Stop Unwanted Charity Calls from Telemarketing Services

Are you tired of being harassed by telemarketing services on behalf of veterans charities? You can make them stop!

As noble as the cause may be to support our nation's veterans, some telemarketing services are giving some of our veterans charities a bad name, and causing many who would otherwise donate to charity to decide never to support a particular charity. Most of these calls are made by for-profit fundraisers using telemarketing services, and as their fee, they generally skim off a large portion (in some cases more than 90%) of the donations intended to support our veterans.



You CAN stop unwanted telemarketing. Here's some information from the Federal Communications Commission about how to stop those calls:

Congress first passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 1991 in response to consumer concerns about the growing number of unsolicited telephone marketing calls to their homes and the increasing use of automated and prerecorded messages.

In response, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted rules that require anyone making a telephone solicitation call to your home to provide his or her name, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made, and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity can be contacted.

The original rules also prohibit telephone solicitation calls to your home before 8 am or after 9 pm, and require telemarketers to comply with any do-not-call request you make directly to the caller during a solicitation call.

Telemarketers covered by the National Do-Not-Call Registry (this does not include charitable organizations or telemarketing services calling on their behalf) have up to 31 days from the date that you register your telephone number to remove it from their call lists and stop calling you.

In June 2003, the FCC supplemented its original rules implementing the TCPA and established, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the national Do-Not-Call list.

The National Do-Not-Call List

Once you have placed your home phone number or numbers, including any personal cell phone numbers, on the national Do-Not-Call list, telemarketing services have up to 31 days to remove your number from their lists, and thereafter are prohibited from making telephone solicitations to those number(s). Your number or numbers will remain on the list until you remove them or discontinue service at that number. There is no need to re-register numbers.

The national Do-Not-Call list protects home voice or personal wireless phone numbers only. While you may be able to register a business number, your registration will not make telephone solicitations to that number unlawful. If you do receive a telemarketing call at a business number, simply inform the caller that it is a business number and ask them to remove the number from their list.

A "telephone solicitation" is a telephone call that acts as an advertisement. The term does not include calls or messages placed with your express prior permission, by or on behalf of a tax-exempt non-profit organization, or from a person or organization with which you have an established business relationship (EBR). An EBR exists if you have made an inquiry, application, purchase, or transaction regarding products or services offered by the person or entity involved (or have made a previous donation).

Generally, you may put an end to that relationship by telling the caller not to place any more solicitation calls to your home. Any EBR is only in effect for 18 months after your last business transaction or three months after your last inquiry or application. After these time periods, calls placed to your home phone number or numbers by that person or entity are considered telephone solicitations subject to the do-not-call rules.

Register your home phone number or numbers on the national Do-Not-Call list at no cost. To add a phone number to the national Do-Not-Call list, click the link or call 1-888-382-1222 (voice) or 1-866-290-4236 (TTY), from the phone number you wish to register.

Company-Specific Do-Not-Call Lists

Whether or not your home phone number is registered on the national Do-Not-Call list, the FCC requires a person or entity placing voice telephone solicitations to your home to maintain a record of your direct request to that caller not to receive future telephone solicitations from that person or entity.


The calling company must honor your do-not-call request for five years. To prevent calls after five years, you will need to repeat your request to the company, and it must honor it for another five years (and so on). Your request should also stop calls from affiliated entities if you would reasonably expect them to be included, given the identification of the caller and the product being advertised.

Unless your home phone number is registered on the national Do-Not-Call list, however, you must make a separate do-not-call request to each telemarketer from whom you do not wish to receive calls.

When you receive telephone solicitation calls, clearly state that you want to be added to the caller's do-not-call list. You may want to keep a list of those persons or businesses that you have asked not to call you. Tax-exempt non-profit organizations are not required to keep do-not-call lists. But telemarketing services calling on their behalf may be subject to this requirement. The Federal Trade Commission, which operates the Do Not Call Registry, says, "if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $16,000." Tell the caller you do not wish to receive any more calls on behalf of that charity, and then read the above quote. That should do it.

