First Caller-ID spoofers spanked

"Caller-ID spoofers" prosecuted.

It's about time they started doing something about these people; in my opinion, it should have been started a long time ago, and it should be a lot harsher. The Do Not Call Registry was a joke in my opinion, because there are too many loopholes in it, and too many conditions.

I didn't even know about the law saying that telemarketing businesses had to display their telephone number on Caller-ID; I have a company that calls my house daily; the caller ID always says "800 Service 800-000-000" How am I supposed to call that company back? I learned my lesson a long time ago about calling these unidentified numbers back anyway. On several occasions I called a number to find out who it was, (and in some cases what they wanted, because the name was not familiar) and ended up being harassed by some rude person working for a collection agency that had bought an old account. I once got a letter from a company with a name I'd never heard of, telling me that I owed over $1000 for a bill; I called the number and asked who they were and what the bill was. They told me; I said okay thank you and hung up. They immediately called back and wanted to know what I intended to do about the bill. I was at work, and I told them that I could not talk right then because I was in my office, and to please not call that number again, and I hung up. They called back!! I picked up the phone and repeated myself, very nicely I thought; the man asked me what did I call for if I didn't intend to pay the bill! I said "I never said I do not intend to pay it, I called to find out who this company is and what the bill was that you claimed I owe in this letter. I found that out, and that is all I wanted. When I am ready to continue the conversation, I have your number and I will call you back. Thank you very much, have a nice day." Well, that began a long and annoying episode of repeated conversations with various employees of the collection agency. I told them over and over not to call my work number, (I thought if you told them not to call your job they couldn't?) to no avail. Finally one day a female called, and she just went over the top. She informed me that I was listed in their database as "rude, had called and hung up, a deadbeat who had no intention of ever paying." Initially I went ballistic; hung up? When did I hang up on anyone? She proceeded to recount to me the first time I had called and found out what I wanted to know and ended the conversation; the person I spoke with wrote it as I hung up on him! I told her they needed to retrain their telephone people, because as far as I knew, when a telephone conversation is over, the usual method of ending it is to hang up. She said something snide about waiting until the person finished talking, so I said "I was finished talking, and he wasn't saying anything when I hung up because I was talking." That didn't make an impression on her, she continued to tell me how wrong I was, how I needed to pay this bill, how it was terrible of me to create a bill and then when they tried to collect to tell them that I was not going to pay. I asked why did she think that I wasn't; she said it was right in the records that I'd said I wasn't going to. I almost laughed when she said that, because an idea suddenly occurred to me. I asked her "You have said several times that if I do not pay, your company will take it to the next level; if it says right in your notes that I told you I would not pay, (which I never said) why are you still calling? Why have you not moved on to the next level? Why are you still arguing with me about something that doesn't mean anything because I'm not going to pay?" She got totally quiet, and this time, SHE HUNG UP ON ME!!! LOL I know there's a difference between bill collectors and telemarketers, but seems to me that someone needs to apply stricter rules, and then actually monitor these collection agencies to make sure they're following them.

Sorry I got sidetracked, but the point I'm trying to make is, these telemarketers go totally beyond the boundaries supposedly laid down for them by the law. They have been doing it for a long time, and it really seems that the only thing that is going to stop them is to hit the companies where it hurts: their pockets. Give them huge fines for breaking the law, and don't just punish the company, prosecute the telemarketer who actually did it, especially if this is a person who has been telemarketing for awhile. Someone on their first job can probably claim they just did as they were trained to do, but anyone who's been out there on the phones for any length of time knows the rules.

Something else that bothers me; I understand that the only way for telemarketers to know if someone is on the list is to give them access to it; how many of these companies does the government think are actually going to look up every number on its call lists to make sure that one is not on the registry? And if they have access to the list, why am I still getting calls from telemarketers trying to get me to contribute to different charities and/or tell me I won a vacation somewhere?

I used to be a telemarketer, so I can look at this issue from both sides, and I gotta tell you, the public is totally right in their outlook on telemarketers, but it's mainly because of the training methods utilized by most of the smaller telemarketing companies, and the over zealousness instilled in some employees by those methods. If they were to receive a few of the phone calls that they're making to people's homes or offices, they might not be so aggressive when they talk to people!