Disconnecting Telemarketers

Anonymous Scientist at UMass sent in a story about opt-out telemarketing laws, and several people submitted this story about a spam bill in the Senate. New York's telemarketing law does work - since we put our number on the list, we've gotten a couple of calls from charities (not covered by the law) and a couple of calls from Time-Warner Cable, asking us to sign up for cable. Time-Warner's calls would be banned, except that we have a pre-existing business relationship with them - you see, we already have cable. Update: 05/18 15:30 GMT by M : Oh, and if you live in New York: NYNoCall.com.

Re:Telemarketer blocking devices

[dpete4552]

Our local news station did a story on those. They didn't work worth crap.

And if you live in Texas

[Serk]

And if you live in Texas - http://www.texasnocall.com/

And for what it's worth, it works, my spam-calls have gone to nearly zero (I still get charity calls)... The other thing to cut way down on spam-calls is this magic phrase - 'Please put me on your do not call list. Thank you.'...

Reusing numbers

[popeydotcom]

We recently moved house and connected to NTL [ntlworld.com] for telephone and cable modem. They gave us a number and I asked for it to be ex-directory (so it doesn't show up in public directories and thus should reduce the chances we get spam calls). Within a week or two we were getting fax calls from someone at all hours of the day and night. Not nice for Clare when I'm away from home, waking her up in the middle of the night (we don't have a fax machine). Problem is they always seemed to block their number, so dialling 1472 to get the CLI number didn't work. However *once* it did. We got the number and searched for it on the internet. I found out the company name and got their website from google. I then figured out their email naming convention and send an email to every employee in the company telling them to stop.

They stopped.

The problem was that our number was reused. It had been someone elses fax number 6 months ago. The phone company said they could change our number if we wanted, but we'd just get another recycled number.

The dimwit company with the fax machine hadn't purged their marketing database at all.

In the UK we have an opt-out system also, called the 'Telephone Preference Service'. There's also an associated organisation called the 'Mail Preference Service' to reduce spam through the letter box. Since we registered we haven't had any spam calls and little or no mail either.

Re:Telemarketer blocking devices

[larien]

ISTR hearing about these before; IIRC they sent a short signal to the caller that the line was engaged or was invalid. This was short enough that legit users wouldn't notice it, but the telemarketers' call machines would and mark the number invalid.

I have no idea how reliable they are or what their effect on legit callers is, but another post seems to think they weren't much good. *shrug*

Missouri's no call list web site sign up

[bleeeeck]

Here [state.mo.us] is Missouri's no call list sign up web site.

Too Bad this isn't National

[parp]

I am elated that certain states are stepping up to the plate to regulate telemarketers who are clearly showing they have no morals and need regulation. The regulations in California and New York are great! What disappoints me is this isn't national.

<story from hell> In January I dropped MCI as my long distance carrier in favor of Working Assets [workingassets.com] (a company with morals!). Well despite telling MCI 3 times I had changed phone companies, they kept billing me. I called and complained and they told me it was taken care of.

Then one morning in mid April I got an electronic voice call from MCI telling me to call this 800# immediately to resolve a problem. I called and they were still looking for me to pay for service I didn't get (bill totaling $5.12). I of course had to go through customer service transfer hell, and talk to half a dozen clueless people over the course of 2 hours. Finally I got one rep with a clue who said he cleared up the problem.

Not 5 minutes later I got another electronic voice call - call MCI now or else! I called, 2 reps said I still owed money, their supervisor said I didn't owe, and their system was updating. Well, for the next 5 days I continued to get electronic voice calls from MCI every 2 hours from 8am to 10pm demanding I call this 800# to take care of my problem.

Obviously I was really pissed, not just about this over billing, but these damn calls that wouldn't go away. So after 4 calls I called my local police department and talked to a detective. I was Furious to learn Massachusetts has No laws regulating telemarketers, auto dialers, or electronic voice calls. Despite agreeing with me that these calls are harassing, he said there is nothing he could do, even having these recorded messages on my answering machine.

So after 5 days the calls finally stopped and MCI credited me which is nice, but geesh! </story from hell>

Please make these laws National!

Re:German telemarketing laws work

[Sircus]

You should really explain this to Ruhr-Nachrichten, who call me about every 6 months (maybe more often, I'm rarely at home) despite the fact that

a) I've never bought a copy of their newspaper
b) As an English person for whom reading German is a chore, not enjoyment, I've no desire to buy a copy of their newspaper
c) I have no other prior business relationship with them.

Granted, they're the only people who've ever called, but it's at least one example of German telemarketing laws not working.

