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429,000 Do-Not-Call Complaints
The Ghetto Imp writes "Is the do-not-call list working for you? According to CNN Money, there have been over 429,000 complaints filed with the FTC over do-not-call violations. The list is incredibly popular, with apparently some 62 million numbers registered. Apparently the worst offenders are the Credit Foundation of America, and our friends at AT&T. In an era where companies use computers to spam pre-recorded messages through our phone lines, does the FTC have the teeth to make unsolicited calls a thing of the past? At $11,000 per violation, let's hope so!"
I was one of the people that signed up for the Do Not Call list as soon as it went live on the Internet. To date, I rarely get an unsolicited calls. They happen so rarely that I get suprised when I get a call. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with my results.
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I used to work for a telemarketing company doing calls for AT&T's universal card. That's right, if you got bugged during dinner by someone selling you one of their credit cards, I wrote the Informix-4GL app that guided the agent through the sale. Ah, those were the days.
Anyway, at that time at least, AT&T was very dilligent in requiring that we scrubbed the numbers they gave us against the do not call lists. They were also very focussed on staying within legal calling hours, etc.
Then again, AT&T has many, many divisions who may or may not talk to each other and could have very different standards. Also, depending on who they outsourced their outbound calling to, they may have gone with a low-cost less competent provider. Both of those would surprise me though - this was one area where they at least used to pride themselves in their quality. Or at least in our quality.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I thought I remembered reading that the long distance companies, i.e., AT&T, were exempt from the Do-Not-Call list...
I signed up on PA's DMA-managed list and for monthes I did't get a single sales. Rarely I get an Unknown caller call. Once Verizion kept calling me, but other than that it's been great. I've actually considered whether I even need caller ID any more.
I work for a company that does Telemarketing and just this morning loaded our latest version of the Federal "Do Not Call" list. I completely agree with the intent of the law and I am on the list myself, but the implementation thereof is atrocious.
In order to even access the list, we must go through several hours of online paperwork that is highly redundant and of no real use in the end.
We would love to automatically download the list on a daily basis and ensure that no one that doesn't want to receive calls is contacted. We can't: The site used to download the list doesn't give a list of URLs for different area codes and said URLs change daily with random strings appended to prevent automated downloads. The server is set to allow only 2 simultaneous HTTP connections from a given IP, so downloading the 48 area codes we subscribe to takes roughly an hour, rather than the two or three minutes it used to when we could do many simultaneous downloads. And beyond that, you have to contact the helpdesk for them to reauthorize your download in the event of a download failure. That's right, if something times out or gets corrupted, we have to email the help desk and wait 24-48 hours for a reply before we can come into compliance.
We work very hard to comply with every state and federal do not call law, but none of the state lists are as difficult to access or as intentionally difficult to automatically deploy as the Fed's. Its a great law - but it would benefit all of us if the Feds made it easier to comply.
After two weeks of answering every telemarketing call and saying "Take me off your call list", my phone-spam decreased dramatically. Now that I have just a cell-phone, I *never* get that junk.
We signed up for the "Do Not Call" list as soon as it was available.
However, that apparently hasn't stopped the calls. While I wouldn't know (I don't get home until 6:30 to 7), my family says they apparently get them. According to them, they're not non-profit orgs or anything, they're "would you like x credit card" or something.
My family only brings up the "we're on the do not call list" like every-other time; causing the people the immediately hang up the phone.
I keep telling them, "find out who they are so you can report them," but they always forget.
Seriously, how hard is it to remove those phone numbers from your list? Like I said, we were one of the early adopters, so it's not like they don't know.
What the gov needs to do is monitor the telemarketers' outgoing calls, and compare them to the do not call list. That'll stop them. Otherwise, they know most people are too lazy to report them.
Heck, I just use Caller ID. If the number is unknown or 1-800 something, then you can go and screw yourself. If it is important enough, they will leave a message.
