Do-Not-Call List Could Be Opened For Phone Spam

Wick_7654 submits a link to this story at the Chicago Sun-Times, which begins "The agency overseeing the national Do Not Call Registry is considering opening a loophole to allow companies to deliver 'pre-recorded message telemarketing.' The effort is being organized by Allen Hile of the FTC's division of marketing practice. Be sure to let the FTC know how you feel about it." The proposed change specifies that recorded calls would be allowed only when an "established business relationship" exists, but provisions like that tend to be stretched to absurdity.

Pre-existing Business Relationship

Yes, sir, your uncle's second wife's stepsister's kindergarten teacher once bought a widget from us. That establishes a clear prior business relationship between you and us.

Re:Pre-existing Business Relationship

And when we say 'us', we mean the company that recently phoned the company down the street from our sister company which resides in Malaysia. And of course, we had records of all of this, but we recently put them in the paper shreader and then burned it, for your security's sake.

Re:Pre-existing Business Relationship

So, you've got a business relationship with me yet you don't know my number? Right...

How is this different?

Aren't companies allowed to make calls already if they have a "pre-established business relationship" with you? Has this changed or is the summary missing something?

Re:How is this different?

This would allow a third party to make the call for a business. Yeah, then they sell your number to a bunch of other businesses. And, since they were allowed to call, now those other businesses can call. And then, they sell your number to even more businesses...get it?

Re:How is this different?

What I wrote on the comments form; feel free to plagiarize:

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This is the worst of all possible amendments. Automated phone spam is already the most abusive, as it usually grabs the phone line and won't let go until it's done with its spiel. This wastes my time if I happen to answer the line, and wastes the limited space on my answering machine tape if it picks up. Plus in my experience, automated phone spam is the MOST likely to not have a valid way to get off the list. Oh, sure, it may give you an 800 number to call, but that's likely to reach some convoluted voicemail system that never gets you anywhere. And the concept of "prior contact" has already been stretched to mean "and everyone our company ever shares marketing information with". Not only that, but the upshot WILL be that telemarketers uniformly go to an automated model (much cheaper for them, much more annoying for us). PLEASE don't let this go through. KEEP "Do Not Call" a REAL prohibition against junk calls.
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Re:How is this different?

The thing I don't like about this new change is that, yes, there is already an exception for the pre-existing business relationship. If a company calls me now, I can tell the person who called "put me on your do not call list," and they won't bug me anymore.

However, my gripe about pre-recorded messages is it puts the burden on the consumer to get off the list -- you have to call the company that just called you back, then get a person on the phone and get them to remove you from their list.

It just makes it that much harder for consumers to deal with, and that much easier for the companies bugging them. Banks of computers are a lot cheaper than banks of people, when traversing a list of millions of phone numbers...

got ya

Now your unlisted number, that you went ahead and put on the do-not-call list to protect yourself from callers who just selected numbers randomly, will be given to the telemarketers as a number that is fair game for them to call. Your tax maney at work.

Re:got ya

WTF is wrong with these people?

Don't they realize that those of us that went thgough the trouble of putting our numbers on tht list won't buy anything from them? Why are they wasting their time and ours?

Are you insane?

What the hell is going on over there? Has the entire USA become a free-for-all (big business that is) annoyfest? I'm on an European do-not-call-list and have recieved two calls in four or five years one was a mistake, that didn't help I reported them anyway.

The other was from a company I already do business with (I yelled at them anyway and moved my business to another company that don't anoy me at work). They used the pre-business loophole so I told them what my opinion was with that and talked to everyone I could reach in the company. I also reported them to the consumer ombudsman, since they are abusing their power grid monopoly in Oslo to justify pushing sales calls.

From an outside perspective, it seems like the only ones enjoying freedom in the US are big, bug business. They can trample the freedom of private citizens quite easely, it seems and bother them at will while the government drags its feet. And counts its money, I presume. We have the loophole too, but we are at least working on closing it, not opening it more.

Re:Are you insane?

"Has the entire USA become a free-for-all (big business that is) annoyfest?"

Yes.

Help!

Has the entire USA become a free-for-all (big business that is) annoyfest?

Yes. Please come liberate us!

Re:Are you insane?

Has the entire USA become a free-for-all (big business that is) annoyfest?

No. In fact, ever since I added our phone number to the federal do-not-call list, telemarketing calls have in fact stopped.

The exception is the occasional charity, but even those have pretty much ground to a halt. When they do call, the conversation goes something like this:

"Hi! This is the Save Small Kittens from Cancer fund, will you give us money?"

"We're on the federal do not call list."

"We're a non-profit charity, we are exempt, sir".

