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Do Not Call Listings to Expire in 2008
Ant writes "Yahoo! News report that the cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national/United States (U.S.)'s Do Not Call list. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years. Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do not enroll again."
I for one will not be re-registering my number. Hopefully it will get me fewer calls. The DNC has been a nightmare for me as my call volume has increased at least ten fold since it started. I'd rather get four or five calls a week with people who I can tell to take me off their list (what I used to get) than the 10+ calls a day from autodialers with forged Caller ID and noone on the other end of the line (so they can't be reported).
Knowing my luck, however, I will get both..
End of line..
It's not a big deal to have to renew, but it would be nice if you could opt in for an e-mail reminder or something. There's pretty much zero chance I could remember on my own before it expired. I dropped off the list temporarily when I moved recently and had to change my phone number. My phone pretty much rang non-stop from the moment it was connected to the moment (a week later) when it got added to the list. I had kind of forgotten how irritating the constant harassment could be.
We have to make all the calls through a "filter" of sorts, it references "the list." We also had the ability to add people to the list, and were mandated to do so upon request. Our company faced stiff penalties for calling people on the list as well.
Bottom line:Tell the first telemarketer who calls you to add you to the list.
A quick side note: The bank of phone numbers my company would call could be sorted by name, age, race, income, marital status, and sexual preference. I recall a time when we payed another company $1100 for a list of gay people in Illinois. No kidding.
Funny, I got a call last night from a telemarketer that went something like this:
:)
"Hi Mr. So and so? I wonder if you had a minute so I could remind you that your telephone number will be off the "Do Not Call list" next year, and to offer you our automatic "Do Not Call" list renewal service. For just $1.95 a month our company will track your telephone number and automatically renew your status on this list for you every five years..."
I'm joking, of course. But how far away are we from this?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I added all my numbers, phone and fax, to the do not call list, back when do-not-call started,
and it was the first thing I did after establishing a new phone whenever I moved, and I still
get about two calls a day to the voice line, and one or two junk faxes a day. Sometimes more.
I have a two inch pile of junk faxes from 2006; I kept them all, just to see
how many I get. I also get regular automated voice calls for the same crap over and over;
credit card debt relief and to clean my rugs (I have hardwood floors, and no credit card debt).
At least it's easy to tell it's a recording and just hang up.. but the same thing over and over?
Someone's wasting their junk advertising dollars.
The automated calls give an option at the end to either 'press 1 to make an appointment,
or press 2 to remove you from our call list', and of course when you press '2' it says
it's an invalid option, likely some kind of loophole in the law..
I've searched the web for the caller-ids, and it seems this happens all over
the country.. some folks were successful at tracking down who actually makes the calls
(often a Florida address), and some interrogated the people who picked up when you
'press 1' finding they're just working for some unknown entity out of their basement.
The caller-id numbers are from all over, sometimes local, sometimes from other states,
and others 'Blocked', but often it's the same message.
And if I ever give money to a police or goodwill charity, for the next three months
I get calls from every police and charity organization asking for money at dinner,
lunch and breakfast. After a few cycles of this, I've simply stopped giving to charities..
screw 'em all.
I don't know how many calls do-not-call is preventing, maybe a lot, maybe a few,
but there's obviously some kind of loopholes..