Be Smart

Unless you get so few phone calls that every one is an experienced to be treasured, it's likely that telemarketer calls frustrate you just as much as 99.9-percent of the rest of us.  Thankfully, in the US at least, things are improving courtesy of the Do Not Call List, a register of people who have "opted out" of unsolicited sales calls; the scheme, in general, works, and today the List has been made permanent in law.  According to the Whitehouse press release:

On Friday, February 15, 2008, the President signed into law:

H.R. 3541, the "Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007," which prohibits the automatic removal of telephone numbers registered on the Federal "do-not-call" registry; and

S. 781, the "Do-Not-Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007," which extends permanently the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to charge fees to telemarketers required to access the Federal "do-not-call" registry and specifies the fees to be charged.

The scheme, which was up until now a trial of the system, was due to expire this year.  Apparently 50 million people have signed up; telemarketers are fined $1,000 for each incident where they contravene the list.

For readers interested in the concept of the DNC List, but not in the US, Wikipedia has links to other nations' schemes.

[via Consumerist]