Many of those annoying prerecorded telemarketing calls will be history starting Sept. 1.
The Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it is banning these “robocalls” to consumers, unless the telemarketer has written permission from a customer that he or she wants to receive these calls.
That's 5 kinds of awesome.
Other calls not covered by the Telemarketing Sales Rule include those from politicians, charities that contact consumers directly, banks, insurers, phone companies, survey calls and certain health care messages such as prescription notifications. These don’t fall under the jurisdiction of the FTC, a commission spokesman said.
And that's 4 kinds of FAIL.
W-well come on man, you can’t have the FTC regulating political robo-calls… That is the first steps on the path to total government control of our consciousnesses… And similarly for banks and phone companies I guess, though I don’t quite understand why.
Do people get a lot of these calls? I think we’ve maybe gotten less than 10 the past 4-5 years, if that many. Maybe because our # is unlisted (though accidentally so, I think).
now that i’m home during the day i get tons. bullshit prize giveaways, surveys, push-polls, sales pitches from mortgage and insurance companies, etc..
Against my better judgment I answered a call yesterday which came up “unknown”. Now I am back to the “if I don’t recognize your number you’re going to have to leave a message” policy. I’m not actually sure how anyone successfully makes un-asked for calls anymore, unless it’s like this: http://failblog.org/2009/07/22/telemarketing-fail/
Don’t you have a ‘Do Not Call’ register? Over here you can add your number to a central database (the Telephone Preference Service) that can see companies fined if they ignore it. Works pretty well. There’s a junk mail register too. The last time I had a sales call was years ago and I mentioned ‘TPS’ and they hung up never to call again. :)
“The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service. It is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.”
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/
Don’t you have a ‘Do Not Call’ register?
yep. but it’s full of exceptions. and companies routinely violate it.
yep. but it’s full of exceptions. and companies routinely violate it.
And there’s no private right of action, so when it gets violated you have to convince an AG somewhere to file file against them. Make it a $50 fine that anybody could personally file for in small claims court and there would never be another illegal call made.