I just hate putting my ANYTHING on a list of some sort... [puts on tin foil hat]
At least once a week. No lie. Usually the call comes in on the call display as Datamed Software, or Digital Contact. Those seem to be frequent around the clock calls that come in, and they use multiple numbers, which means it is near impossible to just block them.
I recently received an unsolicited call from a creditcard company despite 1. being on the national DNC list, 2. having Radio Shack's telezapper, 3. paying Verizon for the extra funcationality of blocking certain type of calls. Turns out there's an effective, common loophole these bastards use: They partner with a business that you have a legitimate relationship with. Sequence of events: Phone rings, Caller ID says its AAA (I'm a member), I pick it up and I get the credit card schpiel. When I confronted the agent about being on the DNC list, he said that this call was a special offer to AAA members. I cancelled my AAA membership.
> At $11k per violation, assuming all of those are legit, that's over $4 billion in fines. Hopefully they stick it to 'em.
But then you see, the government is profiting by these violations and the violations will never cease because it's loving tax money. Like speeding tickets.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I signed up for the Do Not Call list when it went live.
Lucky for me, I find that I only get about 1 or 2 "dropped calls" recorded on my answering machine a day while I'm not home.
I think the Telezapper is helping to curb some of that.
The thing that *really* gets to me are those people who aren't covered by the Do Not Call restrictions. In my case, charities (Vets, State Police, local Firefighters, etc.).
You think they'd get the hint after asking them to not call any more and always saying "no thank you." But since they don't have to maintain a do not call list, they still call me back... every week, week in, week out.
For those people, I have the "Phone Butler" (which plays a pre-recorded message then hangs up on them), but I'm tired of getting those calls all the same.
Anyone else dealing with that sort of issue?
Is there anything that can be done (really) to stop these repeated calls?
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
All I can say is, as a Canadian I've notice a HUGE, yes HUGE increase in the number of unsolicited calls from Americain; phone numbers, companys, and states solicity me! ...
I fear that if the FCC is able to effectively 'crack' down on this, we Canadians will get further attention from a dieing industry
Our Canadian counterpart the CRTC will make steps to protect us, but its going to be a shitty couple years while the beaucrats / legalities get worked out about cross country issues..
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I dunno how they got this many violations, unless they were already using one of the very few loopholes (ie pre/ex customer). I built the do-not-call for my company (a newspaper*) and it took me all of 2 days to build and code the php. It's really simple to understand I wish I could show you how easy it is, but it's got a password.
:-)
The way it works is there is 2 postgres databases, one for local do-not-calls (the people we called who told us to bugger off) and the national list (the people who told everyone to bugger off**). The php searches the local list first, as it's faster and more strict as we can't call anyone on that list for any reason, if the number isn't found it then searches the national list, if the number is found there we cannot call them unless they were at one point a customer with us (and there is a big red dialog that explains that on the page).
follow the logic? The phone reps _must_ lookup every number everytime they call out. Since starting the DNC we havn't had 1 single violation.
*http://www.kingcountyjournal.com
**the national do not call list, in case you misunderstood that.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
We still get 6-20 mortgage, financial, satellite tv, and time-share calls per week. Often, they start off with a pre-recorded message, and ask you to dial an 800 number to "reach a representative", or ask you to transfer to someone who claims "we don't call anyone". Asking to speak to a supervisor, or complaining results in them hanging up.
Never are the caller ID numbers helpful, even if they show. Usually, they seem forged, or at least inaccurate. And it would cost $150 per month to put an ANI trap on the line.
The measures it would take to put an end to this aren't politically viable. The only reason the DNC list was implemented was for cheap political mileage, and to give telemarketers a big comprehensive list of people to annoy.
Once upon a time when I had a job, one of my duties was registering complaints regarding violations of Norway's version of the do-not-call list. A lot of organization names came up again and again and again. And of course when I contacted these organizations to give them a warning, all I got was arrogance - "we're doing good work blah blah blah, how can a charity afford to buy the updated it's-ok-to-call lists blah blah blah...."
