| Comment Number: | OL-103099 |
| Received: | 11/28/2004 7:20:47 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Gary Phillips |
| 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:
This is an outrageous and unacceptable proposal that completely destroys the concept of the do not call list. It lets abusive callers (and they already exist, many ignore the list because there is little enforcement) claim a pre-existing relationship whether there is one or not. Furthermore, it lets them use a very cheap method for their violations. Opt out methods never work. This has already been proven repeatedly. Callers, just like e-mailers, will simply pretend to be offering an opt out method, but will ignore the requests. Furthermore, opt out puts the entire burden on the end consumer. The whole point of the do not call list was to allow consumers to opt out just once. This proposal would return to the former situation where the consumer had to inform every individual caller that calls were unwanted (and many callers refused to pay any attention to such requests.) Pre-recorded telemarketing messages are still in heavy use. Despite being on the do not call list, I receive several a month. Often they give no way to trace the identity of the actual caller unless you listen to an entire call that lasts several minutes. They call from unlisted numbers or block their caller ID. This should be utterly illegal, and yet you are considering expanding the laxity of the regulation. Unless your whole point is just to prove that government is a patsy of capitalist corporations, there is no valid reason for permitting this change. I will inform my congressional representatives that we need tighter enforcement of the existing do not call list, with NO exceptions for cheap pre-recorded privacy violations.