[October 21, 2003]

Do-Not-Call List Makes It Easy To Mistakenly Sign Up Numbers

(Washington Post) - The government designed its national do-not-call list to be consumer-friendly so people could sign up their own home phone numbers as well as those of family members, even if they live far away.

That system's simplicity also makes it easy to sign up other numbers as well, however, as The Washington Post inadvertently discovered recently. By visiting the do-not-call registry on the Internet to check if the federal appeals courts judges who might hear a legal challenge to the list are registered, a reporter mistakenly signed up two numbers thought to belong to judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Getting a number off the list is tougher, The Post found. Consumers can only have a number removed by calling a toll-free number -- and they have to call from the number they want delisted. (It turns out that neither number registered by The Post was the main residence of a judge; one was a nonworking number; the other an out-of-state phone.) The instructions for taking a number off the list are not yet available on the Web site, www.donotcall.gov, where consumers sign up.

Federal Trade Commission officials said the registry was deliberately designed to allow consumers to sign up several numbers at once. "It was an important feature to make registration convenient, fast and consumer-friendly -- to allow you to register a senior relative who lives across the country and may be the target" of telemarketers, said Lois Greisman, the official overseeing the implementation of the list. "It's also the way a lot of states permitted registration" on their do-not-call lists, she added.

Greisman said there are limits to how many numbers a consumer can register. "There are controls in place to prevent abuse; you can only register so many times." But she declined to say what the limit is because "it doesn't serve the public."

FTC officials said the do-not-call Web site hasn't been updated since the agency got the go-ahead 10 days ago to start enforcing the rules. But the instructions for how to delete a number from the list will soon be included, Greisman said.

Telemarketing officials have personally experienced the ease with which a number can be placed on the list, as well as the difficulty in removing it. Jerry Cerasale is senior vice president of the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group of 4,700 marketers that has been adamantly opposing the list. Somehow, he said, his home phone number was placed on the do-not-call list, although he has no idea how. He tried to remove it, but it took several days, first because the list had been temporarily shut down by a court decision. When the list had again became operational, Cerasale had to be home to call from that number to request that it be removed.

"It's problematic and really sad from the point of view of business that the American government doesn't believe that anyone would want to receive a phone call; that's why they don't seem to care about the lack of security in adding numbers on to the list. I think a private company would be in some trouble if it had no checks and safeguards," Cerasale said yesterday.

The popularity of the list, meanwhile, continued to grow. Nearly 2 million more numbers were signed up this week, bringing the total to 53.7 million.

Although the industry's legal challenges to the list continue -- with the appeals court hearing scheduled for next month -- the FTC has been given the go-head to start checking complaints, which can lead to fines for telemarketers of as much as $11,000 for every time they call a number on the list.

The agency began collecting complaints from consumers a week ago and received more than 15,000 by yesterday. It was unclear, however, how many are legitimate, Greisman said. Some of the telemarketing calls could have come from nonprofit groups, research firms or companies that have an existing or recent business relationship with the consumer -- all permitted to call people's homes under the government's rules.

It can be tricky for someone to figure out which calls violate the rules. For instance, nonprofits calling to solicit donations are exempt from the do-not-call rules, another FTC official said. But a nonprofit isn't allowed to call to sell goods or services.

A computer is being used to check the list of complaints for patterns that could suggest a telemarketer is making many calls to numbers on the list and thereby is in violation. "It's a little too soon to tell" what the outcome will be, Greisman said, adding it will probably be six to eight weeks before any alleged violators are cited.

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