And there’s the rub.
What percentage of telemarketers, do you think, would bring such a call to the attention of the police, especially when the telemarketers themselves have been breaking the law by continuing to call in violation of the Do Not Call list and the recipient’s explicit requests to be removed from their system?
And if they’re “quite regularly” enforced how come I can’t find anything on Google
This. I’ve argued it on these boards before; being uncivil in this case isn’t justified. Ask them to stop calling, report it to the proper authorities, be curt–whatever. But it’s just really not acceptable to levy abuse at someone like that. And, moreover, it’s ineffective–or, at least, it’s no more effective than a brusque, “Don’t contact me again.”
Since I’ve already told every single telemarketing company in the US not to contact me in the first place, “don’t contact me again” doesn’t do any good, because the companies don’t CARE whether or not I want to be called. And anyone who works for a telemarketing company either knows or should know if the company they work for is regularly violating the law.
Actually, they probably are NOT violating the law.
Do-Not-Call lists do not apply to companies with which you have an existing business relationship. For example, your bank. And that includes all the extended departments of the bank, like those selling auto loans, student loans, home refinancing, personal loans, etc. And the credit-card division of that bank. And their affiliated stockbrokers, and insurance & annuity sales branches. That’s a lot of different people who could legally call you.
And then there are loopholes in the law. If your bank enters into an agreement with Ford to offer special car deals to you financed through your bank, they can give Ford your name & phone number, and Ford can have a salesman from the local Ford dealership call you, & try to sell you a car – all legal, because of an ‘existing business relationship’. That can be stretched really far.
They’re violating the law. These are companies who are offering me “card services” and “auto warranties”. And my credit union (NOT a bank) has asked me if I want to let its partners have access to my info. Since I said no, no legit callers come from the CU. The card services and auto warranties companies are phishing for CC numbers, they don’t offer any real services.
I’m quite aware of the loopholes. I have made it clear to a couple of companies that if they persist in calling me because I have a business relationship with them, that I will cease to have a business relationship with them. I have pointed out to Walgreens, for instance, that I could switch to CVS or even get my prescriptions filled at the grocery store. Walgreens quit calling me with special offers. I don’t mind them calling me when it’s actually related to my prescriptions…but if they want to keep me as a customer, they will have to respect my boundaries. I live in a place that has a lot of shopping options. If one company won’t respect the fact that I don’t want to be called, then I can quit doing business with them. If I lived in a place where the population was something like 2500 people, my options would be more limited.
While a company might have a legal right to call me if I have an existing business relationship with that company, I am not obligated to continue that relationship if I don’t like the way that they treat me. And most companies are willing to quit calling the customers who don’t want to be called.