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FTC Bans Prerecorded Telemarketing Drivel
coondoggie writes "In the ongoing battle to let us eat dinner in peace without being interrupted by amazingly annoying telemarketer blather, and in this case the even more infuriating recorded telemarketing drivel, the Federal Trade Commission today basically outlawed recorded telemarketing calls. Specifically, the FTC changed its venerable Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to prohibit, as of Sept. 2009, telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer has agreed to accept such calls from a given caller/seller. Between now and 2009, telemarketers must provide an obvious, easy and quick way for consumers to opt-out of any call, the FTC said. Such an opt-out mechanism needs to be in place by December 1, 2008."
"telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages"
what if they use text to speech software? it's not prerecorded.
am i looking for money lol
Quit leaving that fucking hole in these things !
Nobody ever willingly agrees to that shit, they're tricked into agreeing every single time.
Nobody wants to fucking hear it, quit making laws that don't do anything other than calm people down for 5 minutes, you fucking assholes !
God damnit, this shit is more irritating than the fucking telemarketers !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
It's all well and good to know that you're supposed to tell someone to remove you from their call list when you actually have a human on the other end, but the endless calls to my work number (it's on the DNC list, but is too new to have propagated) by machines wishing to inform me of my vehicle's possible "out-of-warranty status" need to end.
Usually when government bans things like this, it exempts itself from the ban. For example, does this at all affect prerecorded political calls?
There's one thing that is conspicuously missing from do not call lists, and that is the ability to opt out of ANY kind of call you receive.
Currently, you're not able to opt out of receiving political or charitable calls. There are companies out there masquerading as charities and calling folks. I'm on their list and have been told several times that I cannot and will not be removed from their lists, because they don't have to.
Once the FTC fixes this, then I'll be impressed.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
This only applies to telemarketers calling from within the united states. A lot of the iterative calling I get is from international skypers.
There are some calls that are exempt, like during a state of emergency the fire department will issue an evacuation order via automated phonecall.
Yes we've had laws against pre-recorded robotic marketing in Canada for decades. The problem is that neither the government nor the police are willing to enforce the law. When I get robots calling me up I make a complaint to the phone company and the phone company says they can't do anything about it because it is a police issue. When I phone the police up they tell me that they won't do anything about it because it is the phone company's responsibility to stop the illegal practice.
The politician who will vote to let you opt out of political telemarketing call will never be elected due to lack of funding.. aaaah paradox.. :)
Quit leaving that fucking hole in these things !
Why is this limited to just telemarketers? Debt collectors, campaigners, and non-profits need included.
I kept getting hammered by an automated call only leaving a number to call back.. A Google search turned up the number belonged to a collection agency in Chicago. They were hammering stale cases and my new number from a move just happend to be one of the numbers they had. If you don't speak english and thus unable to follow the instructions to call, there is no way to stop these calls as there is never anyone on the line to talk to.
I called them and told them to put me on their DNC list. They informed me that they were exempt as they were not telemarketers. WTF??? I expect this new thing to be full of loopholes also.
The truth shall set you free!
...why aren't the pre-recorded messages about 'your vehicle warranty' and messages from 'cardholder services' illegal to begin with? They're basically fraudulent trolling schemes. They don't come out and say it, but they basically imply that they're something they aren't. Like "OH SNAP! YOUR CAR'S WARRANTY IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE, BLAH BLAH BLAH!" a less intelligent person might think this is actually real and important. Cardholder services? Please. "We're your credit card company, press 1 on your touchtone phone to lower your interest rate!" There's also that snail-mail spam claiming to be from your registrar, saying your domain is about to expire, and you have to pay them $29.95.
I get half a dozen of these calls a day. Not being comfortable with phones, I try to use them as little as possible, so it really pisses me off.
And the opt-out is a joke. I have 'been removed from the list' 17 times this week alone, for the exact same fucking 'cardholder services' recording!
