You’re smack in the middle of dinner – or your favorite TV show and the phone rings – telemarketer. 

Wait a minute – you signed up for the Do Not Call Registry when it first started!  Why are you getting telemarketers calling you again? 

There’s the rub – the registry is only good for 5 years!  If you signed up for the Do Not Call Registry after June of 2003 – you have to re-register again before your registry entry expires in 2008 – if you want to keep telemarketers from calling you at inconvenient times. 

Lois Greisman at the Federal Trade Commission tells WGMD the Do Not Call Registry has been hugely successful and they have over 147 million phone numbers registered. 

Some facts on the Do Not Call Registry:

• Not all telemarketing calls are included – political organizations, charities and phone surveyors are still permitted to call, as well as companies you have an existing business relationship with or want to receive calls from.
• When you register, your phone number will be on the registry the next day, however telemarketers have 31 days from the date you register to stop calling you
• The registry is only for personal telephone numbers and you will receive an email from the registry which needs to be responded to before your registration is complete.  You can register up to three phone numbers
• Cell phone numbers can be registered, but it is an urban legend that cell phone numbers will be released to a public listing allowing telemarketers to call you on a cell phone number.   
• If you do receive unwanted calls – get as much information as you can – a phone number from caller ID, business name – or the number the telemarketer asks you to call if it’s an automated call.  Then register a complaint with the FTC.

Does the registry work?  YES!  I signed up just after Do Not Call began – and I’ve seen a marked drop in telemarketer calls.  However – I still see a lot of calls that spam my answering machine that are usually bogus “non-profits” which I now plan to file a complaint about if they persist.  I will miss the occasional prank I played on some telemarketers – my favorite was when MCI still existed and they were rabidly promoting their “Friends & Family” service.  My response to the telemarketer was that I had no friends and was an orphan!  My Mom thought it was funny - but I never heard from MCI again!

You can sign up for the Do Not Call Registry either by phone at 1-888-382-1222 or online at http://www.donotcall.gov/ .  You would use either of those options also if you want to verify an existing registry entry – or register for the first time.

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 10:21 am and is filed under Business, Delaware, Law, Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.