Oregon

[Phroggy]

ornocall.com [ornocall.com], I signed up last month. Won't take effect until the next quarter (June), when telemarketers receive the new lists.

Re:Telemarketer blocking devices

[interiot]

Some usenet threads discussing use of the SIT Tone [sandman.com] to attempt to trick computerized calling systems:

• Do Zappers really work with telemarketers? [google.com] (15 posts)
• Telezapper easy to defeat? [google.com] (14 posts)

There are many more [google.com]. I'm just trying to give an alternate perspective because IMHO, local news places tend to be more interested in sensationalized exposés than in subtle details.

Anyway, you can just add that sit.wav to the start of your answering machine message for free, so it doesn't hurt to see for yourself.

Telezapper

[mrsam]

I've heard commercials on TV lately advertising products that you can put between the jack and the phone that actually block telemarketers. Does anyone have any experience with these devices? DO they work? Which is the best one to get?

There are several brand names these gizmos are sold under, the most common one is called a "Telezapper". The way they work is that every time you pick up the phone the device sends out that three-note high-pitched tone you sometimes hear when you misdial and reach an invalid number, or you get an "all circuits are busy" recording.

It's called a SIT tone - "Special Information Tone" - and is used by the phone company to indicate that the dialed number cannot be reached for some reason. It's actually not used in most places since that kind of information is now transmitted out-of-band with the voice call, but is used for compatibility reasons in case the call originates from some ancient phone switch in Antarctica which does not receive out-of-band signalling, and listens to the voice path to figure out what happened to the phone call.

The idea behind the telezapper is that many telemarketing calls are robo-dialed, and the telemarketer is put on the line only after you pick up the phone and answer (which is why many times you get a short delay after you say hello, before some sleazebag starts yammering into your ear trying to peddle some junk). If the telemarketers' dialer detects that the call didn't go through, it never even goes to a human. The idea is that if the robodialer hears a SIT it will assume that the phone number is invalid, and the phone number will be automatically removed from the telemarketer's phone list.

In any case, that's how it's supposed to work in theory. I wouldn't know, since I'm in NY and I don't get phonespam no mo'. :-) However I do know this: if you use that device you may experience occasional problems receiving calls from pay-phones. Many privately-owned payphones (you know, mostly the weird looking ones owned by some private phone operator that charges $5 per minute) are not properly provisioned to process out-of-band call signaling, and the circuitry in the payphone listens to the voice line in order to figure out what happened to the dialed call (busy, ringing, no answer, human speech, etc...) If the payphone hears a SIT it will disconnect the line even though the call will actually go through.

Re:101 Way to Waste Their Time

[actor_au]

Tom Mabe [tommabe.com] has one of the most innovative methods for getting rid of Telemarkers.
He not only pranked them (pretending to a carpet cleaner that he needed a lot of blood out of a carpet, money paid in cash and to keep his mouth shut, telling people that he was interested in cheap international rates but that he did not own a phone and the best one begging a telemarketer to bring him over some beer cause this braclet on his ankel wouldn't let him out of the house until next month) he also made the whole record of them into a cd and made money out of them.

I've had great luck with the MO No Call list!

[Mustang Matt]

I've had very few calls. The ones I still get are from Charities such as the Missouri Highway Patrol wanting me to donate money to them... (Someone explain that to me? I pay them to get a sticker in hopes of a higher probability of getting out of tickets. I would invest but I don't put stickers on my cars.)

I did have one telemarketer call me and luckily I had the No Call list rules right next to me. I collected the correct information and submitted it to the Attorney General and he got busted!

The biggest problem I've been having is junk faxes. I probably only get one a month, but they are annoying as heck! They call at 2-4am and keep calling until they get a fax machine to pick up.

Then they're virtually untraceable. You call the 800 numbers on them and it goes to a call center with a bunch of phone monkies that claim to know nothing.

Stalked by Telemarketers

[bubblegoose]

I was stalked by these bastards and I learned you must to say the magic words:
"Put me on your do not call list, and do not distribute my information".
After that ask them if they have one (they are required by law to keep one)and if they understood you.
By ALWAYS saying that to the bastards I finally got the calls to stop, no special devices, no being a prick. I might get one call a month.

A great resource for this is www.junkbusters.com

try the DMA's opt-out

[jat2]

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) has their own opt-out for mail, phone and email. In my experience, it works quite well. You can get more information from the following URL: http://www.dmaconsumers.org/privacy.html . It generally takes 3 months to work, but I found that it works best if you can get on the list before your new info has a chance to circulate.

I also found that asking credit card companies to put you on their "do not call unless someone stole my card" list at the same time as you give them your new info allows you to avoid that whole "4--6 weeks" before it takes effect line they give you.

