Telespam

[bobquasit]

We signed up for the national do-not-call list early. Now we're receiving quite a few calls from solicitors, almost all of them refinancing companies. The Lending Company (if that's its real name) is one of the worst offenders. They call, sometimes several times a day, to let us know that we're "won" a free analysis of remortgaging our house.

I've started getting out-and-out rude out of sheer desperation. One woman was really awful; I told her that we weren't interested in refinancing and were on the national do-not-call list.

Woman: "What interest rate are you paying?"
Me: "I am NOT going to discuss that over the phone, and certainly not with you!"
Woman: "Just tell me, is it under seven percent?"
Me: "That's none of your business. Put us on your Do Not Call list now."
Woman: "But you-"
Me: "CLICK!"

They still keep calling, although I don't know if it's the same people. We've "won" prizes. Our application has been approved (but we didn't MAKE any application, of course). This is not a business call, we're just doing a survey - what interest rate are you paying on your mortgage?. Etc. etc. etc.

Comments

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

I know a guy who makes an income of about $50,000 a year on the side by suing telemarketers for this sort of thing in his spare time. I'll see if I can dig up the link to his website for you.

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

Found it!

Once you've asked someone not to call you one time, further calls are illegal, and it's common to receive a judgement on the close order of $2,000 in damages per incident. Failure to tell you the company name, company phone number, or full name of the caller during a call or a messege are offenses that commonly receive a judgement on the close order of $1,000 in damages per violation. Calls using auto-dialers by anyone but government agencies or non-profit groups are an offense that usually receive judgements of $5,000 in damages.

Most judges are pretty harsh on telemarketers, and usually pretty helpful towards those filing the complaints. No one likes telemarketers.

Of course, the telemarketers will continue to violate the rules because it means they make money. Until a signifigant portion of the population starts to file suits against them for every violation, they'll keep breaking the rules and paying the occasional fine. Because they suck.

Anyway, here's that link: http://antitmzs.home.texas.net/

It's primarily geared towards Texas, but the rules being violated are federal so most of this can help anyone who wants to figth them (or just pick up some extra cash by having some fun in court).

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

They're exploting some of the known loopholes in the national do not call law. There is also exceptions for anyone you supposedly already have a business relationship (a number of credit card companies are using this one to play middle man for other companies this way), for political campaigns and political solicitors, for surveys, for contest entrant's notification, and for charities.

Lots of loopholes.