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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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If they call me... can I get in on some of that... Please!
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
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!
"That is a huge number of complaints to be filed for anything," said Jean Ann Fox, Director of Consumer Protection of the Consumer Protection of Federation, told CNN/Money.
I wasn't aware the Federation had a Director for the Consumer Protection, or even that the Federation existed!
I thought I remembered reading that the long distance companies, i.e., AT&T, were exempt from the Do-Not-Call list...
At $11k per violation, assuming all of those are legit, that's over $4 billion in fines. Hopefully they stick it to 'em.
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OK, assuming for a moment that each of those complaints in a violation (which I know is a grand overestimation, but stay with me for a second), that makes almost 5 Billion dollars in fines. Where is this money going? Surely the FTC doesn't need 5 billion dollars (or even 1/10th of that) to run the Do-Not-Call list!
I tell you where it should be going: To the people who filed the complaints. If your complaint was valid...you were illegally called even though you were on the DNC list...you shoulc get a percentage of the fine. Otherwise this money just gets tossed into the great financial landfill that is the U.S. Government, and gets used for some god-only-knows pork barrel project that has nothing to do with telemarketing and consumer privacy.
Is to just not have a landline phone.
I have had *only* a cell phone for me and one for my wife for the last year, and it's worked great. We always have a phone with us when we need it, and I haven't had any solicitation calls. Oh, and for internet we use cable.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Even if they move to India, they still are subject to the law if they are calling into the USA -- though it would be harder to enforce.
Generally, they would be doing the telemarking for a company in the USA which would then have liability.
One thing that I found, is that if you ask for their telephone number they will either hang-up on you or tell you they don't have one.
Fight Spammers!
Wow, I kinda forgot about it but now that I think about it I don't get phone solicitations anymore (except from the exempt businesses like the telephone companies). What happened to the disastorous economic effects that the telemarketers warned of?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
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.
Shallow, quickly posted comment made only to generate positive karma before any decent posts are made.
OR.....
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You decide! Operators are standing by.
#!/usr/bin/english
OMG! I totally agree that AT&T are the worst offenders. After switching my mother without her permission, they give me a call even though I have an unlisted number and am on the list. Then they argued with me when I told them I didn't want to switch!! Ex
A few years ago I got a call from one of their marketers trying to switch my long distance service and I interupted him by saying
..."
Me: "You know, I'm not interested
Him: "Well fuck you then"
Me: "What? fuck me?"
Him: *Loudly* "Yeah, fuck you!"
Me: "You got to be kidding me, you called me from AT&T"
Him: "Fuck you" *Hangs up*
At first I thought it was a prank call, but then I remembered that it had all the right initial sounds that a telemarketer call would have like the initial pause and sounds made while the computer connects me with the marketer.
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.
429,000 x $11,000 per violation = roughly $4.7 billion in potential fines. Now if only there were do-not-spam fine like this. The government could collect enough money to solve that $8 trillion deficit.
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]
Do what I do. When they call, speak very faintly until they turn their volume up. Then turn the speakerphone on at the base unit and touch the antennas together for some high pitched feedback. Works for me. And yes I'm happy with my long distance.
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.
You can file a complaint, and they can be FINED $11,000. Or you can sue them and collect up to $1,500 per incident. It's a lot more work to sue them than it is to simply file a complaint, and they stand to lose more money from fines than individual lawsuits.
> 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.
There's a BIG difference. The FCC isn't out to sell a product, and isn't doing this to maintain a monopoly.
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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yeah but I'm broke!
Before the do-not-call list it wasn't exactly hard to get rid of a telemarketer. Before they would even make their pitch you would have the phone hung up because they would mispronounce your name.
Now they don't even get that far. The phone doesn't ring. I don't have to interrupt dinner to go answer it.
And email is a big problem for you, but not for most people. I've yet to recieve a spam on my work email. And folks who don't use computers for a living couldn't give a shit.