Something else that is a joke is Anonymous Call Rejection, where calls are blocked if they have Caller ID blocked (Not Available) or are 'PRIVATE'. Too bad telemarketers know this, and therefor I'm still constantly getting calls from anonymous 800-numbers that are NAMED 'Private' and 'Not Available'. Assholes. I wonder if I can sue them under the DMCA for circumventing my apparent 'spamfucker security'.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Hey fuck you.
You want to earn the easy money sitting on your ass... You get to listen to me rant at you for calling me about STUPID SHIT that i don't want or care about.
I dont give a damm if they are students. If they are working there i fucking hate them and hope they die a horrible violent death.
Indeed, however obviously doing the reverse, and having it opt-in, would exclude telemarketing almost entirely, (which would be a good thing, but not from their point of view, and their associates) and probably lead to things like bundling telemarketing plans with your phone bill, and if you opt-out there, your rates go up... so opt-out is probably a better option, although bundling may happen anyways as most people are becoming used to it now arbitrarily, hey why not tack it on as manditory?
[ ] I would like to install Google Toolbar with my new long distance plan. (-5$ From monthly bill)
[ ] I do not wish to participate in the telemarketing option. (+15$ to your montly bill)
Perhaps I'm just insensitive but when people make a voluntary decision to work somewhere that is propagating that sort of low-grade evil, I feel they take the good (higher pay) with the bad (people who you broke the law to disturb late at night yelling at you.)
It seems a bit foolish or arrogant to me, to think you deserve anything less than being held responsible for what you're doing.
I don't think the "I was just doing my job, and it was the only place that paid well" thing holds any credence.
Lastly, as much as these people irritate you, try your best not to lose your temper with them. Most of them are probably students like I was with terrible managers (the cream of the crap) and strict floor regulations that leave them tethered to their computer, sitting upright, unable to drink coffee or indulge in anything, taking calls for their entire eight hour shift with no breaks, having to sit idley while the death threats poured through the lines, having a one-minute-per-day bathroom break policy and doing it all for a paycheque a meaningless few dollars higher than a McD's salaryman.
If I can, by my actions, make it harder for the bottom-feeding telemarketing companies to operate I will do so. This includes making it so that even starving students are unwilling to work for these companies. By taking a job with these bottom-feeders you are part of the problem. Don't want the aggro? Don't take the job.
OK, everybody hates them. Nobody likes them. Yet they keep saying "we provide a valuable service that people like, and it is not annoying".
Here is the solution. We don't need to outlaw them. We need the law only two require two things:
1. Telemarketers MUST display a proper number for caller ID
2. Telemarketers may NOT block incoming calls
Then we all install auto-dialer programs on our PC's. We record a long, babbling message stating: "Thank you for your recent call. This message is to inform you that we do not wish to receive any automated calls from you, or any of your business partners, or anybody else, ever again. You may consider this our opt-out message. For your convenience, this message will automatically re-dial you every 30 seconds until you opt out of OUR auto dial promotion. You may signify your intention to opt out of our special, valuable auto-dial list by not calling us again for 6 months. Once you have opted out of our program by not calling us for 6 months, your number will be automatically removed from our calling list. Thank you, and have a nice day."
In other words, we would start clogging THEIR phones, and THEY would get pissed off. And the only way to get off of our autodial list is to stop calling us. You stop pissing us off, we will stop pissing you off.
Comments? Questions?
-Don!
"See the hill, take the hill"
Now all they need to do is ban SPAM emails...
an obvious, easy and quick way for consumers to opt-out of any call
You mean like, say, hanging up? There's really not much point unless you can opt-out before the call. Maybe they should create some kind of list of people that companies do not call - like the one they have now, but actually have it work this time.
Bullshit. I have a perfect credit record and I regularly get calls from debt collection agencies looking for people that I've never heard of. I've had the same phone number for more than 10 years, so it isn't like I have a recently recycled telephone number.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Telephone communications are considered private, right? That is, unlike email, a phone conversation can reasonably be expected to be between only me and the party on the other end.
How can one then presume that a private activity such telephone communication should be treated as a broadcast medium? Political free speech is an exemption? Am I to let every politician come into my bedroom for a little pillow talk because of "free speech"?
The phone is a direct line into the heart of my private home. I don't want anyone in my home who I didn't invite.
