Some unidentified company in Florida calls my elderly mother almost daily to solicit her for enrollment in college classes although they’ve been notified that she’s on the “do not call list”. I registered her phone on this list online years ago so I know she’s on the list. Is the list still legally viable, and how does one report a violation?
Easy to do, but I’ve never had anything satisfactory come from reporting a telemarketer. The really sleazy ones spoof their phone numbers, so you might as well be reporting annoying calls from (202) 456-1111.
But I hope you have better luck than I have had! Go get 'em.
The entity in question may also have dodgy tax status as a charitable or educational institution. Those are exempt from the DNC list, AFAIK.
Sadly, you may have to get mom a callerID and an answering machine, and train her not to pick up until she hears a voice or a pass-phrase she recognizes.
Some phone companies all you to block specific phone calls. Charter allows me to block 12 numbers. I wish it was 120!
You might want to check your mother’s phone company.
If the caller is a for-profit business, you might be able to bring a small claims case against them. Google “‘do not call’ ‘small claims.’”
You can confirm that your mom’s number is on the do-not-call list at https://www.donotcall.gov/.
I’ve gotten the automated “Your Chase bank card has been cancelled. To reactivate it press 1” call two days in a row.
I am most definitely on the “Do Not Call” list and have found that reporting for-profit robo-calls (duct cleaning, landscaping, local roofing companies, Bank Card Services, etc.) is a total waste of time. They acknowledge receipt of your complaint and apparently all action stops there.
IIRC when you put a number on the do not call list it’s good for 5 years so depending how long ago “years” was you might need to re-register her number.
That being said, as others have noted, many dodgy telemarketers will obfuscate their true phone number so getting anything done may be challenging. On the other hand if you are very persistent you may get results - I was able to get “Dorothy from the mortgage company” calls shut down (tracked down and contacted the telco that they were working through which booted them for violations of their service agreement) and I may have been instrumental in getting a very large junk fax company hit with a $5.4M fine. What you have to do is document everything and keep sending in your complaints - if the FCC keeps getting letters every month detailing the ongoing calls to your mother despite multiple requests that they cut it out, they will eventually do something.
This was true originally, but in 2008 registration on the national do-not-call registry was made permanent.
I haven’t checked, but I believe it’s still the case that when you tell a specific company to put you on its do-not-call list, they only have to do so for five years.
I sure wish there was a way.
I get three types of cases:
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Charities and companies I’ve done business with: can’t do much about these other than ask. Businesses tend to respond, but charities use 3rd party telemarketers and putting your name on one’s list might not help you when they change telemarketers. I’m sure the 3rd-party marketers bend the rules to minimize the effect of do-not-call lists.
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Fraud and phishing: There’s nothing you can do. I’d love to strangle “Rachel from Cardholder Services”, but no luck. The best I can do is to have my answering machine block it. That works for a while but a new number eventually pops up. (No idea why numbers even pop up now; before it was blocked.)
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Cold calls from valid companies, or telemarketers contracted by same. One can only hope that putting them on their Do Not Call list would help. If you get a valid phone number, you can in theory collect.
In addition to “do not call”, NC has a law that disallows robocalls. In NC, there’s a $500 fine for either DNC calls or robocalls. If only the law had any teeth! I asked a friend who’s a lawyer about this and he said it’s not worth pursuing even in small claims. If you do get a judgment, you’re unlikely to collect.
Of course, that was just one laywer’s opinion. I’d love to find out that he was wrong!
As I said in another thread, get caller ID (does anyone not have caller ID anymore?) Teach Mom that if you don’t recognize the caller, don’t answer. It’ll go to voice-mail. Most of these, once they get voice-mail, won’t leave a message. The End. Sure the phone rings, but so what?