At least with email spam I don't have some device ringing and interrupting my dinner, or ringing at 3AM to ask me about the interest rate on my mortgage.
This list is a godsend.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
Shame? Hey, here's a newsflash - I was a developer. I was given a set of fairly challenging requirements (respose time, interfacing to a Rockwall predictive dialer, agent ease of use, updatability, etc) and some interesting hardware (Data General boxen running Informix Online v6 of all things).
You know what? I did my job. Which I was happy to have, and to be able to do. Which wasn't even the point of my post, which was pointing out that even back them ('92) you could get your number scrubbed from the lists of the ethical telemarketers). You want to crusade against people using the phone, be my guest. But no, I feel no shame for writing solid code for a legitimate business. Some of it was still being used years later, which I happen ti think was pretty cool. I guess that makes me that much worse, huh.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
It's getting so annoying I'm thinking of leaving tech support altogether.
The regulations don't apply to political and charitable solicitors, but all other telemarketers who call numbers on the list face fines up to $11,000 per violation.
The article doesn't divulge how many of the complaints are actually valid, but I think it's reasonable to assume that a large percentage of the "429,000 complaints" figure were solicitations from organizations claiming to represent charities or political bodies (all of the phone solitations I've gotten since registering fall into this category).
While such calls are exempt, I'd like to see additional regulation of the groups who hide behind this loophole; not because I oppose legitimate charities seeking donations, but because of the high probability that money donated over the phone will actually reach the charity.
Here's the way it often works: a legitimate charity contracts a telemarking firm to collect a predetermined amount of money. After the firm reaches the quota, they may continue to make solicitations ostensibly on the charity's behalf, but--according to the terms of the contract)--they get to keep all the money beyond the stipulated quota.
If you want to support a charitable organization or political entity, consider donating directly.
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...
There isn't; but newspapers have indicated that there is a lot of demand, so maybe the CRTC will eventually set one up (Nah.. they're too busy enforcing CanCon)
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'll try to keep this short, but it's complex.
...only to get a voice mail box that was full. The woman's voice slurred the name of the firm, so I couldn't quite tell who they were (sounded like Charity Organizations of America).
I have caller ID, and was on the DNC list the very day it was offered to the public.
About 2 months ago, I started seeing my caller ID log fill up with calls from someplace in Georgia.
But the calls were always during normal work hours (when I'm not home) so my answering machine was full of hang-ups.
Well one night, they called at 7 pm, while I was home. I answered the phone, waited for the pause (while a computer transferred me to a live human)....and was promptly hung up on!
That just plain pissed me off, so I immediately called back the number on my caller ID....
A helpful computer option said to press 1 to be connected to the main operator.
I did so, and was promptly told by yet another computer that the main line was no longer in service!
Some investigation on Google (and white pages, and reverse lookup anbd what not) gave zip. The number didn't exist.
A call to my local phone company the next day had no information, but if I wished to place a complaint, it would be looked into, *in 4 to 6 months* (no, not weeks...months).
Well I knew the area code, it belonged to Bell South. So I contacted the Georgia one, and they too, had no info for the number, no listing, nothing.
I have a police friend down there, and they have access to all kinds of cool toys we don't, and even *she* had no info for the number!
Ditto a call to the Non-Profit registry service of my state, nor of Georgia.
More than just a simple case of DNC abuse was going on here.
Long story short (too late!) after much time calling, and looking about on the internet, I called Bell South back and pretended I worked for that number and was having phone problems, and could they be so kind as to help out?
Turned out is was a telemarketing firm, who had registered one legit phone number, and a bunch of trunk lines, all with voice mail boxes attached, pointing to each other with the main line being disconnected. All very illegal. A few more questions and I had the main line to the firm, whom I was able to track down easily on the web and contact them, stating in no uncertain terms if they ever called back, under *any* guise, I'd nail their ass to the wall for fraud, DNC abuse, and whatever else I could think up at the moment.
