Are there any statistics available for the percentage of American homes who are on the Do Not Call List registry? Any clue as to where I could find them?
–SMM
8 seconds on Google and the first result was this… http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/donotcall/pdfs/DNC-Registrations-10-06-2008.pdf (pdf)
172 million registrations. And 300-ish million Americans in 140-ish million households.
Seems like the FTC has a winner there. now all we have to do is force all charities and political organiations under teh do not call rules.
I agree that charities are a pain. See, the only one that calls me (once a year) is a law enforcement charity. I always feel like I’m saying ‘I hate cops!’ when I turn them down. It’s not that; only that I have my own expenses, and I feel they have other options to collect donations than calling people and making them uncomfortable.
However some people don’t mind calls from political groups or charities, and charities in particular seem to have suffered from reduced government grants.
There should be an option to opt out of calls from charities or political orgs, or both; but I don’t believe there should be a blanket ban.
IMHO.
Wow! 8 seconds!
I wonder if the remaining people not on it are getting hit even harder by telemarketers these days or if the program is shutting down or, more likely, shifting the industry into another model. I don’t want to think about the days before the Do Not Call registry. I was getting about 10 - 20 a day if I stayed home all day and counted them.
Maybe true but it sure don’t have a vibrant ring of truth to it.
Our household actually experienced a significant decline in unsolicited calls in recent months. To my knowledge we are not on any do not call lists as the land line phone is used only for the computer and not used for incoming or outgoing phone calls. Perhaps ISP put us on some kind of list.
Don’t forget to report people if you are on it and get a call. I know of at least one company that the government took action against due to a large amount of reports.
I’ve noticed that after the FTC sued Voice Touch and Transcontinental Warranty, those cunts with the automobile warranty robocalls, I get way fewer telemarketing calls.
Yay, the FTC manages to shut down one of the biggest scourges of mankind.
I reported them at least a dozen times, and wrote my congressperson to complain. Just to blow off steam, occasionally actually answered the phone, waited for a human and then screamed obscenities until they hung up. Sometimes I’d actually talk to them for a while and give them fake information just to get their hopes up and then start screaming at them. Yeah, my neighbors probably think I’m insane, but it made me feel better. I’m hoping I made a few of the telemarketer criminals quit their jobs.
The damn problem was figuring out who was behind those calls. They spoofed the numbers on caller IDs to hide their actual phone numbers. If you waited until you got someone and asked who they were, they’d hang up on you.
I was one of those who pretended to want to actually buy the garbage warranty protection in order to locate who these guys were. There were dozens of people all over the U.S. who did similar things and later reported their findings to Verizon and AT&T who had filed John Doe cases against these cretins because they had no idea who the people behind this were and the FTC who had millions of complaints but no idea who to file a complaint against them.
It was tough work because they hid behind so many different layers. The warranty service they were offering was setup in several different states under various names and false identities (Florida was one of the most popular). They also operated out of four different business entities in Missouri (why Missouri, I don’t know). And, they setup at least three separate autodial companies.
I spent over 40 minutes on the phone chatting with these guys one time without getting a single piece of identifying information before they hung up which they would do if they suspected you were trying to find out who they were.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), they apparently had no idea who they were calling because they called me many more times after that, and I would assume another name and identity. After about a half dozen calls and contacting other people on I found on various websites who were doing the same thing, we were able to trace them to three of the companies they were operating. In fact, we were all surprised when the name Transcontinental Warranty was the company the FTC actually sued. It wasn’t the name of any of the three companies we tracked them down to.
We also never found out the name of their autodial firm (Voice Touch). However, we did earn the gratitude of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile who credited me the minutes I took in talking to these idiots.
If they were just a bit less slimeballish and didn’t call the same number a dozen or more times, they probably would have gotten away with this. The first time, I let it pass, but when it got to the point where I was getting four or more calls per week on my cellphone, I got upset. And, when T-Mobile told me they had no idea who was making these calls, and I found out Verizon and AT&T did John Doe suits, I decided I would chase these people down to the ends of the earth if I had to, and I found others who felt the same way.
