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© Copyright 2004, Jim Loy
I do not like telemarketers, and so my phone number is on the FTC's do-not-call list. This is a list of phone numbers that telemarketers should not call. If they do call you when you are on the list, tell them that your number is on the do-not-call list. If they call you again, they can be fined $11,000. Nonprofit organizations are exempt; they can legally call you, even if you are on the list (although I don't know why they would, as it is a waste of time to call people who don't want to be called). But I think that they too are supposed to provide a way for you to remove your phone number from their list. And some surprisingly sleazy companies are nonprofit.
Apparently, the FTC is on the ball. Here is their first lawsuit (against National Consumer Council Inc.) over the do-not-call list: FTC Files First Do-Not-Call Lawsuit and FTC Files First No-Call Enforcement and Services Preying on People in Debt. Apparently they have 1000 customer complaints about abuse of the do-not-call list, and 400 complaints about business practices.
I'm not sure if I now get fewer junk phone calls because of the do-not-call list. I still get plenty of phone calls, but with most of them nobody's there. I assume that either they called several people at once and I was too slow, or the caller is a computer and it was searching for other computers or answering machines.
See my complaints about these telemarketers: