Do-Not-Call Violations

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I can see two better solutions: simply choose not to answer the phone if the caller ID is showing "unavailable," and let the answering machine do its job,

Better yet, get Privacy Manager from SBC for $1-$2 a month and the phone never rings.

 

[Checkmite]

Separate but roundaboutly-related anecdote: a while ago, I got a call from a debt collector, who left a message in my voice mailbox. No, it wasn't my debt! They were looking for someone I've never heard of before. But the tactic was unusual; it was an automated message. The message began, "This is a personal message for (computer trying to pronounce name of somebody); if you are not (computer trying to pronounce name of somebody), please disregard this message and hang up now." The message is then silent for about five seconds, then a clicking sound is heard, and another message (same voice) begins. "(computer trying to pronounce name of somebody), this is (name of company), we need to contact you regarding your account. It is extremely important that you contact us at (phone number) as soon as possible." And then comes the message, which I believe is required by Federal regulation, "This is a communication from a debt collector attempting to collect a debt, and any information obtained will be used for that purpose." After this is done, the message repeats, beginning with "this is X, we need to contact you regarding..."

First of all, let me say that on paper this is a wonderful idea. It saves the collection agency time and money that would be wasted trying to call people who aren't going to pay. If the debtor plans on paying they will call back, (which maybe also functions as a legal acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the debt, I dunno).

Problem 1: Their computer system did not understand that it was transferred to a voice mailbox. Thus, it interpreted the mailbox's silence-while-recording to mean that a caller was waiting on the line, thus hooking me through to the confidential portion of the message. This leads to

Problem 2: The company violating Federal law, which mandates that a debt collection agency may not tell anyone other than you or your attorney that you owe a debt. Because of their computer system's error, this debt collector informed me - an unrelated third party - that (name of person) owes a debt. This is actionable under the FDCPA, and (name of person) might even be able to successfully sue for damages because of it. Unfortunately, I don't know (name of person) and so am unable to relay this bit of good news to him. Equally unfortunately, but not for him, is

Problem 3: The fact that the debt collector's computer system is programmed to repeat the message until the target hangs up the phone, coupled with the fact that for some reason my voice mailbox had no time limit and would continuously record an unending message until the mailbox's allocated memory was used up, coupled with the fact that for some reason that mailbox system only allows the option of deleting a message when playback is complete, meant that I had to listen to this constantly looping message for eight minutes (yes, I counted) before it stopped because the mailbox ran out of memory and I was finally allowed to delete it.

 

[GeeMack]

Better yet, get Privacy Manager from SBC for $1-$2 a month and the phone never rings.

No, really, better yet, the phone company should simply provide a valid caller ID with every incoming call. Obviously phone companies shouldn't assist companies in violating FTC regulations, so their offer to stop assisting them, for a fee, is ridiculous.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

No, really, better yet, the phone company should simply provide a valid caller ID with every incoming call. Obviously phone companies shouldn't assist companies in violating FTC regulations, so their offer to stop assisting them, for a fee, is ridiculous.

If only there was someone I could call to complain about this.

 

[Checkmite]

No, really, better yet, the phone company should simply provide a valid caller ID with every incoming call. Obviously phone companies shouldn't assist companies in violating FTC regulations, so their offer to stop assisting them, for a fee, is ridiculous.

I don't think that's the problem. Yes, the phone company does offer an optional "privacy" service that won't transmit your caller ID information, but as far as I know, that service is only available to residential numbers, not business numbers.

To my knowledge, the reason telemarketers' (or, for that matter, most centralized call centers) numbers appear on your caller ID as "unavailable" is that they use T-1 rather than traditional phone lines, and I'm under the impression that the T-1 carrier doesn't transmit caller ID information.

 

[Kestrel]

All the market research companies I've worked for never bothered with those on the TPS list. It was the people who were x-directory and somehow thought this made them immune that were the real problem. Oh, that it was somehow illegal to call them.

I made a lot of political calls last fall. I did run into people who were a bit upset about being called, or even that I knew their name. If they wanted, I added them to our do not call list.

