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FCC Announces First Do-Not-Call Citation

Posted by michael on from the baby-steps dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The FCC will announce on Thursday December 18, its first enforcement action for violations of the new national Do-Not-Call list. The perp is a mortgage broker (big users of telemarketing, junk faxes, and spam) in California -- CPM Funding, Inc. No fines (yet) since the FCC can only impose fines on telemarketers after they have had one citation letter (which this is). If, perhaps, a common carrier was to violate however (can you say MCI, AT&T, etc) they can be fined up to $11,000 right off the bat.... no warnings. (The action against AT&T a couple of months ago was for other violations, not violating the new National DNC list.)"

31 comments

  1. Suing the local police? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would the police be excluded from soliciting for fundraisers? If not, why not?

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:Suing the local police? by pr0c · · Score: 4, Informative

      https://www.donotcall.gov

      Will All Telemarketing Calls Stop If I Register?

      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 telemarketing calls, but not all. Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom you've provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls.

    2. Re:Suing the local police? by redog · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I got a call from the Fraternal Order of Police just last night, this ws the first and only time I have ever asked them to "add me to your do not call list please" so I guess I will see how that goes.

    3. Re:Suing the local police? by cpeterso · · Score: 3, Insightful


      The politicians write the rules. When you write the rules, they don't have to apply to you. :(

      --
      cpeterso
    4. Re:Suing the local police? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Just so you know, Dean is anything but a libertarian. Libertarians advocate LOW taxes, not high. I don't normally comment on sigs, but this blatent contradiction requires someone to set the record straight.

    5. Re:Suing the local police? by cpeterso · · Score: 1


      Admittedly, Dean wants to "raise" taxes. He wants to repeal Bush's tax cuts to pay for Bush's huge budget deficit. Tax cuts without spending cuts (ala Bush) are actually tax increases.. you just have to pay later with interest.

      --
      cpeterso
    6. Re:Suing the local police? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, libertarians need someone to vote for, seeing how the Libertarian Party is currently little more than one man's money-making machine.

  2. Merry Chrismas! by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This holiday season just keeps getting better and better - MS losing ("loosing" for those of you who learned to spell from /.) Office customers, SCO being told to put up or shut up, David Boies being up on possible ethics violations, Saddam Hussein in custody, RotK released, Athlon64 systems shipping, a spammer in Virginia being hit with felony spamming charges, now this.

    Thank you Santa!

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
    1. Re:Merry Chrismas! by nocomment · · Score: 1


      ya, I don't how you can break the DNC, it's a pretty simple thing. Download the list of numbers, insert it into $DBI, search $DBI _BEFORE_ calling the number.

      As for SCO, too bad they were given the right to "put up" quietly. :-/

      --
      /* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
      /* http://allyourbasearebelongto.us */
    2. Re:Merry Chrismas! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And while you're enjoying your christmas hangover, and getting ready to start your New Year's hangover, the additional spam (from it being legalized) will start rolling in. Fast.

      2004 is going to be a bad, bad year.

    3. Re:Merry Chrismas! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      you forgot kernel 2.6! What are you? a microsoft fanboy?

    4. Re:Merry Chrismas! by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      2.6 will probably be my Easter present. I don't plan on installing it until my distro supports it.

  3. Hmm... by cperciva · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the FCC can only impose fines on telemarketers after they have had one citation letter

    Does that mean that telemarketers can harass people for two weeks, receive a citation letter, change names, and repeat the process ad infinitum?

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
    1. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. It also remains to be seen whether the FCC will actually issue fines as well.

      If we use the history of FTC enforcing the law as a potential indicator for how the FCC will perform - it looks like the DNC registry will turn out to be nothing more than a joke.

    2. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Does that mean that telemarketers can harass people for two weeks,
      > receive a citation letter, change names, and repeat the process ad infinitum?

      We here at AAA1 Mortgage Brokers (previously AA1 Mortage Brokers) resent your implications. Please be advised that you will be receiving legal documents from our company (soon to be AAAA1 Mortgage Brokers) within the next few days.

    3. Re:Hmm... by /dev/trash · · Score: 1

      Change names? I know in PA, a business has to register all it's DBA ( Doing Business As ) names. How would this work?

    4. Re:Hmm... by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It may not be perfect, but I really do think the national registry is working. I have not had a single telemarketing call since then, and I was previously getting up to 20 calls a day! Some of this may have had to do with me treating callers rudely and putting them on hold until they hung up, since the number of calls did start to drop even before the list was in effect. Maybe telemarketing firms are finally taking a hint and realizing that nobody wants their worthless crap. Now if only we could make spammers do the same.

    5. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that enough people by spammers' "worthless crap" to keep them in business.

