My War on Telemarketers (million, collector, business, buy)

[jmellc]

Do any of you hate telemarketers as bad as I do? I came up with a new plan.

I started saving each caller on my cell phone & naming them Pest 1, Pest 2, etc. I assign each one a NO RING ringtone. They call, I hear nothing & don't waste my time. If they beep in on call waiting, I see Pest... & don't bother with them. I can now frustrate them with very little effort on my part.

Please join me in this war to drive telemarketers into extinction, stuffing down nerve pills all the way. :

[underPSI]

You're going about it the hard way. Just don't allow them to call.

https://www.donotcall.gov

[evaofnc]

Yeah I tried the Do Not Call list and still get harassed. Report them on that website and they still call me. So I installed Mr. Number call blocker on my phone and that has solved the problem.

[underPSI]

^I haven't received a call on my home or cell phone since I registered in '07. Are you sure the telemarketers calling aren't from a company from which you already receive service? Those companies are still allowed to call.

[jmellc]

Originally Posted by underPSI

You're going about it the hard way. Just don't allow them to call.

https://www.donotcall.gov

I've done the do not call list. A lot still get through. This way, they only get through 1 time. The listen to me shout awhile & hang up on them. Their later calls vanish into thin air.

[jmellc]

Originally Posted by evaofnc

Yeah I tried the Do Not Call list and still get harassed. Report them on that website and they still call me. So I installed Mr. Number call blocker on my phone and that has solved the problem.

Where can I check that out? Sounds good.

[mia78]

Ignoring them never works as it doesn't prevent future calls. If a caller happens to slip through, I calmly tell them to remove me from their contact list immediately. Companies are required by law to do this (not talking about bill collectors or others exempt from the law). No yelling, screaming, or high stress levels required. If they fail to do so, you can report them to the proper authorities on the donotcall website. They are supposed to receive a big fine for each infraction.

https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

[MaryleeII]

Telemarketers are annoying, I agree. but please, remember, the guy on the other end of the phone is just trying to earn some money, it wasn't his decision to annoy you. that was the company's decision to put you on their call list.

Many of those telemarketers are desperate, working at the only job they can find---if they could find better, don't you think they would? I remember my mother doing telemarketing, from a home office in the basement, she was trying to help make money for my grandmother's cancer drugs. I remember hearing her cry in the basement, people would be so mean.

I've done telephone survey work, and other related work, right now to help make ends meet, since my dh job was sent to India. Hey, it could be you on the other end, trying to make ends meet. Especially if you're white and over 50

Just be decent, don't shout, or use obscenities, just simply say no thanks, not interested, and please put me on your do not call list. And be glad it isn't your job to call someone like you

[jmellc]

Originally Posted by MaryleeII

Telemarketers are annoying, I agree. but please, remember, the guy on the other end of the phone is just trying to earn some money, it wasn't his decision to annoy you. that was the company's decision to put you on their call list.

Many of those telemarketers are desperate, working at the only job they can find---if they could find better, don't you think they would? I remember my mother doing telemarketing, from a home office in the basement, she was trying to help make money for my grandmother's cancer drugs. I remember hearing her cry in the basement, people would be so mean.

I've done telephone survey work, and other related work, right now to help make ends meet, since my dh job was sent to India. Hey, it could be you on the other end, trying to make ends meet. Especially if you're white and over 50

Just be decent, don't shout, or use obscenities, just simply say no thanks, not interested, and please put me on your do not call list. And be glad it isn't your job to call someone like you

Yes, you have a point. But things get to a point where someone can't take any more. Not as bad now with caller ID, but I remember getting 20-30 calls a day from TM's. I couldn't finish any household task w/out the phone ringing & a sales pitch coming with it. I installed a phone for my convenience, not the world's.

I took it for a long time & tried to be polite. But many callers would not take no for an answer. Then the worst would be the one I agreed to buy something from. Nearly always would be "my supervisor will be calling you back shortly". So now I have to deal with 2 calls? Is that my thanks for buying your product?

But I will try to remember your point. Yes, people are desperate for any way now to make a living. If my business ever stabalizes, I will hire at least 1 person to work with me, hopefully more.

[jtur88]

The Do Not Call list is, in practical terms, entirely voluntary, and telemarketers may apply it or not, according to their own sense of social propriety. But it has no teeth. I've been receiving calls from the same organization now for three years, they are well-known, millions of people have complained about them, and they can't be stopped.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. The Do Not Call registry has absolutely no enforcement power, it is impossible to get a complaint looked at or listened to or get a response from anyone to a complaint. Callers can phone with complete impunity, and never get caught or prosecuted.

If you Google for help, you will get a complaint form, which simply places your complaint in some kind of a registry. Your complaint will not be passed along to any law enforcement agency, and if you call 911, your state attorney general's office, or any other enforcement agency, you will simply be referred to the online complaint form, or you will be given a phone number where you can leave your address, and you will be mailed such a form. It is impossible to reach a real person. I have, at least 4 or 5 times, filed this form, and I have yet to receive even a computer-generated acknowledgement that my complaint has been received.

Violating telemarketers, like everyone else in America, are protected by the Constitution. If you believe someone has violated the DNC law, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, and the onus is on the recipient of the calls (that's YOU) to identify the caller, assemble all the evidence to prove who they are, and prove in court that they in fact made an illegal call to your telephone. And after doing so, you will receive no compensation for doing the police and detective and prosecution work necessary to get an extremely unlikely conviction, which would result in almost no penalty at all. Good Luck.

The FTC claims that they have brought 34 law enforcement actions against violators and collected $16 million in penalties, in the past 8 years. The law requires that recipients of the calls are to receive compensation from violators. But $16 million amounts to pennies per call, and I can find no evidence that any call recipient has ever received one cent of that fine money collected by the government. In all the cases I can find, the telemarketers thought they were legal, and freely identified themselves, and it still took millions of violations before the FTC took action. In cases where the telemarketer just hangs up when you ask who they are, there is zero chance that they will ever be tracked down.

In one case, a person filed a small-claims suit against a telemarketer, and received a warning that he would be countersued for malicious prosecution, with damaged likely to run over $100,000.