It’s the same old story… You just sit down for dinner or you settle in to watch your favorite program on television and the phone rings.  It’s one of those pesky telemarketing firms wanting to sell you the latest and greatest things since sliced bread, or the carpet cleaning company offering you some great deal on the newest dry technology carpet cleaning available.  I get so tired of it and I want it all to just stop.  I didn’t ask you to call me and when you do you are now on my list to NEVER BUY from.

But you can start playing hardball with these guys… You need to “Get off their List”, “Detail the Violations” and “Sue”

First – Get off their list… 

In the US there is a national Do Not Call registry.  You can put your telephone number(s) – both landline and mobile – on this list and telemarketing firms are not supposed to call the numbers that are listed. Registration is free, and while it certainly isn’t foolproof it has helped to cut down tremendously on the robo calls (calls made by a computer) that I was getting from the satellite television providers.  

The general idea here is that telemarketing firms have 31 days from the date of your registration to remove you from their call lists.  There are however a number of exemptions that you should probably be aware of…

• The registry is for personal numbers only, not businesses. 
• Calls on behalf of political organizations, charities and telephone surveys are excluded. (surveyors can not try to sell you something)
• Calls from companies in which you had a prior business relationship are allowed to call you for 18 months from the date of your last purchase.
• You can authorize a company in writing to call you even if you are on the do not call registry.

To register you just need to go to the website and enter your phone numbers… you do need to have an email address if your register on the website because you MUST respond to the email that is sent to you.

Second – Detail the Violations…

The best thing for you to do here is to keep a notebook or piece of paper by your phone.  When you receive a telemarketing call you should log the phone number (if you have caller-id) as well as the date and time, the company that called, and the person you were talking to.  

This gives you a history that you will need if you decide to earn a few bucks and sue the company that is the habitual offender.

What I find is that most of the calls coming to me do not have phone numbers on caller ID.  So I just mark it as private.   If the person does not identify himself I will specifically ask for their name and the company they are calling from so that I have it.

Be courteous but firm… let the caller know that you are registered with the National Do Not Call Registry and that you should not have been called but you are going to give them the benefit of the doubt this time.  Specifically request that they add your phone number to the company’s do not call list.  What you are dong here is setting the stage for repeat calls.   You’ve informed them you are on the registry AND you’ve specifically asked them to not call you and add your number to their do not call list.  Most of the time you will never hear from them again.

If you do start collecting additional information from them (until they hang up on you – which has been my experience).  If they don’t know or won’t provide the information ask to speak to a supervisor.  Be persistent.

1. Is this a telemarketing call?
2. What is your full name, the name of the company you are calling for and their phone number?
3. Do you keep a do not call list? Are you able to put my phone number onto that list? Can you make sure that your company will not call me?How long will your company keep my name on your do not call list?
4. Are you aware of your company’s do not call policy? Can you send me a copy of that policy?

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Write down the time – Calls should never occur before 8am or after 9pm

In the case of a robo call did they start the call by telling you what they are trying to sell you?

If they are promoting a contest of some type the contest can not require you to purchase anything.

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Third – Sue Them…

Honestly this is a LOT of work.   Before it gets this far you should probably write a formal letter, sent certified, return receipt requested to the president of the company stating that you are filing a formal claim in the amount of XXX dollars for violations that the company has made of the Consumer Protection Act of 1991.  You will want to provide all of the details that you have been accumulating including names, supervisors, dates, times, etc…   You will want to explain each of the violations and at $500.00 each they should total what you are requesting the company pay to you.   Give them a deadline for a response and let them know that if you do not receive a response that you will file a formal claim with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the State Attorney General’s Office, and your local office of Consumer Affairs… also let them know that you will file a claim in Small Claim Court.

If you have not heard from them by the deadline absolutely follow-through with your complaint!

I’ve had experience with MULTIPLE VOIP providers including VONAGE, VoIPYourLife, Comcast, and now ViaTalk.  In all cases I’ve had issues that have obviously caused me to switch to some other provider.   I can’t help but wonder if I should just go back to my Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS).  At least with Qwest I never had to worry about picking up the phone and not getting dial-tone.   I didn’t have to worry about fading into never never land in the middle of a call to find out I had been talking to no-one for that past 3 minutes.  I didn’t have to worry about echo that was so bad I thought there were 3 of me on the call and I could have a complete conversation with myself and understand every word.  POTS, at least here in WA is quite a bit more expensive that VOIP, but the fact remains that I just seem to get much better quality of service.

So you’re probably asking yourself why does he have a VOIP line in the first place?  I love VOIP features.  Features that Qwest can’t give me.  I like Voicemail messages emailed to my Outlook Inbox as attachments or better yet as an RSS feed.  I love being able to configure simultaneous rings to multiple phone numbers for incoming calls.  On the fly configurable custom call routing is pretty cool.  (I always send 1800 and 1866 numbers to Voicemail.) Web based account management is also pretty cool. If I forget to forward my phone I just logon to a website and in a matter of seconds my calls are forwarded.   Taking your phone service with you is also pretty cool… You have a high speed Internet connection and you are good to go.  And did I mention price?  POTS service is expensive and when you start adding all the features it gets worse!

VOIP today is much better than it was 3 years ago… VOIP tomorrow I’m hoping will get even better!  Until then I will keep what I have and complain diligently to tech support every time I have a problem.  Eventually they will figure out that they can use Configurable Call Routing and make sure that I always get a busy signal or get routed to Voicemail.