"And, given that we are a household that has registered as not wanting telemarking calls, what genius thought calling us would be a good way to get money from us?"

"Uh...well...er...um..."

"Did it occur to anyone that, in fact, by calling a household listed on the do-not-call list, you would in fact generate substantial ill will, and virtually guarantee we'd never send you a dime, even if we might have been planning to do so?"

"Uh..."

"Don't call us again." [click]

It's very simple- any time you get a telemarking call from an NPO and you're on the do not call list, tell them that, by calling you, they've been crossed off the list of charities you donate to. Particularly if you've already donated to them- they can see this on their screen- it will be HIGHLY effective.

Well, that and (I believe) under the new laws, even an NPO can't call you BACK if you tell them to piss off...they have to honor the request, at least for a few years.

Great!

Please let them, really, I mean how much business would they get from a "DO NOT CALL" list?

Maybe then they will realise that these people are in fact helping them not call people who won't buy their crap.

Screening technology is pretty good...

Look for one of those Caller ID units that do text-to-speech on the number. During the calls leading up to the election I don't think we answered one of them, just let them go to the answering machine and dumped them. Would be nice if they wiped out all telemarketing altogether but it'd probably be deemed unconstitutional because of the free speech issues.

If things get really bad, just switch to cellphones. They can't call those, although for some reason they get a lot of wrong numbers.

No land line = no problem.

I've found a very simple solution to this problem-I use cable internet and a cell phone. It is illegal to telemarket cell phones, and I've thus far not had it happen. I get a better deal on my cell then I would on landline service anyway (same cost, give or take 2 bucks, and no cost for long distance as a bonus.)

As a side note on the spam issue, I use a "throwaway" email address for public posting. I get little spam to it even, and absolutely none to my gmail account, which is given only to friends, family, etc.

You had me at Hello.

"What do you mean no prior business relationship? You said hello. Hello is a greeting and greetings are an integral part of relationships. Now about that home mortgage..."

NO! FUCK THiS!

I have not has a sales call since I signed up. The gummint actually made something that's working! Do not tamper with this! FUCK TELEMARKETERS! FUCK THEM IN THE ASS!!!!

I hope these calm words will help.

Exactly why I never signed up

I knew this kind of thing would be coming soon which is why I didn't waste my time signing up.

But then, I don't waste my time with telemarketers either. Here's how the average telemarketing call to my house goes:

Me: Hello?

TM: Hello, can I speak with [horrible attempt to pronounce my name]--"

click!

Nothing personal, but I don't let them get the first sentence out. And I've noticed that I get much fewer calls than before. I suspect a refusal to listen gets noted somewhere in some database and eventually you get fewer calls as a result. Try it. Unless it involves bombing a third-world nation somewhere, you probably shouldn't rely on a government run by George W. Bush to get something like this done right.

Military recruiters

Military recruiters are the worst. I had been expecting a phone call from a company where I was ordering something. A message was left on my answering machine around that time, asking to speak to me and leaving an 800 number, but not saying who was calling. Foolishly thinking this could possibly be a call regarding the order (from a mom&pop operation), I returned the phone call. The phone was answered by a recruiter, US Army. Miffed (they'd called recently already and I'd asked to be taken off their list), I hung up without so much as a hello. Not surprisingly, I was greeted with a return call, asking if I'd just called and hung up. I informed him that his call was unwelcome. He said it was rude to call someone and immediately hang up. I informed him that it was even more rude to leave a phone message on my machine without identifying oneself, especially since the call was unwanted.

Finally, I asked him to take me off his list and never call again. He replied that SINCE I HAD CONTACTED HIM, he could not remove me. Knowing the conversation never goes anywhere and such people have rarely been considerate of my suggestions to end the conversation, I took the initiative to hang up myself. I expect they'll call again in a few months, and the whole circus parade can begin anew. Since they are always so eager to stay on the line, perhaps I'll buy a karaoke machine for the occasion.

Re:Military recruiters

Back in high school, I had a friend with very anti-military parents. One day, when Eddie was out, the Navy called and Eddie's mom answered. She told the recruiter that Eddie couldn't come to the phone because he was spending the night at his boyfriend's house. Eddie never got another call from any of the military branches :-)

My revenge HAHAHA

At work, we started getting calls from disgruntled or eager-to-be-disgruntled customers of a SatTV service. After answering the millionth call of people telling me to stop calling them, I finally got one of the victims to give me the name on the flyer and the phone number. The name was enough to find the company and tell them to change their marketing materials, as their phone number listed was ours.

