Its truly amazing how many robocalls were sent out over the past few weeks approaching the recent election. Unfortunately, these legal under the do not call laws. We’ve seen a huge increase of the calls at callcatalog.com Remember to report any unwanted calls and share your information with others.
November 8, 2009
September 30, 2009
The Top 11 Ways To Stop Politicians And Others From Contacting You At Home
From our guest blogger Shaun Dakin from StopPoliticalCalls.org …
Washington, DC – Shaun Dakin, CEO The National Political Do Not Contact Registry – Sign up for free at StopPoliticalCalls.org
The list that politicians, parties, vendors and candidates don’t want you to know about.
With the election season now hitting us like a Hurricane, particularly in battle ground states, The National Political Do Not Contact Registry presents the top 11 ways to stop politicians, vendors candidates, unions, PACs, 527’s, and local, state, and national party groups from contacting you at home either by phone or via the Internet.
The bottom line? With days to go until election day there is little that you can do now to stop John McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Megan Fox, Jack Nicholson, Jay Z or some other celebrity from calling you at home.
However, there are some things you can do now that will help as well as preparing for the next election cycle as well as stopping commercial marketers from invading your privacy.
1) Registering to Vote –> Don’t Do It, or Give The Minimum Information You Absolutely Need to Give
- When you register to vote DO NOT give the state your phone number. Leave it blank. Why? Because your state voter registration database, in most instances, is simply re-sold to the political establishment and that is the database that is used to contact you. ACTION: Re-register in your state and make sure that you remove your phone number(s) from the application.
- Political Party Affiliation. Don’t have one. Do not register as part of a political party. I know, that can disqualify you from voting in the primaries. But, if you don’t want a party to call you, don’t tell them you support them.
2) Learn the Law –> Some states ban robo calls, do you live in one of them?
- Yes, there are states that ban robo calls and do not exempt political calls. If you live in one of them, know the law, how to file a complaint, and follow through on the complaint.
- California is the biggest state with a robo call ban. If you live in CA, robo calls are illegal according to the California Public Utilities Code sections 2871-2876. We have set up a specific web page to help CA residents file a complaint and to learn more about the law.
- Other states include: OR, IN, MN, NJ and SC.
- We also have a form for MN residents:
3) Do Not Call Registries –> Make sure you are on ALL of them
- While political calls are often exempt from do not call registries, there are several states that use the either the Federal Do Not Call List or a state do not call list to enforce robo call bans (Oregon for example). At the very least, make sure you are on the Federal Do Not Call Registry and your own State Do Not Call Registry (as applicable, some states do not have their own).
- Sign up at the National Political Do Not Contact Registry. The NPDNC is a non-profit non-partisan advocacy organization that is working with politicians and parties to demand that they not call voters that sign up at StopPoliticalCalls.org. Currently 6 politicians have signed a “do not robo call” pledge as well as a leading robo calling vendor.
4) Contributing and Volunteering for Candidates –> Don’t, if you do not want to get unwanted contacts
- Bottom line? If you contribute or volunteer to a campaign or candidate and give them your phone number, email, and address you can expect to get non stop communications until election day.
- Opt-Out of Email: Most campaigns will allow you to quickly opt-out of email communications. It is much more difficult to get them to remove your phone numbers and mailing addresses. Visit their campaign websites to find out how to do so.
5) Tell the Campaigns To Stop Calling! –> In person, often, and via the phone
- In person communication works. Do it. Now.
- If you do not like getting unwanted phone calls from campaigns, tell them!
- Tell campaigns that you will not vote for the candidate if they do not stop calling
- Tell campaigns that you will not contribute if they do not stop calling
- Tell campaigns that you will write letters to the editor and tell all your friends not to vote for that candidate if they do not stop calling
- Make sure, again, that you know your state laws about political calls and demand that the enforcing authorities actually do their job –> Enforcing the existing laws!
6) Think Having a Cell Phone Exempts You From Getting Called? Think Again. –> Make sure that you never give campaigns your number(s).
- If you think that the law regulates political calls to cell phones, you are wrong. Period.
- If a campaign gets hold of your cell phone number (your voter registration, your contribution form, your volunteer application, etc..) they can call you on your cell phone anytime, anywhere, anyhow.
- Just because commercial organizations are banned from calling cell phones doesn’t mean that politicians are. Remember, politicians are exempt from most do not call registries. Just because you have a cell phone doesn’t mean that pols won’t call you.
