Turn telemarketers calls into CASH. Yep, it works.

[SeattleVet]

60. Yes, I do remember how telemarketers were 'demonized'.

And the industry overall at that time damn well deserved it. It was the Wild West out there - there were WAY too may companies that were calling at all hours of the day and night, and calling after repeatedly being told to stop. The Do Not Call laws had a boatload of excellent reasons to be created, and they worked for a while, until the current crop of scammers decided that ignoring it and possibly being fined was a reasonable cost of doing 'business'. The attitude now seems to be 'ignore the law, get fined, close the business, and reopen under a new name'.

These are the people that are exploiting the workers you are supposedly supporting. If you really wanted to show support FOR THE WORKERS you'd be up on your soapbox, contacting your government representatives, contacting every trade association that you could find, and demanding that they crack down hard on the illegal telemarketers. As long as these scammers exist they are hurting the very WORKERS that you claim to be supporting.

I have nothing at all against legitimate telemarketing to residences. If they are really legitimate I'll never hear from them, as they will follow the law and delete my number from their dialers.

When people are using the various call blockers, or have placed them selves on the DNC list, or have taken other specific actions that say "Do Not Call Me", why would a telemarketing firm continue to call that number?

There are some 'number shops' out there now that make a fraction of a cent from every Caller ID lookup, and they sell these banks of numbers to the telemarketers. This is a pure scam - whether you answer the phone or not the bottom feeders are making money on the call. Their 'Terms of Service' for using their numbers (which the telemarketing firms are using to illegally mask their actual originating number) says that the numbers are not to be used in an illegal manner, but they really don't care - they make money on every call that rings a number with Caller ID. One company here in Seattle has several thousand numbers assigned to them, from multiple area codes. ANY call from any of those numbers is an illegal call.

I use a VOIP phone system now and am able to completely block our entire ranges of numbers, or any individual number that has been identified as a telemarketer or robocaller. When one of these numbers shows up on the Caller ID they just get a message that the call is blocked, and a hangup. If a new one comes in I add the number to the blacklist as soon as I have filed the complaint forms with the FTC and FCC.

Why do we have to spend the time and money to create these countermeasures?

If the feds would just get serious about collecting the fines from the telemarketers that violate the law and do not adhere to the DNC list we could probably do wonders for the budget, as well as bringing peace to the many thousands of people on the DNC who have to deal with this crap every day.

And, as an added bonus, all of the *legitimate* telemarketers would be able to conduct business as usual, and probably make a LOT more money, without pissing off their potential client base.