You might say calling me is no different from coming up and knocking on my door. OK then, come up and knock on my door. Too expensive you say? Calling is more efficient you say? Well I believe the term was "free speech", not "cheap speech".
Oh, and when you do come knocking, don't forget to read the sign that says "No Solicitors". You know, the sign that sets the rules on my private property where I have certain rights also.
Tell you what, here's a good way to do it. Since I can't put a sign on my phone, why not make a rule that says if you want to call me you have to have come to my door and get me to sign a piece of paper that says I agree to take your calls. If that's too much trouble, then I probably didn't want to hear from you anyway.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
You are absolutely wrong about somebody deserving to be harassed by debt collectors. Nobody EVER deserves to be harassed under any circumstances. That is why there are large awards in civil court cases for collection agencies with too much "zeal".
This gentleman clearly indicated he was not the party they were looking for. Any calls that occur after this are, by definition, harassment. Now this harassment is not necessarily covered under the aforementioned FDCPA, but it does not have to be. This is no different than any other person or company repeatedly calling a random person after being asked to stop.
As you can see from the FDCPA, even IF the debt collection agency is calling the right person there are still rules governing their ability to call them after being asked to stop. You might want to look at:
Furthermore, at any time a person may send a letter to the collection agency asking that all telephone communications cease. Afterwards, the collection agency may only send letters to the person updating them on any actions being taken towards the debt.
I have had the same thing happen to me many times and to friends and family as well. Here is the 411 for you:
1) They ARE exempt from all telemarketing laws. Everyone likes to bring that up on the phone, but they are actually right.
2) So what the fuck now? They are still not exempt from basic laws governing harassment. You could deal with your phone company or talk to a supervisor of the debt collection agency and threaten a lawsuit if they keep calling you, or you could just go to....
3) Deal with them under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. They MUST inform of you their mailing address and the appropriate department. Send them a typed letter explaining that you are not the person they keep asking for, you have no knowledge of this person any debts this person has. Demand that all communications to that number cease immediately or you will seek remedies under the FDCPA.
Believe it or not, this works every time under the FDCPA. The reason why is that 99.9% of the people complain on the phone where the debt collection agency is not liable. Hardly anyone ever writes a letter.
Write the letter, it will stop. If it does not.. you have a $5,000 dollar insta-claim in a small claims court of your choice.
To cover phone calls from the mother in law
Task Mangler
That's just crap. Move if it's so bad where you live.
You sound just like people who justify joining gangs and committing crimes instead of finding honest work because there are just no other opportunities for them--the system is corrupt/racist/biased against them, so the only thing they can do is steal from honest people who have actually made something of themselves. There are always other options, but you were just too lazy or complacent to take them. You chose a scummy job, you have to live with that fact. Asking for sympathy because you didn't have enough self respect to better yourself and find a job that didn't involve making yourself part of the one of the most universally loathed classes on Earth is almost as contemptible as taking the job in the first place.
Any abuse a telemarketer gets is deserved in spades.
"If call centres disobey all the previous rules and obligations, what makes you think they're going to adhere to this one? Especially call centres in India where these laws have little jurisdiction?"
Because the new rule says that if you call after 9pm, a B-2 Spirit will drop napalm on your call centre.
(Boy, wouldn't that be satisfying...)
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
If you don't speak english and thus unable to follow the instructions to call,
With all due respect, if you ("you" in general, not the parent poster) can't speak English then what the fuck are you doing living in an English speaking country? I live in New Zealand and we get these stories all the time how there are special translation services being offered and suggested for those who are "English impaired". WTF? How are these people even allowed to immigrate here?
If I go live in China, I'm sure as hell they'd expect me to speak Chinese. Stupid socialist governments.
I hope to hell that the FTC comes down *hard* on these people.
Blacks and Indians?
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
Except that you have to interrupt your current activity, and answer the phone in order to be able to hang up.
I'm pretty sure that's what most people are complaining about.
They don't act on an individual complaint, but they compile them and if a company gets a number of them, the FTC goes after them.