Let me guess. “WA FOP FOUND”? Those guys are sleazebags, IMHO. I love the police (seriously). But I’m never giving that organization a penny. They have been ringing all of our phone lines for well over a month, often at weird times (too early in the morning or too late at night). Sometimes they leave pre-recorded messages on the machine, sometimes they just hang up. If you ever look at the notes about these callers on the various “who called me” websites, you’ll see stories of plenty of bad behavior (e.g. http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-425-437-0650). I have no desire whatsoever to give them any money ever.
I will grant that it may simply be the telemarketing company they have hired that is the problem, but I believe that organizations have to take responsibility for the actions of companies they hire to do work in their name.
I think that a lot of telemarketing companies just went into another or completely closed up shop. There were a couple of telemarketing companies in the areas of town that I frequent. Not long after the DNC lists went into effect, both of them shut down. I took to saying “ALL RIGHT FTC!!!” each time I passed the empty businesses, as opposed to my previous habit of shooting the fig at them and swearing.
If I had my druthers, I’d like to see a DNC list extend to charities and political groups, too. I don’t mind signing up for a couple of more lists, especially this time of year. I always tell the charities that I NEVER donate to anyone who contacts me by phone. I’d say something to the political calls, too, but most of them are just prerecorded messages.
Also if I had my druthers, those debt collection agencies would not be allowed to make recorded calls, they’d have to use a live human for each call…I’m currently having problems with someone using my address and phone number as her own, and I am receiving recorded messages, all urging me to call a debt collection agency. If I DON’T call them, they’ll keep calling me. And it’s impossible to keep a pen handy by the phone, because one of the three Bodoni kitties is a very playful boy, and he carries them off.
I don’t give to the FOP of the Officer’s Benevolent’s Association either. These are unions and not charities. I am not anti-union, but this money goes directly into the union coffers. This money is then used to support union official salaries, to fight for more tax money going to salaries, and lobbying the state legislature. If the police want to spend their salaries on this, that’s their right. But to call us up to give them money to lobby our legislators… That’s stupid. It’ll be like the UAW calling up Ford Stockholders to give to the UAW Benevolent’s Association.
When I get calls from people claiming to be police or firefighters’ organizations and I’m bored, I’ll make a point of asking questions about how the money will be used. Every call has come from a fundraising/telemarketing firm contracted to raise money, rather than the actual officers. They all admit, sometimes reluctantly, that they will pass on 15% or less of the money.
Those are the worst and as much as I hate to say it, “there oughta be a law!”
“Hello, if you are Shaquira Tanisha Yamagotchi-Perez-Smith, call us about settling your debt! If you are not Shaquira Tanisha Yamagotchi-Perez-Smith, call this number.”
Yeah right. But after about 20 calls I give in and call the number.
“I’m not Shaquira Tanisha Yamagotchi-Perez-Smith, stop calling me.”
“May I have your name, address and phone number?”
“Are you kidding me???”
“We won’t stop calling you if you don’t provide us with your name, address and phone number.”
How on Earth can it be legal to harass people by phone until they give out their private information?
I had one of these types of robocalls start waking me up several times a day, for a few days straight. The robocall would allow you to press “2” if you weren’t the party in question, but that just sent you to a submenu asking if you could get the party on the line… if not, press “2.” Press 2… “Please tell <name> to call #######.”
After a couple of days, I finally just did the “start pressing ‘0’ until a live operator intervenes” move, and it actually worked. An operator came on, I told them I had no clue who the guy was they were trying to reach, and the operator updated the records, warning me that it might take a day or two for the robocalls to stop. The calls stopped immediately thereafter, though, so I was pretty happy.
…now if I could get the live bill collectors looking for my 10-years’-gone ex-wife to quit calling me and cussing me out when I tell them there’s nothing I can do, I’d be even happier.
I think a lot of the former telemarketing companies now do work for cable and telephone companies (“existing business relationship” loophole; I’d get a call every two weeks from Time Warner Cable about their phone service), and consumer surveys. Some of the surveys are very invasive and quite long; I usually ask to be placed on the firm’s no-call list.
For a while, I was getting a bunch of telemarketing calls from Nova Scotia; apparently Canadian telemarketers don’t have to abide by the FTC list. I’ve also been hit by Indian telemarketers.