| Comment Number: | OL-100007 |
| Received: | 11/17/2004 10:12:13 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Werquin |
| State: | LA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
On this proposal to allow companies to make more automated calls: For those of us who have lodged our names on the DO NOT CALL registries, that's exactly what the registries mean. We do not want additional phone calls with hangups, or recorded messages that go on forever and then the answering machine duration bleeps off before they give you the number that you can call to opt out. These companies invariably place this information at the end of the message just so you cannot reach them back to tell them to STOP calling. There are some days where I have 20 messages in a row that are hangups from a blocked or private number. Those same days if I pick up the phone, I get just as many answering as a LIVE PERSON. If you are going to allow this further aggravation of Americans at home, then please require that the opt out options come at the very beginning of the message, BEFORE they hawk their product. Otherwise what you have done is hold the telephone line holder hostage while they wait for a button to push, or a phone number to call back to opt out. Ever wonder why so many people simply monitor their telephone now through the use of an answering machine? It's because Americans have grown tired of sitting down to eat a family meal, only to be bombarded with 20 pre-recorded telephone calls; or they are trying to bathe the baby for bed with the same telephone calls. We just recently got a dose of confirmation about how really aggravating these prerecorded phone calls can be with the Super Tuesday elections. You couldn't even receive a normal phone call for all of the prerecorded aggravation. By the way, on that 3% of random prerecorded bunch of calls now allowed? I've called all the businesses that we have ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS with, and demanded that they remove us from their call lists. If they have anything to sell, or programs to promote, they can send us something in the mail. While you're working on the laws associated with telemarkers, why don't you make it mandatory that they leave some type of message, any type of message on answering machines, instead of just dropping the call. Just because I purchased a notebook at Office Depot, or a computer cable at Best Buy, that doesn't give the business the right to hound me at home to purchase something else. I already know which types of products they carry, and if I want one, I'll go there or somewhere else that carries that product. With some businesses, because of their constant phone calls, I've gone out of my way to shop with some other company than theirs. I doubt that our household is the only one to feel this way. Thank you for allowing me to express my opinion.