Do Not Call List Under Attack

smooth wombat writes "Do Not Call. Those words are music to millions of Americans who have signed up for the list so they're not bothered by telemarketers. Not content to let things as they are telemarketers are now lobbying the FCC to have state laws which regulate the practice overturned. In April an ad-hoc group of firms ranging from the Direct Marketing Association to the National Children's Cancer Society filed a joint petition asking the FCC to declare that it has 'exclusive jurisdiction over interstate telemarketing calls.' The issue revolves around some states whose Do Not Call laws are more strict than Federal law and which prohibit telemarketers from calling anyone on a Do Not Call, regardless of an existing business relationship." Update: 07/21 18:42 GMT by Z : Official EPIC page, with contact info and background.

Comments

I wonder..

[Kjuib]

What part of DO NOT CALL dont they understand? I do not want people calling me trying to sell me stuff.. so DO NOT CALL me! hard to get much simpler.

Re:I wonder..

[jayhawk88]

Oh but see, you have an "existing business relationship" with them, since this one time you bought batteries at Target with your Bank of America Visa credit card, Bank of America sold your student loan and personal information to Wells Fargo, who sold it to Sallie Mae, who sold it's list of customers to Fannie Mae, who shares a database with several mortage companies, some of whom use cold calling to drum up business during the winter months.

How dare you not recognize the legitimate and in no way phony "existing business relationship". How do you expect Bruno's Mortgage and High Interest Loans to not communicate with you, their (possible, potential, maybe if they're drunk when we call, three times removed) customer?

Clearly for Federal Regulation

[sterno]

This law makes perfect sense being a federal law. Why? Because almost all telemarketing calls are crossing state or possibly national borders. Thus there's a natural complication when you have different laws in different states with different abilities to enforce those laws on others.

Better to have one federal law to simplify things.

And I still wonder, why do those telemarketers want to call me if I'm on this list. Seems like they are being done a service here. I'm not going to buy their crap so no sense wasting time on a call.

Re:Doesn't bother me anymore

[eln]

If the only reason you have the landline is so you can get DSL, then just don't hook up a regular telephone to it. The phone can't ring if the phone doesn't exist.