Block Telemarketers

[bobbi]

Consumers can sign up to block telemarketers

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Promising the gift of silence for people bedeviled by telemarketers, the government launched a national do-not-call list Friday intended to block phone sales pitches from nearly all sources.

The national registry, a project of the Federal Trade Commission more than a year in the making, was inaugurated at a White House ceremony led by President Bush. The commission estimates the list will block about 80 percent of telemarketing calls.

Consumers may sign up for the registry at www.donotcall.gov by providing the phone number they want protected and an e-mail address so they can receive a confirmation message, the FTC said. The only identifying information kept will be the phone number.

Telephone registration using a toll-free number -- 1-888-382-1222 -- is available in states west of the Mississippi River, including Minnesota and Louisiana. Nationwide registration should be available about 10 days later. Consumers must call from the home or cell phone they want to register.

The registry was welcomed by Nicole Haslinger, 32, of Aliso Viejo, California. She said she gets up to five calls each week from telemarketers pitching everything from refinanced mortgages to pizza, calls that sometimes wake her 15-month-old son.

Full Story Here:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/27/do.not.call.ap/index.html

 

[bobbi]

Now if they could do something like this to prevent spam e-mails.

Do you think that this blocking of telemarketers will work?

 

[Alpha]

LOL Bobbi I think we need to make you a News Forum. Anyway, yeah I like that idea I'm so sick of the constant spam phone calls. I wish they could block spam emails like that although there's a new technology out now called Spam Assasin Which if used by the server admin, either destroys, moves, labels, or all of the above to spam mail.

 

[bobbi]

hahaha, I hate phone calls from MCI and other long distance carriers. I get at least three phone calls from MCI a day wanting me to sign up for their long distance service, in return I begin to swear at them until they hang up on me. I really detest telemarketers. Although with this blocking thing, you will still receive calls from people doing survey's, those annoying political "vote for me for gov/senator/u name it government title"

 

[Alpha]

Did everyone sign up for this list yet? I did.

 

[bobbi]

I haven't as of yet, because I'm not sure if it blocks calls that are made by a calling cards, like if someone calls you using a calling card and it pops up unavailable on the caller id, so I am going to check into that first.