Of course, I got thrown in the 'endless hold for angry customers' (Verified on the newsgroups). After five times trying to get ahold of someone who could fix this ever increasing volume of calls, I lost it and started a barrage of calls using 5 lines and an autodialer. I would get to just before where an operator picked up, and put them on hold, then move to the next line. I got amazingly good at it, and picked up the line on some telemarketing stragglers screaming, "WHO IS THIS!?!".

I kept this up for an hour, which I am pretty sure fucked up their profit margin on that day.

Still more calls a few days later - I guess they thought I wasn't serious. Another polite request to talk to the manager, and a dump into endless hold.

Operation Eternal Freedom went into effect again, and this time I feigned an old lady's voice, "I'm trying to reach my son, -insert name here-", on every seventh call. The others went right to hold, until they found no one on the line and hung up. Of course, I was ready with an autodialed response. 45 minutes (while waiting for a backup to complete) later, I called it a day.

Third time, three 45 minute sessions - I got where I could do it one handed on speakerphone, and get some real work done.

No more calls after that.

Did they get my message? I left about 2,463.

Re:Sadly, this is probably a waste of time.

In particular, MSN works with companies such as SBC and Qwest and will "borrow" home users IP's for temp useage.

Elaborate please... I can understand that they might sell e-mail adresses to spammers, but actually cooperate and provide them with bandwidth and home user IP's (good thing those are mostly RBL'ed) is a while other matter. Do you have any proof for this? Or at least a tin-foil hat webpage?

So many people here think that spam is originating from China, when in reality, it does not.

Say hello to open relays, anonymous (unusable) proxies and what else... Look, I'm not going to argue with you that most mail coming from China isn't chinese, but this hardly explains the connection between MSN and spammers other than the possibility of them selling the addresses. If MSN was keen enough on spamming, don't you think they'd provide the spammers with means easier than dynamic home IPs?

Of course, the government made sure that can spam did not injure that practise.

What I've learnt about governments is that most of them don't have the technical understanding to see the fundamental problem, and they have no inclination or time to learn to understand the kind of problems that arise.

Yes, governments have advisors, and they still have to translate techbabble to laymans terms. Those laymans terms get turned into law-speak, and somewhere along the way an idea to punish someone becomes a loophole, either because there is an error in translation or there is political intrest in letting the problem exist.

Re:How 'bout we just make all telemarketting illeg

More to the point, the telephone is a resource for which we all shell out good money, and I don't recall ever seeing anything in my contract with the phone company that says I authorize its use for telemarketing purposes. The entire telemarketing industry (and I use the term loosely because they produce nothing) completely crosses the line, period, as a parasitic, unjustified, unprincipled misuse of the national communications system. It should be illegal for that reason alone, and frankly I don't care if you are a deserving charity, or Mother Theresa herself for that matter. It is MY GODDAMN PHONE ... get the hell off it unless I said you can use it.

Congress outlawed junk faxes some years ago, and it worked for a while. However, my fax server was getting about a dozen a day (five days in Cancun for only $300! Free timeshare in Florida!) 'til I moved. Fortunately they haven't found me yet, but given that this activity is already illegal I don't expect telemarketers to be any more respectful of the law ... they'll eventually worm their way around it or just blatantly disregard it and write off the occasional fine as a cost of doing business. I don't think we're going to win this one.

My home network has a server that handles a lot of tasks, including email, faxing and caller ID services. I have the capability to simply hang up on any unrecognized incoming calls (if the call comes in blocked or private all the other side hears is a "click*.) If you're blocking your number I presume you're someone I don't care to hear from. *click*. If the FTC neuters the DoNotCall list in this way, I'll have to configure my system to ignore any calls not on the accepted list. I would allow emergency calls to go through with a touchtone bypass code, but that alone would stop automated telemarketing.

One day I'm sitting at home and the phone rings ... I see it's from some company I've never heard of so I ignore it. An automated telemarketing message was left, I forget what about. Whatever. So then a minute or so later, the phone rings again. Only now, it's blocked (private) but the same message is left. Obviously they were hoping that I might pick it up the second time thinking it would be someone important. That was when I started blocking private calls. *click*.

Re:Buisiness Relationship

What's sad is the point the article makes: nearly "cost-free" internet calling is now a possibility. Imagine receiving hundreds of phone calls a day, in a spam-style blitz. International casinos, viagra ads. I can picture us going through the same motions we use for spam (install "voice filters", find they don't work, block calls from Grandma, etc).

The only way to solve this, and the spam problem is to have full accountability. Don't allow a telephone/computer onto the internet unless its idenity is known and there's no technical way to fake it. If the device's identity is hidden or nebulous, it's not allowed to connect. Have devices be physically tracable. Privacy advocates may shudder, but if something like this was in place we wouldn't have problems.