Caller Identification (ID)

If you have caller ID, telemarketing services are required to transmit or display their phone number and, if available, their name or the name and phone number of the company for which they are selling products. The display must include a phone number that you can call during regular business hours to ask that the company no longer call you. This rule applies even if you have an EBR with the company, and even if you have not registered your home phone number(s) on the national Do-Not-Call list. Before these rules took effect, the words "private," "out of area," or "unavailable" might have appeared on the Caller ID display.

What You Can Do

The FCC can issue warning citations and impose fines against companies violating or suspected of violating the do-not-call rules, but does not award individual damages. If you receive a telephone solicitation that you think violates any of these rules, you can file a complaint with the FCC at no charge either online; by e-mailing fccinfo@fcc.gov; calling 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY; faxing 1-866-418-0232; or writing to:

Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries & Complaints Division
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554.

What to Include in Your Complaint

The best way to provide all the information the FCC needs to process your complaint is to complete the on-line complaint form. If you do not use the on-line complaint form (which we recommend), your complaint, at a minimum, should include all the information requested in the online form.

Some states permit you to file law suits in state court against persons or entities violating the do-not-call rules. You may be awarded $500 in damages or actual monetary loss, whichever is greater. The amount may be tripled if you are able to show that the caller violated the rules willfully and knowingly. Filing a complaint with the FCC does not prevent you from also bringing a suit in state court.

States also can bring a civil law suit against any person or entity that engages in a pattern or practice of violating the TCPA or FCC rules. You can contact your state Attorney General's office or consumer protection agency with particular complaints, or to encourage such suits.

Local Phone Services Can Stop Unwanted Telemarketing Services

You may be able to eliminate many unwanted telemarketing calls by taking advantage of custom calling services offered by your local phone company.

Before you sign up for these, though, make sure you understand whether they will work in your situation and if they are worth the monthly fee (if any). Some of these features only work within your local service area, in which case calls coming from outside the area might not be affected. The "Customer Guide" section of the phone book or the phone company's web site should tell you the boundaries of your local service area.

Also keep in mind, most of these services require a fee, either month-to-month or per-use.

• Call Screening (*60): Your phone can be programmed to reject calls from selected numbers with a service called Call Screening (your local phone company might use a different name for this service). Instead of ringing on your line, these calls are routed to a recording that tells the caller you will not take the call. With Call Screening, you can also program your telephone to reject calls from the number of the last person who called. This allows you to block calls even if you do not know the phone number. Most phone companies charge a monthly fee for this service.
  
  Call Screening is not a foolproof way to stop unwelcome calls. A determined caller can move to a different phone number to bypass the block. Also, Call Screening does not work on long distance calls from outside your service area.



• Call Return (*69): This service allows you to call back the number of the last person who called, even if you are unable to answer the phone. Some people suggest that Call Return can be used to stop harassing callers by allowing you to call the harasser back without knowing the phone number. Use caution with this method of discouraging harassing callers, however, as it could actually aggravate the problem. This service is generally paid on a per-use basis.



• Caller ID is not likely to allow you to capture the phone number of the determined telemarketing services. Many will block their phone numbers. However, Caller ID can be used to decide whether to answer the phone. Simply choose not to pick up calls marked "private" or "unavailable," or calls from a number you don't recognize. If the call is important, the caller will leave a message.



• Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR), a companion service to Caller ID, requires an incoming call from a blocked number to be unblocked before the call will ring through. Use of this feature forces telemarketing services to disclose the number - by entering *82 - or to choose to not complete the call. This service can be added to your local phone service for a fee or at no charge, depending on your local phone carrier. It is activated and deactivated with the touchtone code *77.



• Privacy Manager: Many local phone companies offer a relatively new service called Privacy Manager. Similar to Anonymous Call Rejection, it works with Caller ID to identify incoming calls that have no telephone numbers. Calls identified as "anonymous," unavailable," out of area" or "private" must identify themselves in order to complete the call. Before your phone rings, a recorded message instructs the caller to unblock the call, enter a code number (which you must give them), or record their name. When your phone rings, you can choose to accept or reject the call, send it to voice mail, or send a special message to telemarketers instructing them to put you on their "do not call" list.

So you don't have to feel harrassed any longer by telemarketing services on behalf of charities. Take advantage of some of the suggestions offered here to stop unwanted telemarketing calls.