thank you for not calling

Now two damn fool judges have overturned the National Do-Not-Call list

I was really looking forward to October 1, 2003. That is the date that the National Do-Not-Call Registry was supposed to go into effect. I even had a pad and pencil ready to take down names and addresses of offending telemarketers; it sounded like an easy way to rake in a little cash on the side, you know?

When the Federal government announced that the sign-up period for the List had started, I jumped on the internet as soon as possible. So did an awful lot of other people, judging from the length of time it took me to actually connect to their website and successfully sign up. Even that final step took a few tries, as I found myself disconnected more than once due to the Slashdot effect.

I'm sure that I have related my frustration with those phone pests before, but it's been a while - I've had this blog for nearly a year now (how time does fly!) so I'll rehash the "high points." The timing seems appropriate.

Some time within the last year, I found that I was getting up to a dozen calls per day from telemarketers and other beggars. Some days I received as few as six calls. (I called those days "Saturday" and "Sunday.") They didn't only call at dinnertime; oh, no. Thanks to Caller ID, I had a record of every call's time, whether they left a message or not. Usually they didn't, of course, since an autodialer is typically used.

My first line of defense was to tell these "people," politely, not to call me again. After all, I do understand that the individuals who actually speak to me are simply doing a job. They'd probably prefer to be doing something else for a living, and most likely do not enjoy getting those types of calls when they are at home either.

That approach didn't work very well. As the Terrible Two (judges, that is - the ones who are trying to overturn that fine new law) said, there are literally millions of these telemarketing callers out there, wearing headsets and asking "How are you this morning/afternoon/evening?" just before they try to sell you something you neither want nor need. (Example: I live in Tallahassee, Florida, yet I have received telephone offers for the New York Times on no less than six occasions within the past year. When I had Caller ID, I noticed that those calls usually came from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, both of which are Canadian provinces. Do they really read the NY Times up there? If so, why?)

My next idea: hanging up immediately when I recognized that I was hearing one of those awful recorded sales pitches. That backfired on me once; it turned out that it was a living person, right here in town, trying to sell me a subscription to our sorry excuse for a daily newspaper. He sounded so tinny and robotic, though! I swear, I thought it was a recording. Anyway, I heard this voice, assumed it was a recorded message, and hung up halfway through the first sentence. Less than a minute later, my phone rang again. I picked it up and said, "Hello." He said,"this is how it feels!" and hung up. I'm glad it made him feel better. I just laughed; I'm funny that way. I can laugh at my mistakes. Gotta admit, I did feel like a bit of a clam.

I bought a cellphone. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer, I needed to be in contact at a moment's notice no matter where I was, and by this point I had actually turned off the ringers on my primary and extension phones. I would check the answering machine a couple of times per day, but I didn't want to be annoyed by the constant ringing. I even changed the message on my answering machine to something like, "Hi. This is Jay. If you're selling something or asking for money, and I assume that you are since I get about 10 of those calls a day, DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN. I don't even answer this phone. In fact, the ringer is turned off. The only reason I still have this phone line is for my modem. Everybody I want to hear from has my cellphone number."

Although I did get some compliments on my message (one from my son, and one from a wrong number - who proceeded to leave her message, not realizing that it was a wrong number), I didn't feel that this was a satisfactory solution. I was still coming home to a long list of Caller ID numbers.

I had seen commercials for "The TeleZapper." I went online and read up on it; I work in the electronics industry, specifically the design end, so I wanted to know how this animal worked before I spent $40 on one. Hey, could just be another snake oil product, right?

The concept is remarkably simple. Any signal running down the phone line stimulates the TeleZapper to emit a tone that emulates a disconnected phone number. An autodialer should assume that nobody will ever answer at that number, and remove it from its call list. At least, that is the theory.

I bought the TeleZapper, plugged it in, and stopped answering my phone entirely. I let the answering machine handle any "real" calls. Within a couple of weeks my unsolicited call count had dropped precipitously; after two months it was down to a couple of calls per day. I decided it was time to start answering my phone again. I told the telemarketers and beggars that I was not interested, no I don't want to contribute, no I won't be contributing next year either, and it isn't because I can't afford to. Don't call me again. And surprise, the calls stopped almost entirely.

For a while.

In the past couple of weeks they have been picking up again. I plugged the TeleZapper back in a few days ago. My phone has been ringing at least once every evening, but nobody ever leaves a message. I expect that with their long free ride being endangered by the October 1 deadline, the Scum of the Phone Lines have probably been working overtime.

I guess it's time to turn off the ringers again.