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Chris Higgins
Do Not Call Lists
by Chris Higgins - May 23, 2007 - 7:30 AM

Do Not Call

I got rid of my landline a few years ago, and haven’t looked back. One thing I don’t miss is the endless calls about “investment opportunities” and solicitations to donate money to various causes. I even received several amusing calls that claimed I had won a prize (I just had to pay a fee to collect it). All of this stopped when I put my landline number on the National Do Not Call Registry. (Note that cell phones are apparently not required to join the registry, though I bet that’s just a matter of time.) Here’s a brief list of places you can go to stop the madness:

Phone: National Do Not Call Registry

Email: Direct Marketing Association Email opt-out

Credit Card Solicitations: OptOutPresceen.com

General Info: read the Federal Trade Commission’s Unsolicited Mail, Telemarketing and Email: Where to Go to “Just Say No” (Note: links above are from this page)

If you know of another way to opt out of marketing messages, please leave a tip in the comments and I’ll update this post.

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Comments (7)

  1. Great post, Higgins. Thanks.

    Oh, and I think the DMA is for stopping physical mail, not email…

    posted by Jason! on 5-23-2007 at 8:31 am

  2. The DMA link provided is specifically for an email opt-out list, which is a service provided by the DMA. Aside from this, I think they are primarily about physical mail.

    posted by Higgins on 5-23-2007 at 8:48 am

  3. I don’t know about anyone else, but I personally like to toy with telemarketers. It makes having them call fun, and might make their job more interesting. At least, that’s the way I view it. I’ve never asked one of them.

    posted by Hunter on 5-23-2007 at 3:08 pm

  4. as a person that worked for a company that made political calls for candidates, i just want to say that any and all campaigning by political candidates and calls for charitable donations DO NOT COUNT as solicitations. please, please, do not yell at these people that you are on the do not call list. they know. it just doesn’t apply.

    posted by jenni on 5-23-2007 at 9:00 pm

  5. Actually, Hunter, as a person who has used call centers to keep up the rent between “real” jobs, we’d rather you just hang up. It may not be a physically or mentally challenging way to pay the bills, but it is emotionally draining to have people hate you all day long.

    And yes, I am on the DNC.

    posted by ashamed on 5-24-2007 at 11:33 pm

  6. My father died in March; my father-in-law died in June. Both days I took a call from a telemarketer asking for him. I doubt either of those callers have heard a profanity-laced diatribe like that before or since. Yes, I know they have no way of knowing, but I had to take it out on someone, and I have a general hatred of them already.

    posted by Heywood on 8-11-2007 at 2:50 am

  7. Why did they start a “Do Not Call” list? If solicitors were only allowed to communicate with people on a “Do Call” list, alot of time and money would be saved by all parties involved. Everybody knows most folks don’t want to be bothered with cold calls, but the 11 or 12 that do like them should be in a “I Got Nothing To Do, Call me Quick” registry. I couldn’t be the first one to come up with this idea. dc

    posted by Dan Comiskey on 1-25-2008 at 4:06 pm

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