Useful Fools

Many people, including myself, have signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry. But right now, if you’re getting extra calls, it may be because your number is on that registry.

Read on…

Telemarketers were required by law to download lists of phone numbers, by area code, to compare against their internal lists. This means that the government has actually given them lists of phone numbers!

Of course, they were not supposed to call the numbers on the list. But that rule has now been blocked by a Federal Court order.

It turns out that it is still illegal to use the numbers gained from the list for any purpose other than to prevent calls to those numbers.

However, if an organization calls those numbers, the government would have to prove that they came directly from that list in order to prosecute. Good luck!

I have an unlisted number that I only give out to a few people. However, I did put it on the “do not call registry.” Since that time, the number of solicitation calls received on that number have gone from almost zero to one or more per day. The number on my listed line has changed very little. Hmmm….

Some would ask why the telemarketers want the phone numbers of those who don’t want to be called. The answer is obvious: do you know anyone who wants them to call? I thought not! So who do you think they have always been calling?

Of course, the government might have salted a few bait numbers into the list, numbers that ring at the FTC or FBI or something (the telemarketer scum should think about that, since they use the same trick when they sell number lists), but that’s asking a lot of a government bureaucracy!