The Federal Trade Commission Telemarketing Sales Rule places important limitations upon telemarketers who call your home:
Telemarketing calls are limited to the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time.
Telemarketers may not call again after you have told them not to call. A good line is “I am sorry, this number does not accept calls of this type, please remove this number from your list.”
Telemarketers must explain that it is a sales call before they make the pitch.
Telemarketers may not call a pager or cell phone.
Telemarketers may not use an automated system that uses a recorded or computerized voice to make the sales pitch.
In addition to knowing these rules, you should never give out credit card, bank account, or social security numbers to a telemarketer, even if you decide you want what is being offered. Such information can be used to steal money from your accounts or even to steal your identity!
When it comes to junk faxes, there is a much stronger remedy, the type which most of us wish applied to telemarketing calls. Recent amendments to the Telecommunications Act make unsolicited advertising faxes illegal. Congress reasoned that the prohibition was necessary because the unsolicited fax uses the victim�s paper, causes wear and tear on the fax machine, and ties up the machine until the junk fax comes through.
In order to discourage those who send junk faxes, the law provides a remedy by allowing those who receive the fax to file suit to stop the faxes and for $500.00 to $1,500.00 in civil damages for each junk fax.
Judging by the number of junk faxes that still come over the machine here at BBCB, few have gotten the message. Be warned!
– Mike Malin