From: "David A. Garbin" Dear Sirs, The Telemarketing Sales Rule has not proven effective or efficient at protecting consumers from telemarketers' abusive calling practices. Even if telemarketing personnel follow the letter of the Rule, consumers who do not wish to receive any sales calls are still inundated by large numbers of calls at extremely inconvenient times. Specifically, the Rule falls short for the following reasons: 1. Using lists as the only method for a consumer to avoid telemarketing calls is not effective. This method does not prevent the first call from any given organization; this alone can result in thousands of unwanted calls a year. Furthermore, different factions of an organization can too easily claim ignorance of the consumer's previous request to another faction not to be contacted. Identities of telemarketing organizations are too ambiguous and constantly changing, making "lists" ineffective. 2. The time periods listed in the rule (8:00 AM to 9:00 PM) do not begin to cover the most abusive times for most people: the hours around dinner time. In fact, only the consumer should be allowed to determine what are convenient calling times. 3. The burden of trying to avoid telemarketing calls should not be a time-consuming, manual process for consumers. Consumers should be able to block ALL telemarketing calls at will by employing a simple, easy to use method. Telemarketers employ high-technology features of today's telephone systems to efficiently contact large numbers of consumers. It is time for consumers to have access to high-tech solutions which can provide remedies to combat unwanted calls. Telemarketers (any entity covered by this Rule) should be required to include a special code in their caller ID signal. Telephone subscribers would then have the option to block all of these calls. The blocking option could be turned on and off at will. Such a system is well within the capabilities of the current telephone system (it is not unlike the current caller ID option to block "private" calls). The viability of the telemarketing industry should be decided by consumers' desires to be contacted, not the sellers ability to do so. If there is no market for a service, it should go away. David and Linda Garbin |