| Comment Number: | OL-113871 |
| Received: | 1/10/2005 3:35:41 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Kimberly Walton |
| State: | NV |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Personally, I signed up on the DO NOT CALL list because I didn't want to be called, by anyone.However, there are enough loopholes that I get several calls each night trying to solicit something to me.When I ask them for identification so I can request they do not call me, the solicitor hangs up on me, and on some occasions they have flung a few selective, unneccessary metaphors just before hanging up for a sort of "hit and run" over the phone.If I call the company and try to complain, they say there is nothing they can do because I don't have any form of identifying the person that called me.These solicitors get away with a lot of things already.I shouldn't have to bend over backwords to get at least a little bit of privacy on mandated utilities.What ever happened to the days when you advertised in the newspaper or by a bulk permit per zip code?I'm rather young in most people's eyes, yet even in my short life I have seen the increase in phone solicitations as well as by mail and more recently by SPAM over email.There is little we can do to fight back and most of the companies that participate in phone solicitation abuse that right.The most annoying of phone solicitations is the automated message system. Have you ever received a call from one of those? If your machine picks up, then you don't even get the entire message generally. If you pick it up and answer, you have a 50/50 chance of it actually responding in a timely manner before asking "hello" six times. Then, when you realize what it is and hang up on it, there are those that are programmed to call you back if it hasn't been on the line long enough. Also, these companies need to cross reference their lists, often times we will get 2 calls in the same night offering the same product or service, and they are calling from two different companies on behalf of the same company. That, in my opinion, is harrassment. Need I even begin to touch on the fact that most of the solicitors that call generally don't understand what I am saying. There is a large communication gap that causes some major errors. I know my parents have ordered magazines they never meant to order because the solicitor didn't understand what they were saying because of a cultural/language miscommunication. Another problem with the current loopholes is that these companies that own many other different companies can call up and solicit these companies I never would have dreamed of shopping at, all because Providian owns 30 different card companies and ventured into jeans by mail or something like that, I now get solicited for items I would have never purchased and they get to claim it is because of a card I have with them.When I cancel that card, they still get to call me because I was a card holder within a certain amount of time.Honestly I am shocked that there is little the government can do to control the abuse these companies get away with. I think they should mandate no private phone numbers (except maybe people like the President of the United States, etc), and when a call is made, it must be a live person, it can not put you on hold when you answer the phone and ask you to wait for the next representative, the person must speak clearly and concisely identifying where they are calling from in the first sentence. Then, if asked, the solicitor must provide a caller id number and a phone number to call and request removal from the list, regardless of whether the customer has business with them. These are to start with, there's much more I could come up with. If any of the rules are violated, us customers get a phone number/email/address to contact and report the company with the phone number provided on caller ID or *69.After a certain number of complaints, start fining the companies.Also, if the solicitor commited a crime, such as verbal assault, charge the company with the crime if they refuse to find out who it was.Mainly, I think the government should cater to the private citizen not corporations.