From the Post:
Fed-up consumers found a new outlet for expressing their disgust with telemarketers yesterday by signing up in droves to put more than 735,000 home, fax and cell phone numbers on a new national do-not-call list.
At one point, 108 people per second were registering their numbers either by phone or online. The sudden rush caught staff members off-guard at the Federal Trade Commission, which maintains the list. By midmorning, many people could not connect to the http://www.donotcall.gov Web site, forcing workers to add more computer equipment to handle the crush.
“We all believed that we were totally on top of things and volume couldn’t possibly exceed what we were planning for,” said FTC spokeswoman Cathy MacFarlane.
But even the FTC, which received 64,000 public comments that mostly supported the creation of a do-not-call list, underestimated the feelings of rancor and powerlessness that telemarketers provoke in the public.
It seems like only weeks ago that the telemarketing lobby was insisting that most people “appreciate” the calls. If this trend of angry consumers continues, it may well be cheaper and more useful to eliminate the “do not call” lists and instead outlaw all unsolicited calls and e-mails.
Telemarketers say they will fight the list by challenging it on the grounds that it abridges their right to free speech. This is ridiculous – when was the last time that people were allowed to march into your home and exercise their free speech rights without being asked in? How is is free speech to make bells ring in people’s homes without their permission?
As if to signal the beginning of the end, I’ve had 5 mysterious “out of area” phone calls today. One was a recorded message telling me that I had entered a contest and had won and that I should call immediately. (Recorded messages of this kind are illegal.) I can’t wait for them to stop.
[Update: in two days, the total number of people who signed on to the list was 11.4 MILLION. That’s an awful lot of annoyed people. The telemarketer manta has been shot to hell. Get these assholes off the planet, please.]
