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On a fairly ordinary day recently, I received:
- A prerecorded phone message pitching a mortgage refinancing service.
- A “live” phone message offering me a debt consolidation loan.
- Three unsolicited faxes.
- A few dozen spam e-mails with deceptive subject lines.
The volume of unwelcome marketing attacks wasn’t remarkable. What is -- or should be -- of note is that all of these communications were illegal.
Recorded phone messages and junk faxes have long been against the law. Live phone pitches became off-limits shortly after I signed up for the federal Do-Not-Call List, and misleading spam was outlawed by the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which took effect in January 2004.
Yet the bombardment continues:
- The Federal Trade Commission says it has logged well over 100,000 complaints about violations of the Do-Not-Call List since the registry took effect in October 2003.
- Junk faxers continue to spew out unwanted, unsolicited ads, even after the Supreme Court in January upheld the constitutionality of the 1991 law banning them and the Federal Communications Commission slapped one of the most notorious offenders, Fax.com, with a record $5.4 million fine.
- The volume of e-mail spam rose again in January, despite the CAN-SPAM Act. One provider of anti-spam software, Brightmail, found that 60% of the 85 billion e-mails it filtered in January 2004 were spam, up from 42% a year earlier.
- Fraudulent e-mails were 4% of the total, compared with 1% in December 2003.
It’s clear, privacy advocates say, that the federal government needs to kick its enforcement up a notch. But there’s also a lot we as consumers can do both to protect our own privacy and aid regulators in the hunt for scofflaws.
For each type of incursion into your privacy, I’m offering three levels of response: the “no-brainer,” or basic way to defend yourself; the “next step” for those who want a higher level of protection; and the “warrior stance,” which can help fight these intrusions on a more global scale.
Telemarketing and junk faxes
The no-brainer. Sign up for the federal Do-Not-Call List online or by calling (888) 382-1222.Despite the violations and complaints, privacy advocates say the federal registry does seem to be dramatically reducing telemarketing calls.
“From the information we’ve gotten from consumers, they have seen a significant decline in the number of telemarketing calls,” said Jordana Beebe, spokeswoman for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “The FTC was pretty close when they said it would reduce calls by 80% or more.”
Unsolicited faxes aren’t covered by the do-not-call registry, since they were already banned under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.
The next step. There are a host of other ways to block telemarketing and junk faxes.
- Sign up for your state’s do-not-call list. Most states with such lists share their data with the federal registry, said privacy expert Robert Ellis Smith, but your state may have stricter rules about who can and can’t call. Some of the states that don’t share with the federal registry include: Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
- Don’t call toll-free or 900 numbers unless you already have a business relationship with the company. Your phone number can be “harvested” from your call, even if you have Caller ID blocking, and sold for marketing purposes. If you must call, demand to be put on the company’s do-not-call list and insist that your information not be sold.
- Consider your phone choices. Some privacy advocates recommend an unlisted number or Caller ID systems, but Smith, publisher of the Privacy Journal finds those to be an unnecessary expense and hassle. He recommends listing your phone number without your address, to foil most marketers, and having “distinctive ringing” on your phone line so that friends and family trigger one kind of ring, while outsiders trigger another.
- Tell companies you do business with that you don’t want to be contacted. The federal Do-Not-Call List exempts calls from companies when you have a business relationship. But even these companies are required to put you on their do-not-call lists if you ask.
- When you donate, tell charities and nonprofits not to contact you or sell your information. Charities and nonprofits are exempted from the federal do-not-call registry, but they also must maintain an internal do-not-call list.
- Don’t give out your phone or fax number. Seems obvious, but you probably give out your number way more often than necessary. There’s no reason, for example, to include your number when filling out warranty cards, product registrations and magazine subscriptions requests. If required to give your number, demand to be put on the company's do-not-call list.
- If you receive a junk fax with a toll-free opt-out number, use it. Unlike spam e-mails, where opt-out options seem to bring on more spam, junk faxers generally respond by taking your number off their lists, privacy advocates said. If there’s no toll-free number or the number doesn’t work, consider reporting the faxer to the FCC (see below).
- Review the steps below for blocking direct-mail solicitations. There’s lots of overlap between telemarketers, junk faxers and junk mailers.
The warrior stance. If you really want to strike some blows for a telemarketing-free world, consider the following.
- Report do-not-call violators. There’s a complaint form right on the FTC Web site. You also can contact your state’s attorney general. Regulators can’t investigate each and every violation, but they do look for patterns of abuse. Your report can help build their cases. Junk faxers should be reported to the FCC in writing, with a copy of the fax attached. Junkfaxes.org describes which addresses to use and the information to include.
- Sue them. Some anti-telemarketing crusaders make a hobby of suing telemarketers in small claims and other courts. If you’re interested, you can start with Ben Livingston’s site, Zen and the Art of Small Claims. Arizona attorney Richard Keyt offers resources, including a sample demand letter to send to junk faxers. You also can send $10 for a copy of Private Citizen’s booklet, “So you want to sue a telemarketer.”
- Goad your lawmakers. The massive, favorable response to the federal do-not-call law (more than 50 million numbers registered in its first few weeks) drove home the message to politicians that their constituents want to be left alone. Keep up the pressure with letters and e-mails urging them to make sure the law gets enforced.
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