Ladies and Gentlemen:

The TSR as presently constituted simply does not work. We get so many marketing calls, mostly between the hours of 6 P.M. and 9 P.M. that we have begun the practice of not answering our phone during that period, hoping that no emergency or important and wanted call comes in before we have time to check our voice mail. The telemarketing calls come from companies, including some of our favored charities, that we have repeatedly and consistently asked to drop our names from their calling lists. If we do answer a call from these stalker-intruders, we ALWAYS say at once: "Please remove our names from your calling list." The usual response is to hang up; some continue their sales pitch; others make some rude remark and hang up; still others want to enter into a discussion about our reasons -- further infuriating us. We have told some of our charities that if they place one more call to us soliciting funds we will never again give to them. We still get calls from them.

The system simply does not work and needs to be significantly and drastically changed. Ideally, all unsolicited sales or marketing calls would be banned altogether. The telephone is in itself already a highly intrusive, but essential instrument of communication. To add the intrusiveness of telemarketing calls to other types of intrusive, unwelcome though less frequent calls such as wrong numbers, childish prank calls, and sexually harrassing calls, is to place an unreasonable burden on the recipient of such calls.

John Peters

Constance Frederickson