7) Unlist Your Number(s) With Your Phone Company
- Yes, it costs a little extra. It is worth it. Unlist your number from the phone directory by calling your local phone provider and doing it now. Not only will it stop your ex-spouse from finding you, it will make it harder for politicians to find you as well.
8) Make Sure Google Unlists Your Number
- Few people realize that Google could have your phone number, name and address. Fewer people realize that Google makes it easy to unlist it for free. Click here to do so.
9) Consumer Marketing Do Not XYZ Lists. –> Join them now.
- The Direct Marketing Association has a website that lists the following services. We recommend that you sign up for all of them. NOTE: Some cost money.
- Credit Card Offers. The CC industry has a credit card offer opt out service at:
10) Get Caller ID –> You’ll know if it is Grandma Calling, but You’ll still be woken up at 3 AM
- Again, this service often costs a little extra. It is worth it so that when you see a number that you do not recognize on your Caller ID screen you can make the choice not to answer it.
- It does not help, however, with stopping the phone from actually ringing and waking you and your family up.
11) Internet Advertising Op-Out Services –> If you do not want to be micro-targeted by the campaigns, do not let them know who you are and where you are when you are online.
- Network Advertising Initiative opt out (NAI opt out). Click here to learn more and take action.
11 1/2) Educate Yourself –> AARP and Google have teamed up to create a great site full of useful content to learn about everything you need to know about protecting yourself online.
- You can click here to link directly to the Google’s Privacy Channel. At the site you’ll learn all about the following through easy to view YouTube video:
- Search Privacy
- Firewalls
- Password protection
- Unlisting phone numbers
- Cookies
We are sure that there are other ways to stop unwanted political communications. Please let us know in the comment section and we’ll be sure to update the list as we learn of more options.
Washington, DC – Shaun Dakin, CEO The National Political Do Not Contact Registry – Sign up for free at StopPoliticalCalls.org
September 29, 2009
3 Simple Ways to Stop Unwanted Phone Calls
It seems like every day when we receive phone calls from unwanted phone numbers. These calls may be telemarketers, they could be political robocalls, or even some type of criminal who’s trying to obtain your personal information. You’ve heard many times about how you need to protect your personal information on the internet yet sometimes we seem to let our guards down when getting a phone call. Also, with email, you use anti-virus and anti-spam programs so that you don’t receive spam and other unwanted email.
Today, with the advent of a the more global and computerized world, its imperative that you take these steps so that first you can reduce, if not eliminate, unwanted phone calls — but also, to preserve your personal privacy and sanity.
1) Register your number: Ensure that every phone number you have is registered with the FCC on their do not call list and update any new numbers you get. This includes cell phone numbers, home phone numbers, even work numbers. After you enter the number, telemarketers have 30 days to stop calling your phone number.
2) Ask Them to Stop: Some unwanted callers don’t abide by the do not call list. In fact, one high profile case made the news recently. They’ll still incessantly bother you to no end — I heard of one person who was receiving 10 calls a day for a week from the same caller — just tell them to stop. Here’s how: Politely** ask for the following information in order and write it down, name of company, name of person, ask them to put you on their do not call list, write down date and time they called. Hint: **Politeness helps get you the world, meanness will persuade people not to help. If they do keep calling see this.
3) File a complaint: This has two simple steps... First: The FCC’s do not call website is a good first stop if they call more than once (see link above). Unfortunately, the FCC’s website does not allow you to lookup the phone number of the caller to see who they are and what they’ve done to others. It seems like it may fall into a bureaucratic hole (possibly). Secondly: Use a reverse phone directory like CallCatalog.com to find out who they are and also post a visible complaint to help tell others who these people are.
CallCatalog.com is a reverse phone directory of unwanted phone calls that is updated by users like yourself You can file a complaint and also see what other people have experienced with these callers.
May 15, 2009
Auto Warranty Spamming Telemarketers in Hot Water – FTC
Get a recent call from a telemarketer telling you that your auto warranty has expired. I did, which I blogged about not long ago. I heard, “this is the second time we have called you that your car warranty has expired”. They called me on my home, work, and even cell phones — all of which are unlisted and on the do not call list. It appears that the telemarketers were using fake caller-id’s, which is a big no-no. In fact, they used the phone numbers to call people (well fake phone numbers) that really belonged to other people.
The two companies, Voice Touch Inc. and Transcontinental Warranty Inc., were named in a lawsuit filed in the Chicago District court by the ftc, who is seeking injunctions to their telemarketing efforts. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz called it “one of the most aggressive” telemarketing schemes the agency has ever seen.
