616-980-2604

Unfortunately, the only way to put an end to these random political prerecorded calls is for Congress to expand the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to prohibit them. (And forget about the Do Not Call registry...the politicians more than likely exempted themselves from that, too.)

As you can tell from the reports listed here, most of these calls are randomly-dialed and contain prerecorded political messages from both Democratic and Republican candidates. Many times, crooks who sell bogus auto warranties and other financial scams also use this same Grand Rapids, MI-based autodialer service.

In the case of the auto warranty scammers and other commercial telemarketers, unauthorized prerecorded calls are totally illegal; the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibits prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential phone numbers unless the resident authorizes receiving such calls. (Of course, these prerecorded calls are placed by an autodialer, also called a predictive dialer.)  But knowing all too well how lawmakers operate, I'm willing to bet that Congress exempted political campaigns from the TCPA ban calls on the grounds that the political calls aren't commercial. (It's really a matter of semantics; in my opinion, any telemarketing call urging me to make a decision -- financial or political -- is a commercial call, especially if it's a random call.) Regardless, I would still report these calls (whether they are commercial calls or political calls) to the Federal Communications Commission. Here's the link:  https://esupport.fcc.gov/form1088/consumer.do

I've received dozens of calls -- some political and some commercial -- through this same Grand Rapids, MI-based autodialing service. To me, it doesn't matter if it's a political or commercial call: they're equally inconvenient and harassing. (By the way, another hole in the TCPA is that unauthorized prerecorded telemarketing calls to a business are NOT illegal.  That needs to change, too.)

That's why I've written my congressman and senators urging them to expand the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to prohibit ALL calls placed by a predictive (auto) dialer and ALL prerecorded calls, unless the party being called gave prior authorization to receive such calls.

Since congresscritters tend to be more responsive in an election year, this is a very good time to contact them about this matter. You can get their contact information here:

http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/

hey. what's your proffesion to be working at that hour?