Community Chat

[hyacinth003]

I was getting really tired of all the unwanted phone calls.

I finally went to that "do not call" website and signed up for it.

It has actually been working!

Over the last few weeks, I have been getting fewer and fewer calls.

So, anyone that wants to try it, know that it probably DOES work.

Hyacinth

[chickenbutt]

It does make a difference. The only problem is that there are a lot of exemptions so there are still calls you eventually end up getting. During political campaign times I end up turning off all my ringers after a while. Then I miss calls I want. There is no easy answer. I wish the do not call list was tighter. The exemptions are b.s., IMO.

[colliegirls]

I have been on the DoNotCall list for ages but still get plenty of calls. I am really fed up with it.

[lulu2]

It makes a difference but if you give to a charity and they share their lists, you will still be inundated with calls.

Also, solicitations from cell phones get through.

[kittymomNC]

Telemarketers don't care if you're on the Do Not Call list. They don't check before calling, the calls are made by electronic calling machines of some sort, and the companies responsible just take the chance that nothing will ever happen to them for making the calls. And it won't.

I've been on the Do Not Call List for years, and at first it really cut down on the calls, then they started picking up again. I re-registered, even though they say you don't need to, and that didn't help. Then I started reporting unsolicited calls to the Do Not Call Registry... they can't enforce it, so why bother? That didn't work. I've tried blocking a few numbers that I keep getting calls from. But they just change the number they're calling from, and you get the same message.

I check my caller I.D. (I have digital phone and if I'm watching TV, it shows up on the screen as well as on the phone), and ignore the calls. Once in a while they'll leave a message, most of the time they hang up.

But it gets irritating as all get-out, because you really can't do a thing to stop it.

[KathyPet]

Law abiding telemarketing firms do abide by the law and will not call if you are registered. Unfortunately most of these telemarketers Are not following the law and since the Federal,Government seems to either be incapable or uninterested in catching and prosecuting these violators there is no reason for them to,stop these calls. gotta love our Federal Govt. they pass a lot of laws but then don't enforce them.

[chickenbutt]

I've heard that they are supposed to at least fine the offenders and have had a couple of good results reporting them over the years.

The problem, however, became that these telemarketers LIE and tell the list that you have done business with them which, as we all know, makes them exempt.

I got an email back from the list on one that I reported. It said that the response they got was that I had done business with one of the telemarketer's companies and even listed those companies - NONE of which I had ever even heard of.

I just HATE stuff that affects me, yet it's out of my control so you can imagine my anger, but we pay for our phone numbers and we should be able to have more control over who uses them. It's like none of us have ANY right to privacy in our homes, on the land and structure for which we pay the taxes and mortgage so anybody can use our phone number or lay on the doorbell and bang on the door to try and sell us stuff, even with no soliciting signs and even with paying more for private and unlisted phone numbers. For me, that is just fundamentally wrong on such a profound level.

Yikes, sorry - I guess I got started. This stuff agitates me beyond belief. It's just wrong wrong wrong. I don't do this stuff to others and I feel that they have no right to do it to me.

[kittymomNC]

If you multiplied the number of unsolicited calls I get in an average week, by the number of households in America with phones, and we all reported all these callers, they would have to hire thousands of Government employees to enforce the Do Not Call rules. I think when they first instituted this, they had no idea just how much the telemarketing business was going to grow, or that most of them would wind up being unscrupulous and not adhere to the law -- and a lot of these calls may not look like it from the phone numbers, but they also come from off-shore.

[chickenbutt]

Good point, Kittymom! This is something that has truly exploded over the years. No one could be prepared for that, I guess. They meant well - to a point - it just didn't come off. The exemptions are one area that really irk me. There should not have been exemptions, or at least not as many as there are.

[hyacinth003]

On 3/3/2015 chickenbutt said:

Good point, Kittymom! This is something that has truly exploded over the years. No one could be prepared for that, I guess. They meant well - to a point - it just didn't come off. The exemptions are one area that really irk me. There should not have been exemptions, or at least not as many as there are.

Always exemptions, huh?

Makes me think if you put money in the right places, you can get your exemptions.

Hyacinth