A couple weeks before the election, we took our list of people we didn't have phone numbers for and where we hadn't been able to knock on their door. (They had a beware of dog sign in the front yard, or we just couldn't find the address.) We sent them hand addressed personal letters with our phone number and address. The responses to some of these were really angry. The worst was a lady who left a five minute obscenity laced message on the answering machine telling us she was calling the cops and her lawyer and loading her guns.

 

[GeeMack]

I don't think that's the problem. Yes, the phone company does offer an optional "privacy" service that won't transmit your caller ID information, but as far as I know, that service is only available to residential numbers, not business numbers.

To my knowledge, the reason telemarketers' (or, for that matter, most centralized call centers) numbers appear on your caller ID as "unavailable" is that they use T-1 rather than traditional phone lines, and I'm under the impression that the T-1 carrier doesn't transmit caller ID information.

So let's see, the phone companies have a way to prevent a call coming through if it doesn't carry valid caller ID information. And it's a violation of FTC regulations for a company to call without providing valid caller ID information. The obvious solution is for the phone companies to implement the technology that they clearly have available to stop assisting other companies in violating the FTC regulations.

 

[luchog]

To my knowledge, the reason telemarketers' (or, for that matter, most centralized call centers) numbers appear on your caller ID as "unavailable" is that they use T-1 rather than traditional phone lines, and I'm under the impression that the T-1 carrier doesn't transmit caller ID information.

Not true. Even VOIP phones get caller ID. It's encoded into the bitstream. If it's off, that means that there's something misconfigured somewhere along the line, or it's deliberately blocked.

At this point in time, I simply assume that every telemarketter who calls me is a scammer or otherwise engaged in shady business practices. I'm on the Do Not Call register, and I'm on a cell phone exclusively, no land line. This means that it is doubly illegal for any telemarketter to call me. This goes for non-profits, "market researchers", and political canvassers as well. The only people allowed to call me are those I give explicit permission to do so. (Doing business with them is considered granting permission for the purpose of the law.)

Most of the time, I'll simply announe curtly that I'm on a cell phone, then hang up. If I'm in a really pissy mood, and extremely bored, then I'll screw around with them; but mostly I can't be bothered.

Although I've never worked as a telemarketter, I've worked some pretty crappy jobs that weren't much better, and I've had friends who worked for them for short periods of time.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are almost no honest cold-call telemarketters. Nearly all of them are running some kind of scam, even if just a low-level one. A huge number of telemarketting call centers nowadays are run from prisons, using prison labour. There was a news story a while back about one prison-based call center being a source of hundreds of thousands of personal financial records leaked for an ID-theft ring operating out of the prison. Aside from that, ex-convicts are one of the largest employee demographics for cold-call telemarketters.

Something else to keep in mind is that a lot of these call centers service multiple businesses who are too small to operate their own dedicated call center. Often these businesses don't really know how these places are run, or the tactics they're using; and many times simply don't care. Likewise the telemarketting call centers are scamming their client businesses as well as the people they're calling.

When I worked at Earthlink, we outsourced a bunch of our tech support and customer service to a call center which had been primarily telemarketting up until that point. Earthlink ended up having to sue them for breach of contract because of the extremely poor way they handled the calls (and this was a company that had a number of its own highly questionable business and employment practices).

 

[rjh01]

From reading the above posts about jail gave me an idea. When they ring up ask 'What is life like in jail?' Now there are two possibilities.
1. He is in fact serving a jail sentence. In which case you have proved you are psychic (or God).
2. He is not in jail, nor will he admit to having being inside a jail. In which case you say that is what his working conditions look like. Try to socialize with him. Talk about his working conditions.

 

[alfaniner]

A huge number of telemarketting call centers nowadays are run from prisons, using prison labour. There was a news story a while back about one prison-based call center being a source of hundreds of thousands of personal financial records leaked for an ID-theft ring operating out of the prison. Aside from that, ex-convicts are one of the largest employee demographics for cold-call telemarketters.

That might be something to keep in mind next time you want to mess with a telemarketer. They have your phone number, and possibly your name and address.