    6. Re:Hmm... by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 1

      I agree with this completely. On average, we were getting about 10-15 calls a day as well. Over the last month or so, I can not remember ANY call. From my standpoint, this has been great!

      --
      We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  4. SMS/Premium rate spam squished by Bazzargh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Somewhat relevant - a couple of months ago I got several SMS spams on my mobile advertising a premium rate phone service, which didn't list the call prices and looked dodgy anyway. I showed them to a friend who works in the mobile industry, who mentioned ICSTIS - they regulate premium rate services in the UK.

    I went to their website, read up on what they'd take action on, and filed a complaint.

    A month later, they got back to me to say that they had...
    1) stopped the service immediately as it looked like they were operating in breach of the code
    2) held an inquiry, decided that they were in breach of the code in lots of ways and passed judgment....
    3) ...banning them from operating a premium rate line for a year
    4) ...fining them 15000
    5) ...and getting them to pay back the money they'd made on calls to the service.

    w00t! Heck I know 15k isn't a lot but the scum were shut down. Nice to see the system work.

    -Baz

  5. Hey!! by red+floyd · · Score: 1

    I filed a complaint about those guys!

    Some idiot was stupid enough to leave her name, company and phone number on my answering machine. I was tempted to call her back and tell her that she had just had $11,000 taken out of her salary, but that might have caused a "business relationship" to exist...

    --
    The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    1. Re:Hey!! by mjc_w · · Score: 1

      I used to think that I was indecisive,
      but now I'm not so sure.

      --
      This is the Constitution.This is the Constitution under the Bush administration. Any questions?
  6. sitting ducks, lying marketdroids by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Some sleazoid called me during dinnertime last night, claiming to be from "CRM", "we're not selling anything, we're just doing a survey". When I asked him to remove me from the list, he told me that they don't use a list; they randomly generate phone numbers. I assume they use a wardialer to call down the random list, turning the call over to a "human" operator when a person is detected answering the call.

    The "Do Not Call" law should be a simpler law that covers the actual problem. It should outlaw "unsolicited commercial transmission" in any medium. Opt-in would count as "solicitation". Otherwise, each new medium and hybrid will drown in these spams until Congress is forced to act. The agency administering the law should have comprehensive jurisdiction, if the FCC + FTC aren't sufficient. Transmissions from *official* political organizations (government), including the police department, in an official capacity, are allowed, for public safety and administration. Not to mention that they are legally controlled by the public, unlike corporations. I realize that until we get fat clowns like Karl Rove, with his Direct Marketing junkmail career, out of the Washington catbird seats, spam will be part of our lives. But articulating an alternative solution, that we can consistently demand, at least paves the way out.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:sitting ducks, lying marketdroids by allism · · Score: 1

      What you should have said was, 'Add me to your Do Not Call list' instead of 'Remove me from your list'.

      You can also avoid the wardialer-type calls quite a bit of the time by not answering your telephone with "Hello" - the software is programmed to recognize that word, but if you answer the phone with something like "This is Doc Ruby", the software thinks you are an answering machine and hangs up.

      You probably also have the option of not answering calls from numbers you don't recognize (provided Caller ID is available in your area and you subscribe), and some areas have services where calls that do not display numbers or identify themselves are routed through a service that requests the phone number prior to actually putting the call through - which also takes care of random number dialers.

      --
      Denver Isuzu Suzuki
  7. CPM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean that old codgy OS is a telemarketer?

  8. Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering that the DMCA, Patriot act and other blatantly unconstitutional power grabs by corporate (fascist) America are still here. Many more grabs are still waiting in the wings.

    A battle may be won, but the war is far into our homes and we are taking casualties.

  9. Awesome by General+Sherman · · Score: 1

    I hope this sets a precedent so other companies will be fined with less of a fuss for breaking this.

    I've already caught two telemarketers calling me, after I told them I was on the do not call list (but only after I had gotten their information), they freaked out and didn't know what to do.

    It's quite amusing.

    --
    - Sherman
    1. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope that you turn them in.

  10. How does one get their info? by dartmouth05 · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be logical for the telemarketers to simply not hand out their info. unless they make a sale of some sort? How does one get sufficient info. to file a complaint against them?

    1. Re:How does one get their info? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll use call display, as a start.

    2. Re:How does one get their info? by merlin_jim · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it be logical for the telemarketers to simply not hand out their info. unless they make a sale of some sort? How does one get sufficient info. to file a complaint against them?

      junkbusters.com has a phone script you can follow. In the days before the DNC, answering incorrectly or FAILING to answer was a violation. I imagine its the same here; if you ask their name, business address, etc. they are required to give it.

      If they don't give it, there's a code you can type in after they hang up (again, junkbusters.com) that will alert the phone company to save the call record for the last call. Then you just ask them for the information, they hand it over, you submit to the FTC...

      --
      I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!