FTC Says National 'Do Not Call' Registry Is Working

WaMu is awful.  If you have a credit card with them or, in our case, a mortgage (that my credit union sold to them after we were approved for the mortgage through the credit union!), they can call as much as they want and don't have to abide by the DNC.

To add salt to the wound, WaMu is made up of a bunch of freaking idiots.  

This is a company that paid SOMEONE ELSE'S mortgage with our extra principle payments a few years back and lost two another payments completely.  When they found one lost payment, they put it through like we'd paid a monthly payment, so it didn't come directly off the principle, like it should have. It took 6 months for them to finally realize the mistake when they applied the payment to the other person's mortgage and they didn't apply that payment to principle, either.  Oh, they also lost the second payment entirely, which we never had applied to the mortgage at all.  They cashed the check, but never applied it to our account.

My husband spent days' worth of time on the phone with WaMu over their complete ineptitude, yet we received marketing calls constantly from them.  Now we only pay what the bill says to pay each month, which bites because we won't have the mortgage paid in half the original terms, saving us many thousands in interest.  But, I at least blocked their number completely thanks to my VoIP account!  :)

Actually, my phone number is unlisted and not available from any publically viewable space, yet telemarketers still get the number.

My husband is an information security expert, so we are very careful about how and where we give Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to and go as far as to modify privacy policies on the spot to ensure that we are not added to mailing lists and that our PII is not shared.  (This is completely legal is done correctly.  It is every American's right to protect his/her privacy!)  

We are very active when it comes to volunteerism and charitable contributions, so I suspect that part of it stems from that and that some of these organizations are selling their memberlists.

We are also real estate investors and deal with banks often.  I'm sure the banks are using us, too, even though we deal under out LLC.  Same with companies with deal with for the toy business we own, which also is a LLC.

I've started using Yahoo!'s premium email service to create "throw-away" email addresses for anything I sign-up for to see who, exactly, is passing my information around.

If credit card companies, banks or non-profit orgs start harassing me, I find their call list removal numbers (typically separate from the marketing/beg for money numbers) and I have the home number and business line (just in case) removed from the list.

I would say a vast majority of the calls we receive are due to companies we actually deal with who take advantage of our business relationship.  To me, that is really pitiful.

So, it doesn't matter how careful you are with your PII, you can still receive a very high volume of telemarketing calls.  In our case, they come from companies and organizations we happen to deal with frequently because we have no other choice but to deal with them.

I think the Do Not Call registry was a good way to collect phone list of the people and that's it.    My phone still rings off the hook and they are all hangups so you know it is sales people

Reading all of this has started to make me wonder if the list gets paid to GIVE OUT your info not to stop the calls. Hmmm?

hmmmm,
seems you have been sold a product. someone got thru to you enough that you had to spend the money... seems these parasites can get into your pocket by proxy. the whole idea of this forum is to stop this b.s. without having to spend our money, if only congress and law enforcement would/had do(ne) their job.
at least YOU made the choice of how to spend the dough (not that you should have had to, in the 1st place).

Yep, it's George's fault. 9/11 was Bush's fault, Katrina was Bush's fault, Rita was Bush's fault, come to think of it, you're probably Bush's fault. It must be. We know the Democrats have never done anything. Yep blame ole George.

Yep! Your change is on the way!

You're pie in the sky, tell ya what, I'll bet Obam eats the pie before he gets it to you!

Yep. I totally agree with this one. It hasn't even phased em' they're still full bore ahead. Breaking every rule the FTC has inserted in doing their 'business!'

what a joke.  how can they claim its working, when at the same time they claim it will only cut down the amount of calls you receive, not eliminating them completely?  its called the do not call list, not the go ahead and call every other day list.  the list works as well as that surge in iraq.  what a surprise, they were both brought to us by the same people.

I recently received a change in terms notice from GE Credit that contained language whereby by using the credit card I was granting the company and "affiliated firms" to contact me with recorded messages even it resulted in charges to my phone bill.   Check your terms of credit.  Privacy notices may require you to opt out of furnishing private information, including your phone number, to a variety of firms, affiliated or otherwise.

Although agencies are in place to provide oversight to protect consumers from corporate harassment and fraud, the Bush administration basically castrated them and took away their enforcement authority.  The FTC never went after these telemarketing companies.

What I have done instead, with companies that repeatedly call me, is "play the game" when I have some free time.  I will do one of two things: 1) If they ask for a particular person in the home, I ask them to wait while I go get that particular person (who may be me), then I leave the phone off the hook, or put them on hold - and never return; 2) I engage them, acting like I'm interested, and then give them bogus credit card info.

What I have found is that when you play their game and waste their valuable time - which could be used to call other people, they get pissed at you and put you on their own "do not call" list of some sort.

I wish the IRS and the NSA were as effective as the Do Not Call list people ;)