September 29, 2008

PSA: National Canadian Do Not Call List. Starting tomorrow, Canadians can register for the new No-Call List for telemarketers. It is expected that there will be problems registering. There are still a number of broad exceptions, and it doesn't look like it can do anything about calls coming from the States or elsewhere.
posted by Capt. Renault 16 years ago
  • Does this mean I can finally make Scarlett Johansson stop calling me?
  • No -- for that you'd need to rely on Ryan Reynolds.
  • Yay! It's a start, at least.
  • Sigh. Most of our calls come from charities we've donated to in the past. It's getting harder and harder to hang up on the little urchins.
  • iOptOut claims to cover some of the exceptions to the government scheme.
  • Can I list my mother as a telemarketer?
  • Is it like this in the UK? We signed up some years ago online, no renewal required, and on the whole it seems to work.
  • The Whitehouse is on the exceptions list. They need $700 billion from sympathetic furryners.
  • yeah, so stop calling me!
  • I'm on the UK one, and by jingo it works.
  • Wow. Those exceptions really are broad. I don't think the list would have stopped ANY of the calls I got in the last few months... What a lame joke this is going to be.
  • I just answer the phone and if there is a short pause, then I hang up. They rarely call right back. It stresses me out far less than hearing the phone keep ringing or actually talking to someone.
  • True, bernockle, to a point. It still registers that someone answered the phone, so they just try again later, at least in my experience. The log on my phone shows that the same number keeps dialing over and over -- usually ten times. The record is seventeen. Call display is worth every penny. The dead giveaway is if it says something like "long distance" or "private number". No-one I know who is going to call me hides their number, and if there's any doubt, they'll care enough to wait for the machine. I was totally screwed in that when I moved in, because Ma Bell gave me a reassigned number that hadn't been out of circulation very long. As such, I get calls from all sorts of collection agencies asking for "Kevin". And, of course, no-one wants to believe that there's no Kevin there. For a month or so, I had an outgoing message saying that if you're looking for anyone other than me, you have the wrong number. Eventually, the calls started getting fewer, but there was still one dumbass working at the library who would leave messages saying "I know that you said if we were calling for anyone other than you, that we had the wrong number, but I'm looking for Diane, because this is the number we have..." and then go into this long diatribe about some class that Diane's kid was registered for. Annoying as hell. She called, like, five times, each time acknowledging my message. Fantastic.
  • On first glance it looks like Parliament just carbon copied the U.S. Do Not Call list verbatim. And if precedent is any example, it will be just as toothless.
  • RPM: I lubs me mah Do-Not-Call list. If I am asked for one good thing the US government has done for me the Do Not Call list is it. From five irritating calls every day down to zero. Really - it has been months, nay, more than a year since I got a spam phone call. I suppose the junk callers just didn't have rich enough lobbyists in Washington, or something. And if I am asked for a second thing.... well, don't ask.