That's pretty much what I was (finally) told (after calling back and forth between Bell Canada and the police) by the police. This means that I will continue to get automated robotic calls from the same companies (it has been happening for a few years already) until enough people decide to complain about it.
It's not a criminal issue, it is a civil.regulatory issue. So the police aren't involved.
According to what I was told by Bell Canada, it is a police issue. I agree however that the police should not have to get involved. I received no help or advice from either institution. I remember one time complaining to the CRTC (the Canadian equivalent to the American FCC) on another matter and they referred me to another department which referred me to another department. Eventually I gave up on that issue as I have given up on the robotic phone call issue (which I have complained about more than once; if at first you don't succeed, try try again).
I think these companies probably know the law enforcement issues (civil or otherwise) better than me and try to keep their call volume under the radar.
Yeah I know the issues; "it's not my aisle" and I should stop pestering law enforcement to enforce the law and the phone company can't control their own phone network.
First I pressed "1" for a live operator. Now to fuck with them and remain consistent, I made up a cheat sheet in advance. On it I wrote a fake credit card number, an expiration date, a fake "card not present" number, a fake SSN, fake balance, etc. They require you to have at least $3000 in debt and at least $2500 in available credit on at least one card to cover their fees.
One thing they ask for is the customer service number for the card so they can call your bank, which they do while you are on hold. So, I used this page of bank ID numbers when making my fake credit card number, and I also googled my chosen bank's customer service number (I picked Wachovia). Also I rigged the number to validate by the Luhn algorithm in case their systems check for that. This way we have a very plausible but totally fake credit card number which will hopefully pass any initial consistency checking they may do.
So I put this cheat sheet by the phone and waited for the call. Within a few hours, they called.
I answer their questions. First they ask about my debt. I tell them $9000 across two cards. I mention my "Wachovia Mastercard". They acknowledge knowingly and ask me to "verify" the card number "starting with the 5" thus suggesting they already know the card number. All Mastercards start with 5. I give them the fake number. They ask me to "verify" the expiration date. I give them the fake date. They ask for the customer service number on the back of the card. I give them Wahovia's number. They put me on hold for five minutes to call up Wachovia and negotiate me a lower rate.
"Wachovia says it's an invalid number. Can you re-read your card number?" I re-read the same number. They put me on hold again for several minutes. This repeats again. I reassure them that card is valid, that I just used it an hour or so ago, etc. They try again. They get a supervisor. He tries. It keeps coming back invalid. I waste forty five minutes of at least two people's time. Finally, as they apologize for not being able to help me, I calmly explain my ruse. What followed was a string of obscenities that even made my dog gag, followed by them abruptly hanging up.
And they haven't called me since.
Unknown host pong.
There's a similar register in the UK, which I registered my number on. However, there's an even more annoying loop hole over here.
If the call centre is based outside the UK then their cold calls are not exempt - which seems more than a little rediculous to me. In the end I had to resort to only anwswering calls with listed numbers.
I turned on a new land line to get DSL less than two weeks ago. I do not even *know* the number. The next day I started getting telespam, mostly recordings. I get a couple every day. The worst part is that all but one of them had no idea who they were calling.
If you only wanted the line for DSL why did you bother connecting a regular phone to it?
It's amazing how versatile this document is.
Your law advocates a
( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting telemarketing spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
(x) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Believe it or not, this works every time under the FDCPA. The reason why is that 99.9% of the people complain on the phone where the debt collection agency is not liable. Hardly anyone ever writes a letter.
Not everyone believes that it should be a requirement to write anyone a letter who calls to ask them to stop. With some phone numbers, it's less hastle and easer to simply get another number and drop the number that is on the bad boys list. One call fixes it instead of a letter writing campaign.
This phone abuse is one of the reasons phones & phone numbers are becomming disposable. They get clogged and die like an old email account.
The pitty is the numbers get recycled quickly to some poor unsuspecting new customer who then has to deal with the trash associated with the old phone number.
The truth shall set you free!