The laws state that a telemarketer must use their real phone number (not a fake one) and also provide you a means to be removed from the phone number database. Unfortunately, they didn’t comply with either. They also, didn’t even think to use the do not call list to filter their phone number directory.
May 10, 2009
Google News : U.S. : All
May 7, 2009
Annoying Telemarketer Gets Pulled Out of Closet
Many people have been complaining recently about getting these calls from random phone numbers saying “your warranty is about to expire”, or “you have just a few months left on your car warranty”. Appears some folks at reddit were complaining about this as well and actually found the culprit. Yesterday, they somehow found the real information about the telemarketer company and started calling it including hacking into their voice mail system and listing the different extensions. Unfortunately, there were apparently quite a few unhappy callers who had left messages asking for refunds … as of today the main phone number is disconnected.
Here are a few excerpts of their discussions there:
As the 800 number was reporting disconnected, I called (949) 475-9500, pressed zero for an operator and asked to speak to a manager. They passed me to Customer Service. Phone rang for about 5 minutes then I got “Jeremy.” I asked to have my cell # removed from their call list and he said he’d take care of it. Then I asked for his name and direct contact number. he told me: Jeremy, 1-800-499-4116, extension 467.
just got a call from their auto dialer 10 minutes ago, so they’re still up to it. I pressed 1 to connect to an agent and he picked up after about 10 seconds. I told him to stop calling me and he just hung up the phone.
They list all of the commands for the voicemail system. Unfortunately for these folks people should be more vigilent when getting and trusting a telemarketer.
May 6, 2009
402-982-0669 keeps calling — do a reverse lookup
If you look on CallCatalog.com at some of the more recent posts you’ll see that there are many phone numbers where there are repeat callers. These unwanted callers are dialing different individuals. For example 402-982-0669 has quite a few complaints on this number, you can use a reverse phone directory to identify who the caller is and also post a complaint. There are many other phone numbers that can be looked up and found that are calling many other people and bothering them.
Unfortunately, the FTC’s do not call list is a good place to post a complaint but its not a reverse phone directory where you can lookup a phone number. Its only one way. The best two way directory are some of the public ones that allow people to find out who is calling them and also allows them to post a complaint.
April 22, 2009
Personal Privacy Today — Is It Eroding
Fordham University had a symposium the other day where they discussed Personal Privacy in the 21st Century. i.e. yesterday. They discussed how privacy issues didn’t used to occur. How people then could expect to have their personal information held safely. The advent of fast computers, massive data storage, AND the ability to utilize personal information expanded like never before
There’s always the strong balance between what’s best for society and what’s best for the individual. Yeah, I get that, however, its been used many times to the detriment of society. Take electronic medical records. They’re easy to get, sometimes shared with or between insurance companies. Companies have in the past actually refused certain insurance to individuals because of the pre-existing condition that the insurance company found out about.
Personal information can also be used for criminal means. This information is literally everywhere from mortgage brokers, your bank, your doctor (and dentist), phone company, etc……. Do you think they all take proper care of your information, and shred or destroy it when appropriate. If not, it becomes a target of criminal and other unwanted users. Someone could take your information and steal your identity in one of the worst case scenarios.
Always remember to be on the lookout for people who may call your phone number trying to even get your personal information to use for inappropriate means. If you do get unwanted calls from anyone, don’t answer it and do a lookup on a reverse phone directory.
April 20, 2009
CallCatalog.com just given a great review
April 17, 2009
Fake Parking Ticket Scam Uncovered
Officials just uncovered a fake parking ticket scam where people would be given a ticket that looks like the real thing. The only difference is that the ticket directed users to a scam website where users enter their personal information, credit card number and (yes) push submit. Once that happens the website says, thank you for paying your ticket.
Ok, here are a few things to consider. FIRST: always consider what website you’re going to, does it look legitimate? In this case, not quite, plus it wasn’t associated with a government website. SECOND: If you’re not sure, reach out and ask someone. In this case, goto the local government website. They probably have a link to their ticket payment website. THIRD: Whenever you’re asked to provide personal information, double check who you’re giving it to, and ensure they legitimately need the information.
Unfortunately, these people may get their identities stolen, have money taken out of their credit cards, etc. They may even get placed on telemarketing scam phone number lists where you could get scammed another way via the phone…unwanted calls, etc…