Now over here, we have 2 different "consumer watchdog" shows on TV. Each show "outed" some of the worst violators. One of them was some kind of Bible charity that supposedly collected money for starving children in Eastern Europe, but from what the journalists managed to find out, the money was going towards luxury property for the organization leaders. This was an organization that was probably one of the top three when it came to complaints about violations of the do-not-call list. You can't imagine how happy it made me to see them outed for being fraudsters.
There are also a few other telemarketing companies are also being investigated for fraud; complaints about violations of the do-not-call list have been a motivating factor in this. Mowahaha....
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I'm on the Missouri no-call list (it preceeded the national list by several years) and I rarely get calls anymore. That is, except for AT&T, who has an exemption in the no-call law (the national one too - businesses that already have a relationship with you, as well as all telecom companies, are exempted in these laws). They call several times a week.
I still complain about them, even though they're exempt from prosecution, in the hopes that the laws will be strengthened to remove this loophole.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has been diligent in pursuing violators (and they don't have to be calling from Missouri - the law covers calls into Missouri) and the calls fell off dramaticly when telemarketing companies learned that the law is enforced. On the rare occasion they do call, they are VERY apologetic when I inform them I'm on the no-call list, and they have been good about getting me off their call lists, where they definitely weren't before the law went into effect.
All in all, I'm all for it. It's very effective as long as it's enforced.
I've gotten calls from Canada from AT&T, insurance companies and credit card offers. I'm surprised it took this long for them to find that loophole.
I'm on the list, and I get just as many calls as ever. But they're not selling things now, they're just doing surveys, which are allowed by the damned law. Why they are exempted I have no idea - all they're doing is using people for free labor.
A lot of these charities that use telemarketers and violate the do-not-call list have later been investigated for and charged with fraud.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
I've just figured that low-volume telemarketing gets in under the radar, and hoped that some day the list might actually be enforced. Although if it's working for other people, maybe it's just the location where I am.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I've been having the exact same issue with some place in Georgia... started about two months ago, and they'd call 2-3 times a day but never leave a message or respond to a live person.
I have gotten a few telimarketing calls from 866 numbers. The trick is that they hang up on me as soon as I pick up. Then I call back and hear a prerecorded spam message. Has anyone else gotten this? Does the fact that I called back mean that this is a legal practice?
I signed up for the Do Not Call list as soon as it became open for registration. About a month after the list went into effect, I got my first phone solicitation. I dutifully collected all of the necessary information - business name, address, phone number - and reported the violation. I was told that a call is not viewed as a solicitation, and is therefore not subject to punishment, unless I actually buy something. Since then, I have received fairly regular solicitation calls. Although the number of calls that I receive is much less than it was before the Do Not Call List went into effect, I feel that I am still without recourse when I receive a phone solicitation. Has anyone actually had success in pursuing penalties as a result of the Do Not Call List, or have other people had the same experience as I have?
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I've been called by these scumbags too.
PLEASE reply with their main phone number.
I'm ALL for public disclosure of scumbags.
There is ONE Big and EASY way to get rid of the survey's ;)
:p suckers. if everyone does it, pepsi and coke will have to drop the price of the darn thing!
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If you don't want them to call again, just make sure that you say YES when they ask you are your working for xyz company (competitor servey company or targeted industry) and they will say "Oh Sorry, Thank you for your time"
This will ensure that your name is registered in they're database as Employee of xyz co. DO-NOT CALL to not false the results!
Then again, you might just answer a few of them to make things in your favor. I remeber when i was asked about my favorite kind of drink. A few month later, i saw a big price raise. Since then i keep telling them i only drink no brand
In short, for serveys, you can either get on the black list, and they won't botter you anymore. Or answer what they don't want to hear, so they adjust ther USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to fit your desire.
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