Telemarketers No More!: FTC launches 'do not call' list signup

Medicine, Science & Technology Forum

Tired of telemarketers ringing you up morning, noon and night? Starting Friday you can sign up to block their calls, thanks to a new federal government program.

You can list your phone number on a new national "Do Not Call" registry that will put your line off limits to telemarketers.

If you live west of the Mississippi River, all you have to do to register your residential and wireless numbers is call 888-382-1222. Phone registration for the rest of the country begins July 7. No matter where you live, you can register online now at www.donotcall.gov. The prohibition on telemarketing calls won't take effect until October. Then violators could face fines of up to $11,000.

President Bush will launch the service Friday morning with a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House. The Federal Communications Commission endorsed the program unanimously Thursday. The Federal Trade Commission, which announced the new registry last year, will administer it. It's expected to put some 60 million home phone numbers off-limits to telemarketers.

FCC Commissioner John Adelstein called the registry "one of the most significant things the FCC has ever done for American families."

Consumer advocates offered less glowing assessments, but were nonetheless approving. Said Beth Givens, the director of the Privacy Rights Clearing House, a San Diego nonprofit consumer-advocacy group: "Parts of the new rules could have been stronger, but overall we think the good parts of the regulation far outweigh the provisions that we don't think are consumer friendly."

The telemarketing industry was unhappy; it sold $654 billion in goods and services last year and employs 6 million people. Industry officials said 2 million people would lose their jobs because of the registry.

"We hate the idea," said Tim Searcy, the executive director of the American Teleservices Association, a trade group representing the industry. "We think it violates the First Amendment right to commercial speech."

The association helped file a federal lawsuit in Denver challenging the plan.

People who join the registry can ban all interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls relating to the promotion or sale of goods and services. They can give permission to continue receiving calls from specific companies. Telemarketers can continue to call phone numbers that aren't registered.

The rules allow telemarketers to continue calling consumers with whom they have an "established business relationship" for up to 18 months after a business transaction or three months after a consumer inquiry or application. That right holds true unless the consumer asks the company to place his or her number on its own do-not-call list, said Eileen Harrington, the associate director of marketing practices for the FTC consumer-protection bureau.

Consumer activist Givens said the 18-month rule "just seems like an excessive amount of time."

Tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations such as charities are exempt from the do-not-call rules unless they use for-profit dialing services to make the calls, Harrington said.

Calls regarding political and religious matters won't be subject to the do-not-call rules because they aren't considered "telephone solicitations."

To avoid frustrating hang-ups by telemarketers and "dead air" time after picking up a telemarketing call, the new federal guidelines require telemarketers that use automated-dialing machines to abandon no more than 3 percent of the calls they place that consumers answer. Companies must keep daily records of the number of outgoing automated calls to meet the 3 percent requirement, Harrington said.

The new rules also require telemarketers to let the phone ring for 15 seconds or four rings before disconnecting any unanswered call.

Beginning in January, telemarketers must transmit caller-identification information and can't block their numbers from consumers' caller-identification equipment, Harrington said.

The federal registry will work in conjunction with 28 similar state registries and 37 states with laws governing telemarketing activity. The goal is to have all states use the federal registry within two years to help relieve their regulatory burden, Harrington said.

A single federal registry will make it easier for people to stop unwanted calls because each state registry operates differently and some charge fees to register.

The Direct Marketing Association, which also represents telemarketing firms, supports the registry because businesses have trouble navigating each state's varying registry requirements.

"Certainly, today's move will eliminate many headaches in the marketing community by making compliance with do-not-call laws a much simpler process," said H. Robert Wientzen, the association's president and CEO.

The registry should help cut down on complaints about telemarketing fraud. Earlier this week, Cross Media Marketing Corp., a New York firm, agreed to pay $1 million to resolve FTC charges that it deceptively lured customers into magazine subscription deals that cost an average of $600 apiece.

