Do-Not-Call Lists Under Fire

Fifty-one percent of respondents in a -- no irony lost here -- phone survey say they still receive telemarketing calls they believe should have been blocked when they signed up for the national Do-Not-Call list. The Federal Trade Commission official in charge of the registry says the agency receives a "steady flow" of between 1,000 and 2,000 complaints about telemarketers every day. Yet to date, there have been remarkably few fines issued by federal regulators. Despite one million reports of violations, the FTC has filed only 14 lawsuits and levied only four fines. The Federal Communications Commission, which jointly administers the program with the FTC, has issued warnings but only two fines, one to AT&T Corp., the company with the contract for administering the program. Twenty-five states maintain their own do-not-call lists, and many of them impose tougher restrictions on the kinds of calls that telemarketers can make. As a result, a number of states view the national registry as a weaker tool that undercuts their more stringent protections, and some have been more eager to impose penalties for violations. But telemarketers are taking aim at states that have maintained or created tougher restrictions, petitioning the federal government to override them.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Conkey christopher.conkey@wsj.com]
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See also:
* Who Signed Up for the Do-Not-Call List?
http://web.si.umich.edu/tprc/archive-search-abstract.cfm?PaperID=494