Realty Times July 3, 2003

Web Site To See: Do-Not-Call Registry A Hit
by Broderick Perkins

If response the first day of the national do-not-call registry is any indication, consumers deeply despise telemarketing.

Friday, June 27, the day the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission opened the official national do-not-call registry online, 735,000 consumers had signed up by 5 p.m. -- sometimes logging in at the rate of 1,000 a second.

Federal officials expect some 60 million people to eventually sign up to get telemarketers out of their lives.

Telephone registration also opened on the same date for consumers in states west of the Mississippi River, including Minnesota and Louisiana. Telephone registration will be available nationwide by July 7. To register by phone, consumers may call 1(888)382-1222. For TTY/TTD (Teletype or Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) call 1(866) 290-4236.

Many consumers, especially computer users who frequent the Web and use email, were likely deeply longing for a similar national do-not-spam service. It should do so well.

The national do-not-call registry comes just in time to ward off telemarketers' year-end seasonal offensive on your home phone. Those who sign up now should begin to see telemarketing calls begin to stall in October -- and for five years hence. In October, telemarketers must begin purchasing the list and not calling those on it. Telemarketers must be in full compliance by January 29, 2004. Violators can be fined up to $11,000 for each illegal call.

Telemarketers, who generate nearly $300 billion in consumer sales a year, are "cold calling" salespeople who telephone their pitches -- too often with a disturbing ring right at dinner time when they know you are home.

Late last year, grifters began a do-not-call registry verification scam designed to illegally obtain private information.

Also, an FTC court order filing this year sought to shut down some Web sites after it charged them with allegedly offering illegal do-not-call services, purportedly to get telemarketers to stop calling consumers with sales pitches. The federal action came after RealtyTimes.com investigated the Web sites.

The FCC warns consumers that both federal and state do-not-call registration is initiated by the consumer, not by any company or government agency.

Do-Not-Call details

Details of the new do-not-call law are being funneled through the FTC's "Do Not Call" Web site. Letting you make the call about telemarketers, the new law says, in part:

  • If you sign up for the registry, certain telemarketers may not call you for five years. You'll have to renew after five years, if you change your phone number, or if you take your number out of the registry and later want to put your number back on the list. Once you sign up, you should begin to get fewer calls within three months.

  • Telemarketers must search the registry every 90 days and delete registered phone numbers from call lists. Consumers can file a complaint against telemarketers who violate the rule. Violators can be fined up to $11,000 for each illegal call.

  • Unfortunately, some businesses not governed by the FTC are exempt from the rule, including long-distance phone companies, airlines, and insurance companies. The FCC oversees calls made by those industries and is working with the FTC to add them to the program.

  • Organizations with which you have established a business relationship can call you for up to 18 months after your last purchase, payment or delivery, even if your name is on the national do-not-call registry. Companies to which you've made an inquiry or submitted an application can call you for up to three months.

  • You may ask any company not to call you and it must honor your request, even if you have an established business relationship. That's also true if you do not put your number on the national registry -- you can prohibit individual telemarketers and any company from calling, one by one, by asking them to put you on their company's do-not-call list.

  • Callers soliciting charitable contributions do not have to search the national registry, but a for-profit telemarketer calling on behalf of a charitable organization must honor your request to be put on its do-not-call list.

  • You may also give written do-call permission to particular companies that you want to hear from.

  • Dozens of states have do-not-call registries and the FTC has allowed them to remain in place. The FTC says most of the 27 states that have active do-not-call lists plan to transfer the numbers on their lists to the national registry. Some will not, but states must enforce the FTC provisions unless their state has a more aggressive law.

  • When they are allowed to call you, telemarketers must transmit their telephone number and company name, if possible, to your Caller ID service.

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