Telephone Spam

Perhaps you have noticed (as I have) a recent increase in the number of marketing solicitations that are coming into the house via the telephone jack. My original speculation about why this might be so was that perhaps my federal do-not-call registration had expired. A quick perusal of the registration web site, however, produced this notice:

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. Read more about it at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm.

I then came up with this hypothesis: hard economic times may have produced more unscrupulous marketers who don't care whether you are on a do-not-call list or not. When I think back over the last few telemarketing calls I have received, I see signs that this, indeed, may be the case.

What can be done? For starters confirm the do-not-call status of your number(s). If your do-not-call status is not what you think it is, sign up or renew your do-not-call registration. Remember, though, that this registration does not shield you from calls made by:

• Anyone with whom you have conducted business in the past


• Charities, charitable organizations, and those that call on behalf of such organizations


• Unscrupulous marketers

OK. We can protect ourselves from legitimate marketers, although charities and their agents have a free pass. But what can be done about the unethical annoyances? I'm afraid that there is not much that one can do, other than letting the answering machine answer all calls.

A recent unscrupulous (and downright illegal) marketing campaign concerns your "expired vehicle warranty." (See this report at KEYE TV). If you have a home phone (or workplace phone, or even a cell phone - yes, their insidious lack of ethics allows them this latitude) you have no doubt received a recorded call which apprises you of the dire situation: your vehicle warranty has expired. You are asked to respond so that this problem can be "fixed."

Upon responding, you will be told that you can remedy your untenable position by buying an extended warranty. Never mind the fact that if you ask which vehicle has an expired warranty they can't tell you. Never mind the fact that you may not even own a vehicle.

These calls have been reported in virtually every state and they are going to every phone number, listed or not. There has been no effort to pre-qualify the call list to ensure that it only goes to people who own vehicles, let alone those that actually have an expired warranty. And it does no good to ask to be taken off of the call list because there is no call list. The automatic dialers call a number, dispense a message, then hang up and dial the next number in sequence (previous number + one).

This telephone scam has been reported to local police, to the Better Business Bureau, and even the FBI. Yet the calls continue. The operator of this scheme has hired many work-at-home operators who are set up with automatic dialing systems and recorded messages. The poor economic conditions have engendered an environment which makes it easy to find and hire such operators, and there are too many heads on this snake to be able to kill it.

What to do? I'm afraid that, short of deliberately sending each of the callers down a blind alley with a fictitious purchase order for a car warranty (non-existent car, fake credentials, etc.) not much can be done. I am not advocating that anyone actually do this. It would raise new ethical and legal questions. And if you are annoyed because this unsolicited call has wasted your time, why waste even more of it in a blind pursuit?

If I were king of the world, I would totally outlaw telephone marketing. But, alas, I am not king. I am not even president - though I will accept a write-in campaign on my behalf.

I see no silver bullet for this problem. Do we all need to just resign ourselves to suffer the annoyance of all of the unsolicited, undesired attempts to get into our wallets, while wasting our time?

What's your opinion?

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis