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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."
My mobile # is on the DNC list and I still get calls. I have filed complaints with them and still get the same people calling over and over again. Emperion Marketing (505 647 9618)is my worst offender. I keep getting calls from these asshats, though I have called them and told them to take me off the list. I have filed 4 complaints about them and it hasn't done a thing.
BTW, register your number here https://www.donotcall.gov/register/Reg.aspx
Signing up on a web form every 5 years - 10 minutes Avoiding telemarketing phone calls during dinner, sex, and sleep - Priceless.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
They should just hire some telemarketers to call people during dinner, to see if they would like to re-register for the do not call list...
I'm lonely
It's only fair that the enrollment is not permanent otherwise one day the list would include nearly every number. Even if some people who originally registered have switched numbers (moved to a different area code for example) or are deceased.
An everlasting list would be equivalent to a soft ban on telemarketing. If you really want to do that, just do that instead. For now 5 years seems perfectly reasonable for me to re-register.
How will I know when to enroll again? When I start getting annoying calls after 5pm.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Thanks for the reminder, I just re-signed up. Can you post this story again in five years so I'll remember to do it then to?
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
So I tried to call my local representative to have a word in with him about this and he hung up claiming he was on some form of Do Not Call list. Can you imagine that?
Infiltrated dot Net
I'd say five years is a pretty good amount of time. What percent of the population keep a number for that long, anyway?
If the Do-Not-Call list were to never expire, eventually it will fill to all available U.S. phone numbers. We might as well simply impose a Telemarketer Banning Law in that case.
{ - Generic Guy - }
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..
They have an email address associated with each phone number. Why can't they send out a reminder 6 months before your number's expiration so you can renew?
FYI- You can renew your Do Not Call registrations at any time, even if they are not about to expie. I renewed all my numbers today, despite some of them not expiring for over a year.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
What I described is the existing procedure, not necessarily what I want. In any case, the phone companies don't need to submit identifying information, just a list of phone numbers. And note that this information is publicly available anyhow, with somewhat more effort. The government can easily enough check whether a phone number has been changed, as can you.
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.
Why not just leave the numbers on the list untill the number changes hands or is disconnected ?
This 5 year bit sounds like somthing to keep lobbyists from crying.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
0 0 1 1 * wget --post-data 'ctlACPH1:txtAreaCode=&ctlACPH1:txtPhone=&ctlEmail:txtEmail=&txtConfirmEmail=' https://www.donotcall.gov/Register/Reg.aspx
You could wrap the wget in an if-block to see if the year is divisible by 5, but I'm lazy.
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
I've moved twice in the past six years, both times I got an unpublished number. When a telemarketer called, they were informed that this was an unpublished number and to please put it on their DNC list. That brought all telemarketing calls to a screeching halt.
When I started my new job last year I moved to a new city and ordered a second land line phone number with distinctive ring for off duty support for work emergencies. Both numbers are unpublished. After the first couple of false alarms with telemarketers calling the "hot line", they stopped real fast.
It does not cost much more for unpublished numbers.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
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 wish there was a product that just automatically -- never rang and just hung up on a large swath of numbers.
Kind of like Spam Assassin does for email -- it's like the message was never sent.
I see an IPO, a little black box that gets a list of telemarketers numbers from the net and blocks them all!
Any takers?
I'm surprised noone's made a script to automatically start registering every US number. I just re-entered my phone numbers and was surprised that you only have to enter your phone number and click on a confirmation link in an email to register. There's no verification that the number is yours or even a captcha. It would be very easy for someone to game this system.
Then again, that might be the perfect excuse for the telemarketing industry to call for a lengthy and expensive overhaul of the system and wind up screwing us all...
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..
I kind of miss telemarketer calls.
Would you like to subscribe to our newspaper? No, I'm illiterate!
Would you like new windows? No, this house is so run down I'm abandoning it.
Would you like to donate to the children? No, I don't like children.
Would you like to donate to the police fund? Will you let my brother out of jail?
and so on. Come up with a response that is not on their list and it's comedy gold.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I started getting telemarketing calls again a couple months ago and reregistered all my numbers. I'd rather not have to, but it's worth the couple minutes involved. I get very little phone spam, mostly mortgage offers which I turn down by saying "It's illegal for you to be talking to me right now".