Using these two strategies, I have not received any phonecalls or mail from commercial telemarketers in almost three years. Charities are another story.

marketer was fined for call me!

[jageryager]

I'm on the NY State Do not call list. A while back I got a call. I took down their information, and filed a compaint with the state.

About 6 months later New York State sent me a letter telling me that the company that had called me had been fined $11,000 for the 11 complaints that had been filed against it!

As others have posted above, the Do not Call law does work.

Re:101 Way to Waste Their Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong religion, retard.

I OWN a telezapper

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of listening to these morons who don't even OWN a telezapper tell you it doesn't work or emits a high-pitched audible tone, I thought I'd offer you the opinion and experience of someone who actually owns one and is using one in his home.

The thing WORKS... okay? The device does send out a signal after the first ring to tell the auto-dialer that it has reached a disconnected line, but it is NOT audible. It doesn't even pick up the phone! When a telemarketer calls using an autodialer, a red light flashes on the device to show it's been "zapped". This doesn't happen on any other call from a human being, so I assume there is some sort of 2-way communication between the zapper and the autodialer... not just one-sided, but I don't know that for sure. It could be that autodialers emit a signal of their own which is picked up by the zapper, identified, and then a "zap" signal to tell it it has reached a disconnected line. A normal call from a friend will only notice a short clicking sound when you pick up the phone.(about like the sound when you switch from one line to another using call-waiting) For all outgoing calls you make, you'll also hear this switching sound at first.

I've had the telezapper for about 4 months now. After about a week or two, we stopped getting telemarketers. (The device works only by zapping those that call, so you have to let most call you first before they start to die down) Since the device zaps them on the first ring, it's almost fun when they call. I hear a ring, a red light flashes, and that's the end of it. There is no second ring, so no chance for me to pick up the phone out of habit and actually get stuck talking to one of those guys. It's like a bug-zapper ;-) ring... zap... never hear from them again.

I used to get calls at all hours of the day every day. On average, maybe 5 or 6 telemarketers a day. But, sometimes they'd call every hour on the hour hoping to get a human... and if I didn't pick up, they'd hang up on the answering machine and call back. so, some days we'd get 12-15 calls. Now, The zapper catches a new one once every two to three weeks, and the only telemarketers we've gotten in the past month or two were actual humans - no autodialer. And as for the telemarketers, I haven't had a single one on my answering machine or gotten one on the phone b/c the zapper gets them before I do.

For a gadget that costs under $40, it's made my life a lot more peaceful. It's worth every penny. I had tried the "get me off the list" approach by telling individual people to take me off their lists. I had tried a company that I called that promised to get me off the lists of lots of companies out there. Nothing worked. The Telezapper DOES. I don't know about cheap knock-offs or other brands, but the brand name works & several of my family members are planning on buying one soon. I'd say that maybe telemarketers are more aggressive in other states or are more clever to work around it, but MOST telemarketers are calling from out of state to begin with, so I don't see how this is so. But, the Telezapper won't protect you from live human beings dialing numbers by hand... but most companies don't want to pay people to do that. They'd rather use the auto-dialer to connect you to a telemarketer once it knows it's gotten you. (notice the silence between when you pick up the phone for a telemarketer and the time they take to answer you... you might even hear the line switching... that's the autodialer connecting the telemarketer to you). I figure telemarketers may not find a way around the telezapper and will have to PAY for people to call me and waste THEIR time as much as ours... which isn't likely to happen, but if it does... fair enough, I'd be happy to make sure their time is wasted as much as possible b/c they'll be listening to my answering machine. I also have Caller ID & wouldn't pick up an unavailable # or a company I don't do business with. :-)

Re:hate telemarketers? screw with em!

[yog]

There's a comedian (www.jimflorentine.com) who does a great mentally retarded voice and has a couple of tracks on his CDs that are quite amusing. Although he mimics a retarded person he is very clever and manages to keep the telemarketers on the line for many minutes. I wish I could think that fast.

On the other hand, since I started politely requesting "add us to your no-call list" the telemarketing in recent weeks has all but ceased, and good riddance.

How to deal with telemarketers!

[DiveX]

Don't just make some causal 'place me on your do-not-call list' statement and hang up...mkae them follow through. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 has multiple requirements that would interest readers.
1. The use of prerecorded ads is illegal under this act (with the exception of emergency calls [i.e. evacuation notices]).
2. Upon request, they *must* send you a written copy of their DNR policy.
3. They must train their people in the use of the DNR policy and the implementation of it. e.g. If you ask for a written copy of the policy and they say one does not exist or they know nothing about it, then that can be construed as 2 violations of this federal law.

