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Private Do-Not-Call Web Sites Not The Real Thing
If you buy into an unofficial third-party"s so-called "do-not-call registry" believing you are signing up to stop telemarketers from calling you, you effectively could be handing over your personal information and paying a telemarketer to call you. That nauseating irony could be just the beginning of your problems. There"s a growing cottage industry of private Web sites that will collect your private personal information and periodically bill your credit card -- provided you give them your permission -- purportedly to get telemarketers to stop calling you at home. Beware. The Web sites, including StopCalls.org; National Do Not Call List US; Free Do Not Call List (which isn"t free); and Remove.org, among others, are not currently under investigation, they have not been charged with violating any law, nor have they been asked to cease operations. They are, however, engaging in practices that could be confused with the official federal do-not-call registry. Information posted on unofficial do-not-call Web sites and information available to anyone who takes the time to research Web site registration information, reveals many of the domain names were originally registered late last year in anticipation of the Federal Trade Commission"s (FTC) Do-Not-Call law, which gives consumers a bona fide opportunity to join an official national registry of people who want telemarketers to back off. In some cases, the unofficial do-not-call Web sites create confusion by providing outdated information about the real federal do-not-call regulations. Some unofficial do-not-call Web sites promise to pass your information onto the federal registry once the official registry is in place. Otherwise, the Web sites promise, they will pass your information onto a list of undisclosed telemarketers and instruct them not to call you -- for a fee. That is not how the FTC"s official and free do-not-call registry will be administered. "You have to call us (the Federal Trade Commission) from your own phone to be accepted. On the Internet, you have to have an e-mail verification come to you that you verify," said Cathy MacFarlane, an official spokeswoman for the FTC. The official word from the FTC, however, is that if any investigation is pending, it isn"t public and the FTC isn"t talking. "We are aware of these Web sites. We do not comment on non public investigations. We are very concerned if a service represents it will register someone with the FTC"s Do-Not-Call registry, but some of these sites are touting products and not (FTC) registration services and the products may work to reduce unwanted calls. They (some sites) are not fraudulent or of concern, but as I said, we cannot comment on non public investigations," said Eileen Harrington, an FTC spokeswoman. Both the FTC and official state government do-not-call registries generally do not recognize submissions from third parties -- including privately owned Web sites offering do-not-call services. The FTC says official state registries will be rolled into the official federal registry some time after the official federal registry is up and running later this year. That"s the only other way -- in addition to direct instructions from you -- the FTC will accept your do-not-call information. The FTC doesn"t even accept records from the telemarketing industry-recognized do-not-call service, the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) administered by the Direct Marketing Association. TPS costs $5 to sign up online, but it is free to consumers who file a mail application to be removed from telemarketers" lists. With TPS, telemarketers adhere to trade group ethics and volunteer to remove your name, but they are under no legal obligation to do so. Chris Dowhan, co-owner of New York City-based StopCalls.org begs to differ. He says he"s aware official registries won"t take bulk lists, but says his company can and has submitted individual names to New York state"s official do-not-call registry, from among the "thousands" of names they"ve collected on their Web site. "I guess to the degree that we aren"t going to know who is inputing the data, yes anybody could do it online, that"s true, but he"s charging a fee for what anybody can do online for free," says Jon Sorensen, spokesman for the New York State Consumer Protection Board. Unofficial Do-Not-Call Web Sites Telemarketers who obtain your information through unofficial do-not-call Web services also have no binding legal obligation to stop calling you. "Technically there is no legal obligation. It is the legal obligation of the consumer to follow up, so there is the threat of being sued and that happening across thousands of consumers who signed up for our service or other services," said Dowhan. Dowhan said StopCalls.org"s service is valuable to telemarketers who want to know who doesn"t want to be called. It"s not cost effective for telemarketers to get too many hang ups, Dowhan says. "If they can eliminate calls, that brings down their costs. They"d rather filter people out," Dowhan said. He also said once the official federal registry is up and running StopCalls.org"s unofficial registry may cease operations. "It might just fade away. Now it"s a viable service. We give a money-back guarantee. So if anyone is dissatisfied they can call us back after the third month and if it"s not working we give them their money back," Dowhan promised. If StopCalls.org and other unofficial do-not-call Web sites cease do-not-call services, what will happen to the personal data they"ve collected isn"t clear. StopCalls.org and similar Web sites also offer other services including just as questionable anti-spam and anti-FAX services and will likely retain the information to market those and other services to consumers who signed up for do-not-call services. Theoretically, telemarketers could use information obtained from an unofficial do-not-call Web site to call you and try to sell you something. They could also sell your information, despite unofficial do-not-call Web services" privacy policies which say that"s forbidden. Owners of unofficial do-not-call Web sites are powerless to regulate telemarketers or the information they forward to them. "They could, but the lists that are sent to them are obscured in that names and numbers aren"t side-by-side to correlate them," Dowhan said. It"s also not clear which telemarketers, if any, are actually getting your personal information from unofficial do-not-call Web sites because the sites don"t disclose that information. "That"s the meat of our business, so we don"t give out names of our telemarketers. I can tell you many of them are financial services. There are more than 1,000 telemarketers, many of which are companies you know," said Dowhan of StopCalls.org. Fog also clouds what personal information telemarketers are receiving, if any, in addition to your telephone number. Unofficial Web sites typically ask for your name, street address, e-mail address, phone number, a credit card number (for a $10 to $20 subscription or membership for a service the FTC provides at no cost) and, in at least one case, four digits of your Social Security number. The Web sites promise to pass on to telemarketers only your telephone number, and they typically disclose how else they may use your information, including the fact that with your paid membership or subscription you give them the right to email you newsletters, information and marketing materials until you opt not to receive their spam. The problem with what the unofficial do-not-call Web sites disclose, promise and guarantee is that their "Privacy Policies" often don"t jibe with their "Terms and Conditions" which appear to absolve them of virtually all liability. For example, StopCalls.org"s privacy policy says clearly, "We won"t sell your information, period." It"s terms and conditions policy, however, seems to negate that statement. "SC MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) THE SERVICES, CONTENT AND SOFTWARE ARE ACCURATE, TIMELY, UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE; (ii) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICES, CONTENT, OR SOFTWARE WILL BE RELIABLE; (iii) THE SERVICES WILL IDENTIFY ANY IDENTITY THEFT, (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS OBTAINED OR PURCHASED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICES, CONTENT, OR SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS; OR (v) ANY ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE OR CONTENT WILL BE CORRECTED. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR VERIFYING ANY INFORMATION BEFORE RELYING ON IT." In English the message is "Beware. Be very aware." "I"d be very suspicious to what degree that they are really contacting telemarketers. I think there have been a lot of people who have been outright scammed," said Sorensen. While the unofficial do-not-call Web sites mentioned in this story are not under investigation or otherwise being charged with violating any law, the Federal Communications Commission says late last year grifters did began a do-not-call registry verification scam designed to illegally obtain private information by purporting to check to see if consumers wanted to be on a do-not-call list or to "verify" their "previous registration information." The scammers eventually asked for personal information -- Social Security, credit card and/or bank account numbers -- to "confirm" that the caller was talking with the correct person. Identity theft was the real objective, the FCC charged. The FCC, like the FTC, says that both federal and state do-not-call registration is initiated only by the consumer, not by any company or government agency. Also late last year, before California"s state do-not-call pre-registry was in place, state attorney general Bill Lockyer won a court order to shut down Riverside County-based California Consumer Center (CCC). The state charged the company with unlawful business practices, unfair competition and false advertising for phone solicitations and Internet advertising after the defendants allegedly claimed to consumers inPages: [1] 2
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20.04.2012