When it first began, I thought it was great. I immediately signed up and stopped getting telemarketing calls. About a year or two ago, they started up again and haven’t stopped. I remembered that there was some sort of expiration date, so I went back in to the website a few months ago and re-registered. Unfortunately I still get numerous energy deregulation and loan modification calls. It’s quite frustrating.
There are a frustrating number of telemarketers which are quite simply breaking the law, including spoofing the numbers you see on caller ID or calling your cell phone. It may not have yielded great results yet, but I often file an FCC complaint on their website when I get really annoying calls.
It will never be really successful until we start executing telemarketers on national television.
We never signed up for it, and it sounds like we get fewer of these calls than those who did. I think one of the keys to that is never answering our phone (which admittedly is not an option for everyone). Everything except clearly identified friends and relatives goes to our answering machine.
The few calls we’ve received lately haven’t even bothered with spoofing the caller ID; they all show up as just a line of gibberish. That makes me think they’re counting on nabbing people who can’t avoid or resist picking up the phone every time it rings.
This. Specifically, Rachel from Card Services. Card Services is breaking the law, and it doesn’t do any good to talk to a human about it.
Also this. Not the actual people who are low-level workers…let’s go after the CEOs and owners of telemarketing companies who break the law.
I have to say, I moved a couple of years ago and had to change my phone number. I got a LOT of telemarketing calls on my new number, until I put it on the DNC list. I think that the DNC list is MOSTLY effective, and if you put your number on it, you will see a drastic drop in the number of telemarketers calling you. It won’t stop all of the telemarketers, but it will stop most of them.
I used to see some telemarketing companies in town, and they usually had a “NOW HIRING” banner on them. Most of those companies have closed, and the one that’s still in business usually doesn’t have that banner out.
What we seem to be getting lately is recorded sales pitches - mostly for house alarm systems.
In an ideal world, sure. But if you make it a capital crime to work for a telemarketer, people will go back to more honorable jobs like prostitution and armed robbery.
Oh, I think it’s been pretty successful.
I would say my spam calls dropped below 1/3 or what they were before the law.
But, what really makes a difference is the community blacklist feature on my Ooma box! I probably only get 3 or 4 spam calls a week that ring the phone now, and most of them are due to the current election cycle.
I have been thinking for some time now that whichever presidential candidate promises to use Predator drones to go after the cardmember services bitch and her entire network of terrorists will probably win the election by a landslide.
I wish that there weren’t an exception for charity and political calls. I would like to opt out of those as well.
And that’s a bad thing because…?
Srsly…
So many of those trash fone calls block or spook their Caller ID – So how the fuck can we report them to the DNC enforcers (or the community blacklist for that matter)?
And why the fuck did the geniuses at the telcos ever design that Caller ID protocol in the first place, in such a way that the calling number can be spoofed? Sure, it’s fine if the second line of the ID can be any text of the caller’s choosing, but the first line should have been data supplied by the caller’s telco, never something that the caller himself could supply!
Yes, I have had an increase in calls from telemarketers despite being on the list. My state 's Attorney General stated that these companies don’t care and are using fake names and numbers to avoid being tracked. Everytime I receive a call, I report it online to the AG, then receive a mailed letter summarizing my information. Yesterday, I received my first followup letter, which stated that one of the companies I reported had been identified, contacted and agreed to pay fines of $8500 to the state, as well as purchase the do not call list. I should have got a chunk of change from that fine, since I (and others who reported) suffered the call, and reported it, and without me, there would have been no money for anyone. Instead, the money is going to help the administration costs of do not call and to mail out more snail mail letters notifying me that I reported a call online.
No, but it stopped me from working (former telemarketer), which I don’t really regret as it was not a great job.
And amazingly I am now neither a prostitute nor an armed robber. :rolleyes: