all telemarketers to make calls with the 'telemarketing' bit set on. That way the calls can be automatically screened out.
You know, just like the 'copy protected' bit that the RIAA/MPAA is insisting needs to be there to protect *their* rights??
AT&T Government Services actually "runs" the DNC list, but, AT&T is telemarketing and not using the DNC list. One would think that it wouldn't be too hard for them to even get a copy of the list, since a different division of their company runs it.
Maybe their version of "prior business relationship" is when you signed up on the DNC list.
I disable sigs...do you?
Judge: "What say You AT&T?"
AT&T: "Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram) this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense!"
Why would a Wookiee - an eight foot tall Wookiee - want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major telecommunications company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation - does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
"If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests."
Jury: "We The Jury believe that Chewbacca lives on Endor."
Judge: "Judgement is for the Defense."
===================
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Indeed true, but at only 17% of their daily revenue, the fine is so small AT&T would barely notice the issue. Pictre it as the difference between a parking ticket fine of $30 vs. a DUI fine of $600, which one would you notice more? The $30 may not get you to change your behavior, but the $600 sure might (if you're a middle class income in the U.S.A. assuming).
...in bed
It doesn't need to sting to the company as a whole, it just needs to be sufficiently high that it overshadows the benefits of telemarketing.
Unless they can make $780,000 back from those 29 people, then they're losing money. Why should they continue a form of marketing when they're basically guaranteed of never recovering the marketing costs?
How long does it take you to spend $26896 on telco bills?
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
...air horn.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
US GOVT spends 10million dollars trying to prosecute AT&T for calling people on the DND list..
I hear you there, but again $780,000 to a company putting in 4.8bill/quarter is so insignificant they may not even notice this inefficiency. I think that's the point I'm trying to make.
...in bed
My favorite way to bum out a telemarketer.
Put me on your do not call list. I don't want you to ever call me for any reason. If your house is burning down, and I'm the only one who can help, I don't want you to call. I *want* your house to burn down. Am I making myself clear?
htttp://www.privacycall.com. Best $90 I ever spent. Telemarketing calls went from 3-5 per day to 0.
i see this as probably being an arrangement that was made behind closed doors. by attacking at&t first, the fcc will have effectively given at&t the ability to have the DNC list suspended for an indefinate period while lawyers do what lawyers do... looks like they've blocked the DNC list afterall. the DNC has to prove enforceable in a court of law. i think at&t might be vaguely acquianted with how to make these little arguments drag on for years.
I'm not saying this is evidence that people are ignoring, and possibly even abusing the TPS, but it certainly seems that way from here.
Having said that, I've worked out a good tactic against them. They call up and say "Is that Mr. Jones?" (you know immediately that it's a marketing waste of time call by the tone of voice and the fact that no one but a very few friends uses this number). I say "I'll just go and get him for you", and then leave the phone off the hook and go and continue what I was doing before I was rudely interrupted ... Return half an hour later and put the phone back on the hook.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Just a footnote: There are some perfectly good reasons why some people withold their phone numbers. For example, my wife is a teacher, and must call student's parents routinely. Since having our phone number exposed to a bunch of ne'er-do- well teenagers would not be a good thing, we have call block. It 's a pain in the ass, since every call I make to just about anyone else must be prefaced by *82 (since telemarketers have abused call block and forced everyone to block blocked calls in turn)
I used to do this all the time when I was a poor twentysomething. The fines were decreased by about half every time. The court actually *likes* it when people try to be responsible for their own lives and finances. Go figure.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I'm not looking forward to Must Transmit Caller ID come January. When the caller ID shows "Out of Area," I know it's a telemarketer, and I pick up and then hang up. I've even semi-automated this with my oldest daughter. If they start transmitting caller ID, I won't be able to sit on my duff while she runs to the phone, looks at the caller ID, and says "out of area."
Think about spam; if every spam had the same from: address, how easy would it be to filter?
Telemarketing is phone spam. Having the same from: on [almost] every telemarketing call makes filtering deliciously simple.
-paul
Ummm. read the law. It is already illegal to tie up more than one line of a business at the same time using an autodialer.
$500 MANDATORY damages for each call.... haul their arse to small claims court. You should have logs in the phone system to prove the calls overlapped and they tied up more than one line at the same time.
47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3)(D):
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States--
[irrelevant snippage]
(D) to use an automatic telephone dialing system in such a way that two or more telephone lines of a multi-line business are engaged simultaneously.
Worked in telemarketing for awhile take my advice
Always ask to be "put on the Do Not Call list"
If you told me to "take me off your list", I would simply cross your name off the printout I had in front of me. I took your name off my list, does not mean you won't be on the new list next week.
