I never answer my phone and instead let the machine pick up. Then, if I want to talk to them, I’ll pick it up.
For the past few days I’ve been getting about 10 calls a day where they hang up before the beep. This doesn’t happen normally. Now I was one of the first 100,000 people to sign up for the National Do Not Call list which goes into effect October 1st. I’m thinking they must have the numbers of those who signed up early in order to take them off their list. And now they are doing a last minute bombardment to try and get me into some preexisting business relationship so they can keep calling.
Does that make sense? Anybody else who signed up early having this done to them?
It’s mildly annoying but I have no intention of changing my habits. I’m just wondering if I’ll have to wait for 19 more days till it ends.
Yes! I was so annoyed that I took the unusual step (for me) of actually opening a thread to kvetch about it in MPSIMS a while back. The junk calls haven’t let up much since then, either.
Yes. We’re getting twice as many calls from our friends the satilite installers, debt managers, and we’ve “won” more trips than I can count. I will miss them when the do-not call list goes into effect.
We’ve gone up from around 2 calls per day to sometimes as many as 5 or 6. I hadn’t though about it being related to the list, but you may be right.
We don’t answer our phone, usually, until we “screen the call” via the answering machine. The really fun part is when our friends the “marketeers” leave us a message and phone number. We LOVE to call them back and have them take us off their list. The best are the pre-recorded messages. (Those are illegal in NC.) The phone jockeys stutter and get upset. They can’t take us off their lists fast enough!
Despite the entertainment, I eagerly anticipate October.
I sure am–I was just mentioning that to my husband the other day. I have caller ID and so I don’t have to talk to them, but it’s still very annoying to have every other call be an “unknown caller.” Some leave messages and some don’t. The other day, I got several calls within two hours–more than five in that time, because only five registered on the message machine, and not every call did. I’ve gotten to where I pick up and hang up, just to keep from having to hear it ring–especially when the baby is napping!
I noticed a decline in the number of calls shortly before the National Do Not Call list became available. I signed up, and although it’s not in effect yet I’ve received almost no calls. Maybe three a week, which isn’t bad at all. Of course, I have no idea what happens when I’m at work, but my early evening hours have been pleasantly quiet of late.
Everybody I know, knows to call me on my cellphone. I only use the land-line for the internet, so I rarely answer the phone.
I got into the habit early after moving here, because 95% of the calls were either telemarketers or wrong numbers. What I can’t figure out, is how “Daniel” forgot to tell anybody his number changed, and now, after ten months of having this number, I still get those calls for him.
At any rate, since I never answer the phone, it solves both problems.
I’ve heard certain organizations will be exempt from this like charitys and political organizations.
Will this include charitys that want you to buy something like magazines to help them out?
Or how about the fire and police departments calling for donations even though I don’t live in their county?
I live in CT and maybe last year or the year before, we enrolled (by a mere phone call) in the state’s no call program. With that, the telemarketing barrage ended.
Oh we might get a call - less than once a month - now and then, but I sometimes wonder how a government thing could possibly work so well.
Neverthless, we still signed up for the national program.
Yes, we are being slammed by desperate telemarketers who will have to go get “real” jobs soon, I either thank them for calling and hang up on them (in one smooth motion, leaving no time for argument) or I go back to my old standby method:
Whatever they are selling killed my parents this morning “you sick bastards, leave me alone”, then I collapse into a sobbing heap and hang up on them.
We’ve never had that many telemarketeer calls, perhaps no more than one or two a month, if that.
In any case, when we do receive them, we invoke the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act, using this script.
While we did sign up our phone numbers under the new national do not call lists, the 1991 law has served us well. I’m surprised so many people never bothered to use it in the first place.
