This scam is insidious, and is promoted and facilitated by the federal government. Unfortunately for those of us who already registered our phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, it’s too late to do anything about it except change our phone number. Here’s what’s happening…

First, we complained for years about telemarketing calls interrupting our dinner or waking us up early on our sleep-in Sunday mornings. The government – our public servants – naturally did nothing about it. Telemarketing lobbyists know where to spend their money. Then a new business model was realized and the lobbyists nudged a seemingly counter-productive measure toward law: The National Do Not Call Registry.

Overseen by the Federal Trade Commission in the US, this service logs all the telephone numbers of people who do not want to receive ANY telemarketing calls. We, the hapless telephone customers, voluntarily register our phone number. And then sweet silence prevails… NOT.

Now our phone number’s on a list. Now that list becomes a high-priced commodity for telemarketers. Our phone number is bought and sold throughout the netherworld of telemarketing hell. The number of annoying calls goes up. And up and up and up. What went wrong?

Well, in the first place, far too many telemarketers are exempt. Any remotely political organization can still annoy us with campaign calls and fund requests. Any charity can legally try to shake us down. Telephone surveys are allowed, even if they are really thinly-disguised sales pitches. Any company from which you purchased a product or service may interrupt your quiet evening at home. In Canada, any sales call from outside the country is still allowed.

See where this is going? Now that your number is on a list – even if that list is jokingly called the “Do Not Call” list – your number is up for grabs. Telemarketers who never knew you existed before can now get your number from the National Do Not Call list.

Enforcement is a joke. There are too many violators to manage. Out-of-country telemarketers are practically untraceable. Even if a telemarketer is reported and found guilty, the measly fine is laughable.

Oh, and registering you cell phone? BIG MISTAKE. Soliciting to cell phone numbers with automatic dialers (the primary tool of telemarketers) is outright illegal under any circumstance, and will remain so. Scare tactics to get you to register your cell phone number will only cost you air time minutes, many dollars, and endless headaches as these heartless telemarketers blindly dial you up.

Solution: Do Not Register. Instead, every time a telemarketer calls, first ask for their company name and telephone number (which is often blocked) and log it with the date. Then tell that telemarketer to remove your number from their database. If they ever call again, Report Them. They probably won’t be pursued by the informed authorities, but if you’re lucky they’ll be fined up to $11,000 – which is probably already in their advertising budget.

In the US, report a violation by calling 1-888-382-1222. In Canada – where even the government doesn’t want to be hassled by phone – you have to use their website complaint form at https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/plt-cmp-eng . It may seem like more work for you, but believe me, you’ll stay off the radar and you’ll ultimately get fewer calls.

As for me, I’m not a phone addict. I turn the damn thing off when I want to sleep in.

Scrud Kelley

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