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.

Doesn't bother me anymore

[Apreche]

I used to care about this, but now not so much. I just got rid of the landline phone. Actually I moved and did not get a landline phone in my new abode. It's illegal for marketing types to call my cellular phone. I win. If you really don't want anyone calling you throw out your busted old landline.

Re:Why no marketing on cell phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hm. Why do americans put up with paying to _receive_ calls on their mobiles, anyway? Surely you should be demanding treatment like the rest of the world where the caller pays for calls to mobile phones?

Re:Doesn't bother me anymore

[Undertaker43017]

I actually keep a landline for the sole purpose of sending marketers to it.

Anything I fill out, that requires a phone number, I use the landline number. The only thing on the line is an answering machine (that doesn't have a phone, so no ringer) and a fax machine. I am never bothered, and amazingly get very few messages. ;) I didn't even bother registering the number with the DNC list.

Re:Doesn't bother me anymore

[Skye16]

I think it still is. You can't call someone for solicitation purposes if it costs money for them to take the call. Or so I'm lead to believe.

Charities

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

If you're going to give to a charity, do it anonymously. Otherwise, you'll be put on a "sucker" list and you'll not only be continuously called by the original charity that you gave to, but also charities that they sold your name and number to.

I have blown off PBS because of this!

State DNC lists are redundant

[p_conrad]

I have to work with these lists, because part of my job is to support a telemarketing system. Nobody told me squat about that on the interview, nevertheless here I am. I've been here long enough to see the lists come into being. It's making telemarketing harder, and all that good stuff.

I also have the misfortune to need to telemarket in two states, one of which has it's own state list. As it happens, we only call five small towns in this state. In order to get access to the State's DNC list we have to purchase it for the entire state. To make matters worse, this state has a very different set of rules.

On a federal level, you are allowed to call customers you formerly did business with for 18 months after the termination of the business relationship. Not so in this other state. Apparently you aren't allowed to call even the day after the relationship ends. The federal system actually allows the people who get called some recourse. The state system I have to deal with makes it very clear in their fine print that you are allowed a certain amount of accidental calls. Because you are a paying list subscriber, they actually have a department to handle these situations. If you get caught calling people on the state DNC list, you had better have paid the man or else it's game on for lawsuits. What it ends up being is simply extortion. You want to call people of that state, you buy the list, which costs more annually than the entire federal list, for what that's worth.

I really feel sorry for the people who live in that nameless state, because they are payin a ton of taxes to manage a list system that offers them no protection whatsoever. The federal list is a big pain for telemarketers, but at least it has and element of fairness, and really attempts to protect the people who want not to be called.

I'm not interested in arguing the notion of whether the freedom not to be bothered should trump the freedom to call any phone number you want without fear of prosecution, but for the nerds out there, here's some technical details:

The federal list can be downloaded in it's entirety or in updates by date selected once a day by any business who pays the fee. The list is numbers only, no names at all. The state list I have to work with is available by e-mail or on CD-ROM. I picked e-mail, and the updates are entirely at the discretion of the state. So every month or so, my office e-mail gets choked with the list in several parts, so I had to work a special deal with the MIS guys to get extra space on the server. When I first signed up for it, the state didn't send a file until the next scheduled update, but made it clear that we'd be covered in the event of accidentally calling somebody on the list we didn't have access to! Of course almost everybody in the state list is also on the federal list, so we never got a complaint.

I imagine the only people on that state list that are not on the federal list are people looking to sue somebody. They are out there; we've encountered them before. I'm not a fan of telemarketing and would support it if I didn't have to. The federal list makes sense, and really does eliminate any reason for states to keep their own lists, except that grand-daddy of all reasons for government programs - the pork. It's all about the pork, folks. Always has been; always will be.

Re:Why no marketing on cell phones?

[Fnord666]

The telephone consumer protection act of 1991 explicitly prohibits telemarketing calls to numbers where a charge/expense would be incurred by the owner of the number. This was one of the key points of this act and why it included faxes, since the recipient of the fax would incur an expense.

Re:Charities

[fatcatman]

We donated to Samaritan's Purse one year. Our church was doing a "fill a shoebox with things for african children" deal, and we thought it would be nice. So we put some useful items and a couple of toys in a shoebox for the poor little 3rd world children, and included the required $5 to "help cover postage."

Since then, Samaritan's Purse has spent a hell of a lot more than $5 sending me full color documents printed on nice glossy cardstock, begging for more money. Every couple of weeks I get another one of these in the mail. Now tell me why I'd donate anything more to them when they completely wasted the $5 I gave them? That was supposed to help get my package to the poor little african kid, not be spent begging me for more money.

(yes, I know *my* $5 wasn't used to mail me, but the point is they're massively wasting money, and I'm not going to contribute to that. If I were out begging for money I'd be mailing cheap newsprint once or twice a year, so as to use the money given to me appropriately)

Re:I wonder..

[networkBoy]

Dunno about phone service but I use them as subsedised entertainment:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html [xs4all.nl]
I keep a copy at the phone. If I don't have time for it I just hang up on them instead.

Really is fun. Two memorable calls:
1) I got yelled at by a super about wasting their time.
2) Some girl broke down at the "why are you doing it then" and started crying. I got uncomfortable and hung up on her :P
-nB

Re:I wonder..

[networkBoy]

Golly, should have put my reply with yours. I'd sign up for the free phone service just for the entertainment value (unless they prohibit it, in which case nevermind)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html [xs4all.nl]
-nB

Re:Previous business relationship termination?

[taustin]

Tell them to put you on their internal DNC list. They are specifically required to do so, and to honor that list for several years. Prior relationship or no.

You could also organize a protest outside their place of business, if you're feeling peckish.

Re:Charities

[GMFTatsujin]

I got the same treatement from the US Animal Humane Society. I sent in $50 one year as a proxy donation for a friend as a gift. Two years later I was still recieving letters every week, flyers, and tiny packages with branded trinkets desktop calculators or caldenards with "DON'T FORGET TO DONATE KTNX" written on the first day of every month. All accompanied, of course, with pleas of "THESE P00R PUPP13S OMG PLZ HELP WITH UR $$$".

Sometimes they'd juxtapose the gift of a delightful teddy bear with a story of a puppy who was purposfully fed antifreeze, or of a kitten that was strung up by the neck until dead. Cheap tactics, you assholes.

That's where my $50 went: postage, cheap shit, and guilt trips. I love animals, but the Humane Society will never get another dime.

Re:I wonder..

[cpeterso]

2) Some girl broke down at the "why are you doing it then" and started crying. I got uncomfortable and hung up on her :P

Do you think she wanted to be a telemarketer when she grew up? I don't like telemarketing calls, but I pity telemarketers. That could be because I once had a summer job as a telemarketer. Given my experience as a telemarketer, you should NOT piss them off. They called you; they have the power. Telemarketers have three lists of phone numbers:

1. the "do not call" list
   
2. the "call in six months" list
   
3. the "call next week" list
   

If they reach a human who says "no thank you", the phone number goes on the "call in six months" list. If they call someone and get an answering machine or a busy signal, they put that phone number on the "call next week" list. If they reach a rude human, their phone number goes on the "call next week" list. The telemarketer just increased the rate at which you will be annoyed by telemarketing calls!