Miscellaneous

• Once you register your telephone number, telemarketers have up to 31 days from that date to stop calling you.
• You can verify that your number is on the registry online at www.donotcall.gov, or by calling the registry's toll-free number at 1-888-382-1222.
• Both your home and cell phone numbers can be registered.
• The registry is only for personal telephone numbers; businesses are not covered.
• Once registered, you telephone number will remain in the registry for five years. Your registration may be renewed before it expires.
• The registry applies only telemarketers, and does not limit telephone calls on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors. You may also receive calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or to whom you have provided express permission in writing.
• By making a purchase from a company, you have established a business relationship with the company.
• Even though your number may be in the registry, the company may call you for up to 18 months after the last purchase or delivery from it, or your last payment to it, unless you ask the company to stop calling.
• By making an inquiry or submitting an application to a company, you also establish a business relationship with it. Under those circumstances, the company may call you for three months after the inquiry or application, unless you ask it to stop calling you.
• Many states have also established similar registries.
• To make a complaint for a violation, you will need the name or telephone number of the company that called you, the date that the company called, and your registered telephone number.

Recently, various e-mails have circulated warning that a new cell phone number database was about to be released to telemarketers. That is not correct. Cell phone numbers have been capable of being registered since the registry opened in June 2003. In addition, FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Since automated dialers are standard in the telemarketing industry, it is unlikely that calls would be placed to cell phones in any case.

Full post as published by Doherty & Progar on January 28, 2007 (boomark / email).