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429,000 Do-Not-Call Complaints

Posted by michael on from the check-the-number-and-dial-again dept.

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!"

6 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Working for me... by Grant29 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:Working for me... by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not necessarily 429,000 other people. Just that many complaints.

      You know there are old ladies who have nothing better to do than complain.

      I'm on the list, and like the parent, I don't get the calls anymore. I would get 3 a day from various mortgage brokers. All you had to do was buy a home and you were barraged. Duct cleaners, carpet shampooers, credit folks, etc.

      It got to the point that I unplugged my landline for a week.

      I've gotten one unsolicited call since the list went into effect. I hung up and didnt bother to complain, but others would.

      The system IS working, and working extremely well.

      I'd bet a great number of those complaints are invalid, as well. Eg; My oil company called me the other day to ask if I wanted to renew my service contract and lock in to a heating oil price now. I bet some folks would call that in as a complaint, but I'm already a customer so it doesn't count. It was a marketing call, but it wasn't a cold call (ie; calling someone out of the clear blue sky and trying to sell them shit).

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    2. Re:Working for me... by benhocking · · Score: 5, Interesting

      All you had to do was buy a home and you were barraged.

      Or, live in an apartment whose apartment number is part of the street address (because the "street" is inside the apartment complex). When I lived in a Post(R) apartment (which has this addressing scheme), I got a phone call from a company claiming that my mortgage had been sold to them, and that I should start sending my mortgage payments to addressed to them. It gave me a good laugh, but I shudder to think how many people have fallen for this scam. (I wasn't home at the time, so the message was left on my machine. I'm not sure what I would have said had I been given a chance to actually talk to the person - of course, it's probably one of those systems that hangs up if they get an actual human.)
      --
      Ben Hocking
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  2. AT&T by rjstanford · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  3. An inside perspective. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. loophole by psbrogna · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.