Also, to the best of my knowledge the things I, the author of this blog, posted are true.

And this is not a pointless post. It suggests civil ways to respond to annoyance. Telemarketing to cell phones is costly and illegal. Many people feel they have been harassed. I did some research on the legal and effective responses, and am sharing them with whoever wishes to read this.

To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn

This isn’t a real solution, but it buys me a few weeks of silence.

Check this out from the Arkansas Attorney General’s website:

AG FILES COMPLAINTS AGAINST CAR WARRANTY CALLERS
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
LITTLE ROCK- Today, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel announced that his office has filed lawsuits in federal court against three companies that are believed to be placing illegal telemarketing calls about car warranties to Arkansas consumers.

All across the country, consumers have been inundated with phone calls on their home phones, work phone, and even their cell phones from companies attempting to sell an auto warranty. The calls are becoming increasingly frequent; the product offered costs more than it should and is more often than not unnecessary. Most importantly, the calls themselves are illegal.

In order to bring a halt to these prohibited activities, the Attorney General has filed suit against three companies: Auto Warranty Solutions, Vehicle Services, Inc. and Dealer Warranty Services. The complaints detail multiple violations of both federal and state telemarketing laws: making calls to Arkansans listed in the Do Not Call database; “robocalling,” or using prerecorded messages for commercial purposes; and caller ID “spoofing,” displaying false or misleading telephone numbers on consumers’ caller ID systems.

“I believe the only way to put an end to the calls is to take swift legal action,” McDaniel said. “We believe that our case is strong, and we fully anticipate a successful resolution to these lawsuits and any more we may file in the future on behalf of Arkansas’s consumers. This case has national implications, and that I am proud of the leadership in my consumer division. A year ago, this team and I promised to vanquish pay day lenders. Today, the efforts of this team are focused on stopping these warranty calls.”

Yeesterday I spend about an hour returning some of the “fake numbers” (I added a 1 infront of the caller id) and the recording asked me if I was calling to be removed from their list. The funny thing was ,it was the exact same recording no matter what numberI called!

Ed, I do care about making people deaf. I’m pretty sure it is illegal, whatever they do to you. Even if they were convicted of some horrible crime, we as civilized, moral people do not torture people (including deafening them). And annoying you is not even a horrible crime.

What’s more, in your comment, you lumped all telemarketers together with one or two derrogatory terms. In a free economy, people have the right to make a living, to advertise their products and services or employ others to do so. Especially in this tighter economy, people are desperate to find work wherever they can. I’m not saying that everything these people do is legal or legit or even that I like them calling to hassle me, but that some other telemarketers (for real companies, for example) may not be trying to scam you, but to honestly connect people with products or services they can use. Rather than labeling all of them, why don’t you label yourself: “I can’t stand telemarketers”?

To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn

Plus, if these are different companies calling, blowing the horn at one won’t really remove your number from all of them, if at all.
To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn