We love the Do Not Call register, and we love it when companies get busted for ignoring it. That got us thinking: how many Lifehacker readers take advantage of it?
Annoying call picture from Shutterstock
This morning, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced that two telemarketing firms had accepted enforceable undertakings after repeatedly breaching Do Not Call rules, which ban making calls to any number on the register.
More power to ACMA, but the real power for consumers lies in signing up in the first place (and remembering to renew every eight years. That got us thinking:
As ever, feel free to expand on your thoughts in the comments.
Comments
11 responses to “Are You On The Do Not Call Register?”
I’m on the Do Not Call register for both my landline and my mobile phone. My sole gripe with it is that charitable organisations are exempt, so I still get calls from people wanting me to donate to such-and-such a charity. I consider these phone calls to be incredibly intrusive. When I donate to charity, it’s on my terms and to one of the two I already donate to occasionally – Cancer Council NSW and the Australian Red Cross.
Yeah, I can see what you mean. I just say “My budgeted charity donation allocation has already been filled for this year, sorry”. Most charities that I get calls from just then say thanks, and end the call, if they don’t I just bluntly tell them they’re wasting their time. I mean the hardest thing about charitable calls is that every cause is a good cause, and I feel as though if I say no, I’m a bad person. Just need to remember that you have limited resources, and you’ve already thought hard about what charities you want to donate to.
I am on the register, but it never stopped telemarketing calls to my landline number. The solution was to stop using it altogether as my mobile number doesn’t have this problem.
no landline. i’ve never been contacted on my mobile by a telemarketer
Same. Problem Solvered.
We occasionally get cold calls despite being on the register. They’re all made from overseas call-centres. The minions are happy to reveal which company they work for since being off-shore means ACMA has no jurisdiction. Unsurprisingly, they’re reluctant to say which Australian company commissioned the call … and claim ignorance … or hang up if pressed.
What a pity they are calling from overseas where DNCR does not quite apply.
Yes I am thinking of getting rid of my landline.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth noting that Charities are exempt from the Do Not Call Register, and are allowed to call anyone they please seeking donations or following up on a pledge.
I was getting upto 5 calls a week from People Energy and other people who didn’t want to sell me anything but ‘as a valued customer of Telstra you can get a great $50 per month deal on your home phone line’ (and i know it wasn’t Telstra).
Not long after signing up for DNCR they all stopped and now i only get Charity and morons from Indian call centers trying to scam me into getting my computer fixed if only i had the time to scam them back (someone needs to setup a honeypot service we can connect to via remote desktop and get them to waste their time on it then when its rebooted it restores ready to for the next time they call).
I had to put my grandparents on it while i was in Adelaide last week as they got a lot of marketing calls.
Counter script?
Something like this? http://egbg.home.xs4all.nl/counterscript.html
The Do-Not-Call is illogical. You have to give them your number if you dont want to be called.
To avoid the calls, my number is not listed. Consequently we get 0 telemarketers, charities, politicians, and prank calls.
Lucky for you! Quite a few overseas groups now use auto-diallers that randomly dial numbers (listed or not). I’m surprised you don’t get calls about your compromised windows computer and how you can fix it with nothing more than a back door program and your credit card.