This is my entire problem with debt collections, there is basically no regulation and when you demand proof of a debt, if they drop the matter they are not required as far as I know to send you proof! What will often happened, is that company will transfer the "debt" over to another company (usually owned by the same people and usually to the guy in the cubicle next to the one that called you). So legally, now we have a different company with this "debt" to collect, they will hold it and then try to collect again from you, hoping you have forgotten about the first call months or even years later.
I was changing jobs last year, so ended up picking up cobra for 6 months to cover the upcoming birth of my son. Carriers changed multiple times during that time (my old company sucked some royal donkey balls) lots of junk in the mail blahblah. Took five months, two appeals letters but everything is sorted (I hate medical insurance, all this because you get different information on requirements and what you owe, depending on what time of day you call, if you are standing on one leg and need to fart!). Now, if I am silly enough to listen to the dribble from the debt collectors (yes some bills got past due, due to the confusion) I demand they send written proof that I still owe them money, my wife and I have found that some will try to "collect a debt" even after you've paid, because if they can get "free" money from you, then they will. It is sad, sad, borderline criminal little industry.
Tes
Your example failed to demonstrate your point. How exactly did the phone company sell your number when you hadn't even setup a business phone number yet? How would the phone company know you opened a business and then associate it with your home number and sell it? No, what happened is that when you filed for your DBA, you provided your home phone number on the application, and the state sells lists of registered businesses.
I know this, because I've had the same thing happen to me for 2 businesses that I've setup. One of the businesses was a shareware company, where I didn't need a phone for anything, and thus never provided my home phone number or address (in relation to the business) to ANYONE with the exception of when I got my DBA. Thus there is only one conclusion to be drawn about where it came from.
Just to follow up on the above, I have noticed a great decrease in nuisance calls since registering with the TPS - and any that do slip through the net, just tell the caller you are on the TPS & demand their company name & telephone number & threaten to report them to OfTel.
Whilst a lot of them do just put the phone down quick, others do apologise & assure you that your details will be removed from their database.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I couldn't tell you how many times I've heard people boast about how they're "smarter than the collection agencies" after getting off the phone with a collector.
I would assume that being "smarter than the collection agencies" includes convincing them to start calling a different (random) phone number instead. And ... apparently that works, too.
Just hang up the damned phone! What are you, an idiot? If you don't want to be interrupted by a phone conversation during dinner, don't answer the phone. Turn off the ringer, let the answering machine get it. Delete the message as soon as you can tell it's not someone you want to talk to. Jeez, people, it's simple! Stop pretending you're a victim.
I'll call you on this...
Any abuse a telemarketer gets is deserved in spades.
Let me fix that for you...
Any abuse a human gets is deserved in spades.
To which I say, WTF?
No, you didn't qualify that in a specific enough manner. How about:
Any abuse a human who is disturbing you and your family repeatedly while acting in violation of numerous laws and/or regulations gets is deserved in spades.
Hello. This is Barak Obama and I have an important ...
Look, you freaking r-tard, if you call me ONE MORE TIME, I'm voting for McCain!! You got that, SFB?
Hello. This is Barak Obama and I have an imp...
That's IT!!! I warned you!!! Tard! Tard! AAAA! AAAA!
Hello. This is John McCain and i have an important messag..
Alright! Screw *all* you guys! I'm voting Communist! You hear me, brain boy?? I'm now a registered Communist!!! Take THAT! AAAA! AAAA!
Hello. This is Angela Davis and I have an important message ...
We've been trying to contact you about your website! It's due to expire in the Very Near Future, and if you don't renew, it could lead to service outages, legal costs, hair loss, or worse: Failure in Iraq!
Please press 1 to talk to one of our Network Experts. Press 2 to a representative in our Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt division. Press 3 to talk to Phishing Expert, and press 9 to opt out of this call!
Please, hurry!
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
Yeap, love those political robo calls? They are still exempt. We are working to remove that restriction. More at: http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org/index.php
"immediately say "no, thanks" and hang up."
If you simply say "no thanks," they will call back again later. You must say "remove me from your calling list." Telemarketing outfits make their money by number of calls made, and it is in their financial interest to do everything they can to keep you on their list. Any degree of ambiguity will be used as an implicit approval of future calls.