Why would we want to call someone who wanted to be taken off the list? People are stupid and can be manipulated easily.
Picture this situation:
angry customer says he asked to be taken off the list a bunch of times.
Smooth telemarketer calms customer down then gives the insider tip on the take me off/add me to the list. Explain how some unscrupulous telemarketers do this, now we have a dialog going, cust thinks we're buddies cause I'm telling them how to make sure the calls stop, move in for the kill.
Sounds crazy but it works.
I was under the impression that phone companies did not have to respect the DNC list. Thus your statement waaaay down the page on slashdot is the first one to make any sense...
If I were to sign up for a email service that forwards all mail received to a fax number/physical mailbox, and the domain name of this service makes that fairly obvious, would I have any civil grounds to sue if I receive junk email as a fax to that address? Or would the automated nature of junk mailings be a sufficient defense?
This is a test; this is only a test; if this were actual text, it would have contained content explaining where to go and what to do. Beeeeeeeep.
And when you train to be a telemarketer for them they tell you to be particular about what people said regarding ATT's do not call list. If they say "take me off your list" you did were to do nothing but reschedule the call. If they said the correct response "Please put me on your do not call list and never call back" you were to put them on a special list. Which some people did. I hated being a telemarker. I did it because the hours were good, but sooooo many night time salesmen lied to sell, or didn't tell every thing. Every night I'd talk to 2 or so people that had been screwed by ATT. And an implied truth was that if your manager was listening in on you call, it was better to lie about the calling plans than to not make a sale to a weak target (old person, intoxicated person, gullible people, people that were too nice to say no). No body cared. They all just wanted commission. It was sad. I quit after only three months and now that telemarketing branch is closed. thank god.
Open Source Sushi
They are only allowed to call between 8AM and 9PM. That's the law. If they call you at 7:30AM or 10PM at night, they're breaking yet another law...
AT&T once called my number, and when I instructed them to put the number on their do not call list the person said that it would take two to three weeks to put the number on the list. I called her BS, threatened to make my next call to the FCC and the FTC for violation of telemarketing rules, and her supervisor said the number would be on the list immediately.
What really got me was that they use a computer directed calling system, and all she had to do was issue a command. Big lesson they both learned was to never, EVER, BS a tech.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I got a call a few weeks back, Saturday morning at 9AM from AT&T wanting to sign me up for long distance service. I quickly whipped out the "I don't have long distance, don't want it, have a no-pick on my service, and want you to place me on your do-not-call list immediately".
The woman on the other end got very unpleasant very quickly, and asked "Is this [not-my-name]?" I told her that I was not that person, and that this is my phone number. She very quickly (and gleefully I might add) told me that if I was not the person whose name she had, then I was not authorized to place this (MY) phone number on a do-not-call list and that I would continue to receive solicitation calls until I signed up for long distance with AT&T. Then she hung up on me.
That fucking pissed me off. The follow-up call to their customer service to file a complaint and add myself to the do-not-call list was not much better. After about 5 minutes of arguing with the guy that if I had an emergency, I would either dial 911 or go to a neighbor's phone, I finally just kept repeating "You're refusing to add me to your do-not-call list. Let me speak to your manager immediately." Took about 15 times of that with me getting louder and louder each time before he put me on hold for 30 seconds. Then the same guy came back to "confirm my information for the do-not-call list." He then proceeded to mis-speak my number not once, not twice, but 10 times, trying to get me to "confirm" a different number. Only after threatening with the manager bit again did he successfully repeat my number.
As far as I'm concerned, these fuckers should roast in their own shit. About time the government is giving us the power to fight back, and I'm really looking forward to my first $11,000 bonus check from a telemarketer who refused to follow the DNC list.
I'll never understand how they believe that infuriating the potential customer will successfully gain new business. And given the attitude I've gotten from telemarketers, I can guarantee you that the calls are NOT monitored for quality assurance.
They were just calling to make sure that these people really wanted to be on the list.
Honest!
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
$780,000 for 78 phone calls? This is waaay too harsh. Let's say that a programmer makes an innocent mistake which causes 50% of the DNC list to not work properly. Can you imagine how much money that would cost? If we continue to pass laws like this, businesses will find it increasingly hard to conduct business here in the US, and the recession we're just coming out of will seem like heaven.
Engineering and the Ultimate
>my roommates mad fun of me saying they could sue me
If you cross the line into threatening them, or into sexual harrassment, they just might have a case.
Of course, as you surely learned, the whole sickass punk approach does not work.
