Golden Dial Tones

What The National Do Not Call Registry Means To You

The flurry of Americans placing their information on the Federal Trade Commission's national "do not call" list has shocked federal employees. Fifteen million people registered phone numbers in the system's first week of operation alone. Before mid-July, more than twenty million people had registered.

What Is The Law?

Placing your name and telephone number on the list means that you cannot receive unsolicited telephone calls. But, as always, there is a catch.

If you do business with a company, that company or its affiliates can continue to call you for a year and a half afterward. You can tell the company that you do not wish to be called (known in the industry as an "opt-out"), but until you say those magic words, the company can call. Even companies whom you have not done business with can contact you for up to three months if you have first contacted them.

Tracking violators remains the biggest issue. To quote one unnamed telecommunications executive I recently spoke with, "We're the good guys. We're buying the lists. The scam artists won't buy the lists, and they won't get caught."

That is an excellent point. The FTC advises that violations after October 1 can be reported using a special toll-free number. Again, there is a catch. You must know the caller's telephone number. The entire process sounds like a nefarious plot to sell caller id services, although that clearly is not the intent. Meanwhile, how many calls do you think the average American will make?

Why Is This Important?

AARP recently conducted a survey of telemarketing fraud and found that even people who had been scammed before were ripe pickings for an unscrupulous telemarketer. Note that not all telemarketers are unscrupulous, but those who are stand a good chance of success, even with people that have previously lost money.

In several studies, the association called previous victims and attempted to educate them about the dangers of telemarketing. The people, whose names were plucked from government lists of victims, were often in denial. The overall findings included a startling fact: between 79% and 83% of the former victims did not admit to making investments or entering sweepstakes by telephone. That number should have been zero, but over three-quarters of the victims would not admit that they had been stung.

After a variety of education techniques, the AARP used a series of professionals and volunteers to call the victims again. Those who had been warned in various ways were much less likely to fall for the second "fake" pitch versus a control group. But in some cases, as many as 15% of prior victims who had been warned still fell for a fake scam.

There is gold in those dial tones.

What Happens Now?

Direct marketers continue to howl in protestation, claiming a mass hysteria has gripped Americans. The American Telemarketing Association is testing the validity of the law allowing the registry, filing a brief in a Colorado court in June that alleges "..the FTC carried out its announced intention to create a national "do-not-call" registry without regard to the evidence compiled in its rulemaking proceeding or the limitations in the law."

Several weeks later, the association's executive director alleged on a national radio program that the FTC's do not call registry would result in the loss of over two million jobs. The government agency has been relatively mute on the subject, seemingly allowing the millions of Americans who have chosen to register to speak for its actions.

In the long run, however, consumers must remain hyper-vigilant regarding telemarketing calls. As the executive I spoke with pointed out, when only the bad guys can call, the only sales pitch you may hear is from a bad guy.