The actual numbers for those interested in reading up on this is 'Title 47 USC Section 227' and 47 CFR 64.1200.

The great thing about this law, unlike most anti-spam bills, is that it allows private right of action against the telemarketer. That's right, if they violate these rules, you can take them to small claims court. If you tell them to not call you again and they do so again within the next 10 years, that is another $500 violation. If you can demonstrate that they willfully violated this act (i.e. called you several time or used a clearly illegal prerecorded message), then you can ask for triple damages! Other things to remember, there is NO grace period for adding your name to the list. Even if they say it will 'take 8-10 days to completely remove the number' and call again the next day, that is a violation of the federal law.

The FTC is finally working on creating a national DNR list as directed by Congress when the TCPA was passed.

Do not just hang up or ignore these people. Know your rights and exercise them. Keep a log of the calls and get names and numbers. If they call once more it probably isn't worth it, but if they call more than that, then you have case history and the law to ack you up and can easily get a judgement (although collecting is always a different story). One story I remember from my research is a company in NJ was making calls for GM in Ohio. The guy went to court and got a judgement, but the firm in NJ said they wouldn't pay since they were in different states. The guy found that Ohio has a law stating that sompanies that do not pay legal judgements cannot conduct business in the state. The guy wrote the president of GM and said if they ever wanted to sell cars in that state to pay up...a check was sent less than 5 days later.

Many states have their own list, however I am not aware if any of the states allow for private action. Any legal action usually must be done by the state. Get on your state's list. It will help aid you if you persue action under the TCPA.

Here are some links for those interested in reading up:

http://consumer.net/telemarketing/tcpainfo.asp

http://www.private-citizen.com/ (private group dedicated to ant-telemarketing intrusions)

http://www.epic.org/privacy/telemarketing/

http://www.dianamey.com/ (story of one woman's fight against the system..to date she has collected over $30,000 since 1999 including $10,000 from Discover Card.

Finally, something that actually works!!

[iamroot]

I bought a TeleZapper last summer. I've been using it since then(well since recently). It is simply a tone generator that will beep at the frequency of the first SIT tone. For $50 it would be an incredible rip-off. Well, that is, if it actually worked. The manufacturer that makes it didn't even add the whole SIT sequence! That means that all a telemarketing firm has to do is check for the WHOLE SIT sequence.

But that doesn't really matter. A couple days ago, I got a digital PBX, and programmed it to play a message saying "Hello you have reached XXX-XXX-XXXX. If you are a telemarketer ADD US TO YOUR DO-NOT-CALL-LIST. Please dial XXX for X, XXX for X, or XXX for X.(LONG PAUSE). PLEASE HOLD FOR AUTOMATED VOICE MAIL..." any telemarketers that call and actually get through are breaking the law, as they MUST honor and keep a do-not-call-list. If I get any voice mail messages from them, or if they even dial an extension I'll threaten (and maybe take) legal action. Several have called, and all I get on the voice mail box is "..like to make a call please hang up and tr[BEEP][BEEP][BEEP][BEEP][CLICK]". This seems to be because they hang up after the PBX plays the message. The PBX then has a bit of a delay before its active call detection times out. Well, the saturday round of telemarketing calls have all been blocked, and its worked pretty well so far.

For those who wouldn't want an actual PBX (here's one on ebay [ebay.com] currently $33), several companys make similar things that basically do same thing, without the main function of a PBX, for about $130.

Who needs anti-telemarketing laws anyway?

[tuxlove]

Since I signed up for the "Privacy Manager" service offered by Pacific Bell, I haven't gotten a single telemarket call. It blocks out people who don't have their caller ID exposed, requiring them to turn it on (at a prompt) or to speak their name so their call can be screened. Telemarketers never make it past the service, because their computerized dialers can't deal with it properly.

Some idiot in the CA assembly has proposed a state law to force telemarketers to reveal their caller ID so consumers can screen them out manually. This would totally hose me, because then they'd skate past the privacy manager prompt. Yes, I'd be able to see who's calling (how much you want to bet that the caller ID info would be "misleading" anyway?), but the main problem is that the phone would actually ring, requiring me to pick it up. I haven't gotten a telemarket call in the 8 months or so since signing up for the service. I used to get 5-10 a day, and I don't want to experience that again even if it only means checking the caller ID window on my phone.

If they want to pass an anti-telemarketing law, it should be one that forces telemarketers to keep their caller ID hidden and that forces the telephone company to offer Privacy Manager to everyone free of cost. Otherwise, don't f*ck with a beautiful thing!!