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."

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.

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...

Let it expire ...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

I'm lonely

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: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?

Re:Not that tricky

[gardyloo]

Ah, yes, because whatever the hamster is doing, it's going to be *more* disturbed by having a cell phone ring.

Re:Not that tricky

[Chineseyes]

Man, you have a regular eating schedule, get laid, and actually have time to sleep...........

Don't be too jealous of the parent his regular meals are a step above pig feed, he gets laid(raped) by his his cellmate bubba, and his cries himself to sleep.

Re:Not that tricky

[hazem]

Try a Barry White ringtone... it works so well you'll be begging for telemarketers to call just to get her in the mood.

I miss those calls

[jbeaupre]

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.

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.

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[mhall119]

All I need is some truly horrible hold music...

I have toddlers.

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

He claimed that they had prior business with the phone number, not the person, and could keep calling back.

Probable horseshit. Tell him you'll be checking with your state attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission -- they're the ones who instituted and are supposed to be enforcing the list -- and will be back with a lawsuit if the pharmafuck's BSing you.

His response: he asked if I wanted to buy any drugs.

Tell him you'd rather he smashed a beer bottle and rammed the shards up his boyfriend's ass with his dick. Or tell him to massage his girlfriend's clit with the shards.

Either way, the mental images should mess up his next few sexual encounters.

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[QMO]

I've done a couple of things like that.

Once I asked to speak to a manager, which meant that I was using the phone line and 2 people. When the mnanager got on, I explained that I was just trying to make that business model a little less profitable.

Once I offered to sell the telemarketer something (a doorstop-oblolete computer for $3000), and got pretty insistent about it.

Re:Does the DNC list even mean anything?

[drspliff]

The irony of this is that the company I work for probably provides the 0870 number I called them on.

Either way, their abusing the TPS by following the guidelines but presuming that people won't go to the hassle of reporting them or mailing in to get themselfs removed from the list.

I really can't be bothered to go through the trouble of taking this to court, when they'll probably prove that I have a "technical" prior relationship with them through some sister company (any company I've entered my telephone number with in the past 6 months, like my bank or my co-lo company etc.) and that my claim isn't valid.

I got bored with winding up telemarketers that called me and started getting angry instead, maybe I'll start winding them up again and play the "how long can I keep them on the line" game, passing them through to a never-ending "please wait while we transfer you" call queue that's usually reserved for difficult customers :)