Source: Knight Ridder

After 12 Hours, Do-Not-Call Has 370,000

The public's simmering frustration with telemarketers erupted Friday as people hurried to sign up for a new national do-not-call list, registering about 370,000 telephone numbers in the program's first 12 hours.

Registration opened just after midnight. As of noon Friday, the program's Web site was being visited 1,000 times every second, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which operates the registry.

"Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they're all too common," said President Bush, who formally launched the list at a White House ceremony. "We're taking practical action to address this problem."

Consumers can register their home or cell phone numbers with the free government service by visiting the Web site www.donotcall.gov. Telephone registration using a toll-free number — 1-888-382-1222 — is available in states west of the Mississippi River, including Minnesota and Louisiana. The phone number will operate nationwide by July 7, the FTC said.

The Web site was responding slowly Friday because of the "extraordinary amounts of traffic," the FTC said. The commission was scrambling to add more computer equipment to handle the load.

"Consumers do not need to sign up today," the agency said in a statement.

People who sign up this summer should see a decrease in telemarketing calls after the FTC begins enforcing the list on Oct. 1. The service will block about 80 percent of the calls, the FTC said.

On the Web site, consumers provide the numbers they want protected and an e-mail address to receive a confirmation message. The site also lets them verify that a number is registered or remove a number.

Consumers calling the toll-free number must call from the telephone number they want registered.

Telephone registration is being done in stages to ensure the system can handle the volume of calls, the FTC said. The commission expects up to 60 million phone numbers to be registered in the first year.

Registrations will have to be renewed every five years.

Telemarketers attempt up to 104 million calls every day, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

The industry has said the registry will devastate their business and has sued the FTC, saying the program amounts to an unlawful restriction on free speech.

The FCC voted 5-0 Thursday to add its authority to the do-not-call list, blocking telemarketing calls from within a state — the FTC could only police interstate calls — and from industries whose calls the agency regulates, including airlines, banks and telephone companies.

Of the states with do-not-call lists, 13 plan to add their lists of 8.1 million numbers to the national registry this summer, three have legislation pending to allow them to share, and 11 will not share the information, the FTC said. Consumers on state lists added to the national one need not register again.

Beginning in September, telemarketers will have to check the list every three months to see who doesn't want to be called. Those who call listed people could be fined up to $11,000 for each violation. Consumers would file complaints to an automated phone or online system.

Exemptions from the list include calls from charities, pollsters and on behalf of politicians. Registered consumers also can give written permission to get calls from certain companies.

A company also may call someone on the no-call list if that person has bought, leased or rented from the company within the past 18 months. Telemarketers also may call people if they have inquired about or applied for something from the company during the past three months.

But consumers can avoid those calls by asking to be put on an individual company's do-not-call list.

Congress authorized the FTC to collect up to $18.1 million from telemarketers to pay the program's expenses in the first year.

Source: AP

I have only skimmed on this subject but it strikes me as stupid that they are creating a database for those WHO DO NOT WANT CALLS.

They could have saved a lot of diskspace, on going data maintenance, and server traffic by entering only PEOPLE WHO WANT THESE CALLS.

According to some polls (not scientific) about 90% of people will sign up on this NO CALL LIST.

So why take this approach which seems to increase the project's data volume by 900%??? And I can't even estimate the traffic to access that database servers by how many telemarketers???? (billions I assume based on them now even dialing from Banglabesh, India, Phillipines, etc.). And the database maintenance.

Plus that way the millions who do not want to be bothered by these calls WOULD NOT HAVE TO MAKE a CALL TO ADD THEMSELVES TO THIS STUPID LIST!!! I'm just too irritated about this to bother looking up who came up with this very stupid technical solution to a very valid problem.

Or is there some technical reason why it needed to be set up this ways???? Can anyone educate me????

I think the tele-lobby wanted it this way since they are counting on millions of people being too lazy to sign up!!!