My cell phone rang this morning. Caller ID showed 866 498 5357 as the caller. I don't know anyone from that number… but since I do give out my cell phone number as a way for potential clients to contact me, I decided to answers.
And got a recording – of some woman telling me that I could consolidate my credit card debt or up my numbers or some other crap.
All I had to do was push "1" to talk to a live operator.
So I pushed 1, and got a cheerful young female who wanted to help.
I politely asked her to take my name off her registry.
Click – the phone was dead.
Enter the Conundrum:
Here's the thing though – this is just one of a few telemarketing calls I've gotten on my cell phone in the past few days.
The Federal Trade Commission wants me to know that Telemarketers may not call cell phone numbers:
Federal Communications Commission regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers.
-- From the FTC Website.
And, you can file a complaint if you are getting calls.
Only problem is: you can't file a complaint if your # isn't in the registry.
EndGame:
According to our well-funded government: Telemarketers can't call my cell phone. So there's no need to file a complaint, since they can't call me.
I had the same issue, but with repeated calls from a California company wanting to sell me satellite TV service, and this is what I did:
1) filed an online complaint with the FCC,
2) filed complaints with the two companies who provide the service the cold caller was trying to sell me,
3) tracked down the home city of the caller and called the white collar crimes division of the local police department and made a complaint.
The calls stopped.
Posted by: John Dudley | August 17, 2009 at 09:29 AM