What has worked for me is simply answering the phone "Phoenix emergency"
If they didn't get right off the phone immediately, I'd get all snippy voiced and say "why have you called 911 sir? do you have an emergency?" They don't actually know in the call center whether they've dialed 911 or not. They think they have your name/address/number but there's enough doubt that this kills them. I had to stop when the only TM's that called me were the police asking for money for their balls.
My girlfriend doesn't appreciate my abuse. Apparently having walked a few miles in their shoes, it's not possible to hate them. They are just doing the only job available where they live probably, and are to be pitied. If you say the magic words "take me off your list", you might help them out while not helping their industry.
I don't really subscribe to that view, and I agree that taking a noisy dump while they tell you about the resort they want you to visit, is much more fun.
"Resort? *plop* But you're talking about *grunnt* a resort in the town where I live? *grunt* why would I want to go to a *fart* resort in the town where I live? *sprinkle* wouldn't a resort in maui or the south of france be cooler? *flussssssssssssssssh*
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I recently attended a free telephone conference sponsored by http://www.checkcall.com
One thing I was amazed to discover is that if your business is not licensed for the FTC & State lists, all outbound sales calls may be in violation. You could be fined $11,000 per call for calling ANYONE... not just the people who are on the do not call list.
For those of you who make sales calls, I'd strongly recommend checking that site out and see if they have any more conferences open.
It took me a little while to find the info, but I knew I remember AT&T getting $3.5 million (USD) to put this DNC list together.
So why is it that the same company which built the Do-Not-Call registry cannot seem to abide by the list they created and maintained?
{ - Generic Guy - }
This effect is the purpose of these regulations, not a failure or side-effect or unintended consequence.
Buck Douche's Telemarket-Mart can't afford the "cost of doing business" created by these fines, but AT&T and its behemoth brethren can.
The interests of the state are best served by a business world made up of large, "public," tightly regulated, near-immortal corporate institutions, and the Do Not Call list and fines are just one more means of disempowering their comparatively anarchic petit bourgeois/entrepreneurial competition.
Most government regulations of business serve the same purpose.
I hate telemarketing at least as much as everyone else here does, but these regulations are far worse than anything any smarmy dillhole on the 'phone can do to us.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
You can still make long distance calls from your land line using a 10-10-??? dial-around number.
We've dropped our long distance service from out land line after bouncing around between AT&T and MCI. We used to get calls every few months from AT&T with special deals for switching from MCI, and vice versa. The deals were nice, but the game got annoying after a while.
We called our phone company and told them we didn't want any long distance carrier at all. We now save the few bucks of long-distance monthly fee. Now, whenever we make a long distance call from home, we dial 101-6868 before any long distance call. It's cheap, there's no monthly charge, the voice quality is good, and the call just shows up on our phone bill.
So, dump your long distance company, find a dial-around service that's right for you, and program it on your speed dial! We haven't gotten any more calls from AT&T or MCI since they've found out that we dumped both of them.
Disclaimer: I don't work for any telecom company. Beware of dial-around services that rip you off by quoting a cheap per-minute rate but charge a minimum of 15 minutes per call, or that impose a ha-ha-you-used-our-service-this-month fee.
First off, I don't think there ought to be any exceptions to the DNC - and to drive that point home to the FCC/FTC, we have to make them aware that we are annoyed by these calls, and consider them to be fraudlent, etc...
So do what I do:
1) Tell the caller "Put us on your don't call list, we don't want to hear from you or your affiliates in the future."
2) File a complaint with www.donotcall.gov regardless of what they claim to be. This puts the onus on them to prove that they didn't make a sales call to me - as far as I'm concerned, attempting to get me to pay for something, or to spend my time answering questions for free costs me money so I consider it to be a sale.... Sales calls are illegal, so I report them all...
If enough people report these assholes for what they are, then that loophole will get closed as well...
So just report every call you get - let the TLA's figure it out...
Including whacked out teeth, a cutoff penis, a shot knee (or two) and if you're really, really lucky you get a permanent, private and guaranteed spam free space 6 feet under ground
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Now, if you offered a free phone service (no long distance cost, no local cost) but would be subject to advertisements during your conversation, you'd be much closer to the TV ad model.
Naturally, no one would use your service after the first time they're giving critical instructions to a family member and they are interrupted to hear how Colgate has made a new flavor of toothpaste.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Most likely the 120 character limit is a technical issue.
When you store information in a database, you want to set a maximum size, so that you can plan for the size of records, and so you can make it more efficient to retrieve records.