They never called again, and I've not had any more telemarkter calls since.
Moral of the story? Don't piss off a geek with too much free time on his hands...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
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?
Sheesh, what do you have to lose? Who the fuck cares what happens to them?
I wonder if VoIP is also included in the Do Not Call bill.
I use Vonage, and normally I'm a huge supporter of theirs, but last week I got a voicemail from them trying to get me to upgrade.
There was never an actual "phone call", as the message was placed directly into voicemail at 3 AM on the 19th. However, that is also the intent of many, if not most, telemarketers, i.e., to leave a "personal sounding" voicemail rather than talk to a live person.
I was pretty upset that they spammed my voicemailbox like that.
Those police charities are invariably scams. I would report them, if I were you.
Anyway, I am kind of saddened that they included so many loopholes. An individual should have the option of blocking campaign calls and charities. If they do not want to recieve the call, they probably won't give to a telemarketing charity, anyway.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
This shit isn't going to go away. How long before I get just as much bullshit on my cell phone as I do in my Inbox?
"It would be cool to give people I know a 3 digit DTMF code or somethign to enter while the phone is ringing so I would know it's someone I know, and not some fucking telemarketer", He said, popping the back off his cell phone.....
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
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?
While I give to charities, it's annoying to have (literally) 10 to 15 different Police charities calling every month (among others).
This is why I don't give to charities.
I did once. Last Christmas, we put a bunch of goodies in a shoe box to send to a poor child in Africa. Gave it to a company that was collecting them along with a check to cover postage and such.
In the six months since, I've received half a dozen letters from them begging for more money. Forget it; I'm not doing it anymore. If I can't just donate from time to time without being harassed for the rest of me life then I won't donate at all.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Why would anyone still bother with a landline, anyway?
I have not had a landline in like 6 years. I give out my cell number freely, whenever I transact business. Since my area code is 917 (in NY, this is obviously a cell number), I never get telemarketing calls.
Not. Ever.
And I dont miss the landline in the least
Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.
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?
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
[ring][ring]
Them: "Hi, I'm Tyrone, and I'm calling from the $Police_Fire_Charity. Did you know that $Police_Fire personnel are great guys and don't any benefits at all? How would you like to help?"
Me: "Well, Tyrone, I've already donated this year, three times so far and I plan to give again in the fall."
Them: "Mr. $Mispronounced_Lastname, you've been giving to one of those other charities. We represent the real $Policy_Fire_Charity -- how about helping us out with $20?"
Me: "No, no, I'm positive I've donated three times already. I even have the cancelled checks. Let's see here, this big one's made out to "Hennepin County", the other to "Minnesota Revenue Service" and the third and largest to "Internal Revenue Service." I'm sure that all of those donations cover all the money I'm giving to law enforcement."
The rest boils down to an amusing argument with the high school dropout on the other end of the line about whose benefits are better, his (none), mine, or the cops. I'm actually pretty sure mine are better than both, but the cops around here sure get to retire on a nice pension before I do.
The Red Cross is even worse. My ex-girlfriend donated blood immediately after 9/11, in an attempt to help.
Since then, every 2-4 weeks she's gotten a phone call from them asking for more blood. She's even received two calls in the same night, despite telling them to take her off the list every single time. Saying that she's on medication did no good either.
I've thought about giving blood, but after seeing the harassment she went through, I won't without a damn good reason.
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!
.02
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.
my
You'll need to do some leg work. The stuff I had to deal with all came from fax.com - they were trying to create a "non-profit" loophole by sending the spam on behalf of The Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Once I got that part, I contacted both the Center AND thier major sponsors. The spam stopped very quickly after that.
For the vacation and interest rate spam, it will take a bit more. You are going to need a phone line that you can throw away - prepaid cell phone maybe? - and possibly a PO box. The only way I know of to identify these scum is to act like a sucker and get them to contact you - play along and get the necessary info for making payment, etc. and you've got them.
Good luck.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2