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."

Comments

Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[GreyPoopon]

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.

You do realize that you can take them to small claims court yourself, right? I strongly suggest that you keep a log of their calls and anything you tell them.

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[mhall119]

Even during the rest of the year we frequently get calls from somebody that isn't on the other end of the phone, usually all I get is a click and several seconds of silence. Those I just hang up on, if they can't be bothered to be present when I answer, I'm certainly not going to consider it important enough to wait for them to come to the phone. A better solution is to _not_ hang up, because once you hang up it frees a phone line for them to call someone else, every second you keep the line open reduces their call rate, which reduces the money they make. I frequently ask telemarketers to "hold on just a second" and put the phone on the table for like 5 minutes. Amusingly, sometimes the telemarketer is still there waiting, in which case I tell them "sorry, I'll be just one more second" and go about whatever I was doing for another 5-10 minutes.

Not that tricky

[PlatyPaul]

Signing up on a web form every 5 years - 10 minutes Avoiding telemarketing phone calls during dinner, sex, and sleep - Priceless.

Re:Not that tricky

[antifoidulus]

Man, you have a regular eating schedule, get laid, and actually have time to sleep instead of spending all nighters at the office? I have to call your geek credentials into question.....

Just out of curiosity, have you tried doing all 3 of those at the same time?

Simple

[awkScooby]

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...

people move, numbers change

[OrangeTide]

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.

Re:people move, numbers change

[belmolis]

No, there's another mechanism for dealing with this. Numbers are automatically removed from the do-not-call list when they are disconnected or reassigned.

Re:people move, numbers change

[pete-classic]

Actually, opt-in makes the most sense.

-Peter

Thanks

[jtroutman]

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?

Irony continued...

[packetmon]

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?

Re:How many?

[RedSteve]

If the Do-Not-Call list were to never expire, eventually it will fill to all available U.S. phone numbers.

Um...so what would the problem be with that?

Not re-registering

[Drathos]

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..

Can't They Send a Reminder?

[Slashdot Parent]

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.

Why cron was invented

[giminy]

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

Last night

[Dunbal]

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? :)