So, even if it's not seen, it's a character of text, and would still take up the same space in the database as a character that is seen.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
me: Hello!
phone: *pause* [noise in bg]
me: *pause* Hello!!
phone: Yes, may I speak to Mr. or Mrs. *mispronounces name* please?
me: may I ask who's calling?
No thank you *click*
never happened before like that, however I have had them be rather evasive and say general things like "I work for a major supplier of X" or just dance around the question and ask me questions like "Do you ever find yourself needing X?"
I was rather amused, and in the future I will ensure my amusement extends to full organization traceback just to find out who it is.
Ok, so the FCC says it's fining AT&T for multiple violations of the 'do not call' list. AT&T responds, and says that this is about the previous regulations, not the DNC list.
So what's actually going on? I'm assuming the FCC is correct, since they're the ones enforcing it. Why would AT&T claim that the FCC is enforcing old regulations when the FCC blatantly says they're fining them for DNC violations? Is there anything to be gained by this?
~ Leilah
I wish you the best of luck with this. My grandmother has early alzheimers. Her phone service was changed somewhere around 4-7 times in a one month period, with my father calling the companies each time and explaining in no uncertain terms that they should not be calling her. It didn't stop them. He had to have her credit card number changed when one of the companies continued to charge her for service after he cancelled it. (He has power of attorney.)
I think that businesses that derive their profits from what is, quite frankly, abuse of the elderly should be fined, shut down, perhaps even have criminal charges laid against them. It's appalling what these people do.
And before someone pops up and says "but how could they possibly know she had alzheimers," they couldn't have known the first time. After my father called and told them _why_ they needed to stop calling her, that's no longer an excuse.
~ Leilah
How can any system that EXPOSES phone users' numbers are going to protect them from telemarketers? All it does is to encourage scam operators to find fresh new victims! It's just like broadcasing unprotected email addresses. If FTC want to fix the problem, it should use a DO-CALL list that requires (legal) telemarketers to only dial to the listed numbers, and only when the number's owner explicitly agree on each marketing attempt!
It's only 'sexual harassment' if you can cause them physical or monetary harm by it, and they have no way out of it. For example, it's sexual harassment if your boss says 'fsck me now.' It is *NOT* sexual harassment if the UPS guy does it, because the UPS guy doesn't threaten monetary harm. (Obviously, if the UPS guy threatens physically, that gets caught under other laws.)
As for feel sorry? Yes. A good friend/roommate of mine was unemployed for a very long time, and finally gave in and got a job at a telemarketing place. (They have those 'No Hassle' credit cards, I can't even remember the name of the company.) Ironic that they telemarketed a product that one of the major features of was an end to telemarketing. But it was a horrible place to work. Every day when he got home from work, I'd ask him how work was (I was also unemployed at the time!) He would always respond "This was the worst day of my life. Where's the whiskey?" And every day, from the expression on his face, and the physical stress that was obvious, I believed that THAT day had been the worst of his life. His favorite part of the job was the fact that even if someone hung up on them, they still had to read the paragraph-long closing spiel. To a dead line.
He finally got fired for ad-libbing (as in, asking how their day was, commenting about the dog he could hear in the background, you know, being HUMAN.) Even though he had the most sales in the building that very month. He hated the job even more for the fact that he was good at it. (They gave him a $50 bonus, a pen, and a plastic star-shaped rainbow-colored slinky as a reward for getting almost 50% more sales than anyone else.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I had ADT call me when I bought my new condo. I finally asked to be placed on the do-not-call list. A week later, one more call. I was feeling generous, so I only ripped the guy a new ass hole, and didn't actually press charges. No calls after that. I got rid of my landline altogether a few months later. About a year after my landline was gone, I found a business card from ADT on my door, apologizing for [me] missing our scheduled appointment, and I should call him to reschedule. I called, and calmly asked what was up. He said he had called a week ago, and I had agreed to have him out to talk about his products! I asked what phone number he had called, and he gave me my old landline number. I was furious! I hung up on the spot and decided to call my old number. It was a hispanic gentleman who didn't speak a word of English. In my broken Spanish, I asked if he got a confusing phone call the week before, from a cheery-sounding gringo. He said yes. I apologized for the inconvenience, and told him that he had what used to be my phone number. He said I had received one other phone call once, ironically, from one of only a couple people I know that also speaks Spanish, that I hadn't seen in years.
I called the ADT guy back, and told him that he was very lucky that not only was that not my phone number any more, but also that he missed me being home. I informed him that if I ever heard from their company again in my entire life, I would sue them under the fullest extent of the law. (I also ripped him a new one for apparently scheduling an appointment with someone who couldn't speak English. I even started the phone call to him in Spanish just to see if he could speak it, he couldn't.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.