“Do Not Call” Registry: A Wasted Effort

The National “Do No Call” registry is a good idea, but it’s being ignored by telemarketers and it’s hard to enforce. The “Do Not Call” registry is like a mouth with no teeth. It can’t really put a bite into anything.

Based on my own personal experience, since the registry began in 2004, telemarketing calls to my home dropped off for a short while, but now seem worse than ever. I’m getting tired of the daily calls from various companies wanting to talk about changing my natural gas supplier, or to buy magazines, or from police departments across the state of Ohio asking for money for one of their causes. The latter really gets to me, as I know these aren’t really police officers calling me (as they pretend to be) and the caller always speaks with a slight southern drawl, even when they pretend to be calling from my home area. (Southern drawls are not the norm here in northeast Ohio.) A few weeks ago, I had one alleged officer call me and ask for a donation, and right after I began saying the words, “I’m sorry, but” he hung up on me.

But, back to the Do Not Call registry. I don’t have the time to report every single person that makes a telemarketing call to me. It’s hard to even know sometimes who is calling when you get one of those automated phone calls that hangs up the minute it gets an answering machine. Likewise with those where I want to hang up because I don’t want to waste my time listening variations on the same pointless spiel every day. 

I've also heard from many people who get regular phone calls where they answer the phone and no one is there. I’ve been told these are automated dialers that are simply checking to see when someone is regularly there to answer the phone; they get your patterns down pat and then schedule their real telemarketing call during the time you've been shown to most likely answer. 

Here’s my idea. Why can’t we have a number code that we can dial while listening to a telemarketing call that automatically reports the number to the government? I’m thinking along the lines of the *69 feature that some telephone carriers use for callbacks. A simple * and a number code is all I would need to put their phone number on the list of possible law breakers. It’s a simple way of reporting the offender without me having to write down all the information myself and go to a web site and file the same information.

Better yet, how about if we just make a rule that says unless the company calling has your approval, no one can call you and sell you anything over the phone. I have no objection to companies with whom I already have a relationship calling me in the course of normal business, but I would still draw the line if they want to call me to sell me something.

It goes without saying that automated dialers and recorded messages should just be illegal – regardless of who is calling. (For example, politicians and charities shouldn’t use automated dialers and recorded messages).

With all the technology available these days, there has to be a quick and easy way to report these annoying telemarketers.   And, I still wish that "Do Not Call" would mean "Do Not Call - AT ALL."


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Do Not Call Should Mean Do Not Call At All

The National Do Not Call Registry is a great thing because it allows you to block telemarketers from calling. But there are limitations. One can still receive calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, and companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those where you’ve provided consent in writing to receive their calls.

My personal feeling is that Do Not Call should mean just that – DO NOT CALL. Period. I can understand a company that you have a business relationship with you calling in the normal course of doing business. But I don't know why politicians get a free pass to annoy me by phone. I wrote in my blog (here) back in February about one company making annoying political calls, and with the upcoming presidential election, I sense the political calls are going to ramp up exponentially as we get closer to Election Day.

Frankly, I don’t want to hear from any of them.

During the primaries, I received calls – prerecorded and automated, of course – from Hillary Clinton and John McCain. I don’t recall getting a phone call from Barack Obama but that actually worked in his favor for me. The calls from Clinton and McCain were left on my answering machine (I screen all my calls), which allowed me to either listen to them or just delete them, depending on my mood. But I have to admit the fact that they even called me and made an attempt to interrupt my day actually lowered my opinion of them. Also, John McCain’s message sounded like he’d just woken up and hadn’t had any coffee yet. It was dull, stiff, and lifeless. I felt like the life force was being sucked out of me as I listed to the message.

And the fact that many politicians are using electronic autodialers to do the work for them – sometimes called “robocalls” - it’s made the political call even more worthless. Sure, by using autodialers they can reach more people in less time, but it’s also the phone equivalent of email spam. It’s just some electronic method of dumping junk, this time on your ears.

So while the Do Not Call registry has helped to cut down on those annoying people trying to sell you something you don’t want, it still has allowed what I call phone spam – telespam? – from people you don’t want to hear from.

I wish that the Do Not Call registry was sophisticated enough to allow you to select – or deselect – groups of people you don’t want to hear from. I would make sure that I wouldn’t hear from politicians and their political messages. Of course, they can call me personally if they want to talk to me personally. But I don’t think I need their canned, automated phone call to sell me their message.


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Annoying Political Telemarketers

Telemarketers are annoying enough. Luckily, there is the “Do Not Call” list, which has spared many of us from the constant interruptions of telemarketers trying to sell us something that we really don’t need or want.

But believe it or not, there is a worse breed of telemarketer that the Do Not Call listing doesn’t block – the Political Telemarketer.

Particularly annoying is the political telemarketer who picks on one candidate and does everything they can to trash them. There is one group – American Family Voices - that just left me a message on my answering machine, which bashed Congressman Steven LaTourette, and then encouraged me to call his office to voice my concerns over his action. This is not the first time American Family Voices has left me a message. Someone like them also calls almost every three weeks – and has done so for as long as I can recall – to tell me how much they dislike Congressman LaTourette and why I should dislike him, too.

I can think for myself, thank you, and I don’t need some political action committee or special interest group to tell me how I should think or feel. These types of political telemarketers do more to annoy than to get someone interested in their cause. In fact, they do a better job in getting people to tune them out to their cause. I am not even remotely interested in whatever message they are spewing. It is especially annoying when they resort to what I consider childish name-calling of the object of their wrath. If they have a message, get out the message without the poisonous bashing against the person. Maybe then people will listen to the actual issue and form their own opinions.

I did call American Family Voices – their voice was a voice mail by the way – and told them to remove me from their calling list, plus gave them some commentary of my own about their calls. I don’t need any political action group slinging their mud my way. And that’s my one voice from one American family.

It’s going to be a long election season….



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