| Comment Number: | OL-100791 |
| Received: | 11/27/2004 1:53:11 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Kendall Cox |
| State: | IL |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
I do not like the idea of exempting pre-recorded machine messages from the Do-Not-Call list. These are the hardest kind of calls to remove oneself from manually. With a human, I can interrupt their speech and demand to be put on their company's do-not-call list. With a machine, my options are limited. I often have to sit and wait through the recording to discover how to speak to a human. Sometimes I can push a button to speak to a human, sometimes I have to call a phone number myself. Sometimes - and this is the worst - I sit through the entire message to discover there is no way to talk to a human at all, no way to add oneself to their do-not-call list, and I've just completely wasted my time. If this provision must pass, may I request that all automated phone calling systems be required to accept a button-press to be put on the do-not-call list and they must say so at the beginning of the call - IE: "This is a pre-recorded message from SpamCo; to be put on our do not call list, press seven at any time. Now, let me tell you about..." These telemarketers are an extreme nuisance to those of us who are awake at regular hours. My wife works midnights, and they're even rougher on her, since they call when she's sleeping. I had been trying to get on every do-not-call list I could find, but the calls might have slowed slightly but they never stopped. The federal one finally put an end to 99.9% of the annoying phone calls. Please don't weaken this very important and useful legislation. This is the only piece of legislation during the past four years that the country has been pretty much completely united on. If this administration does have a mandate, it is to make sure our dinner hour is uninterrupted. And while we're on the subject, is there anything that can be done about door-to-door salespeople? We have noticed a few more of their ilk about since the federal do-not-call list took effect, and a doorbell wakes my wife up quicker than the phone. Oh well, maybe I'm just dreaming...