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Posted on 12/22/2001 6:43:43 AM PST by Buffalo Bob

Hanging up on telephone hucksters is easy.

Getting them to stop calling is an entirely different matter, as Beverly Price discovered when she tried to get a carpet cleaning company to remove her from its telephone list.

"This company would call every couple of weeks," said the Clear Lake woman. "Every time they called, I would tell them to stop calling. They said they took me off their list, but they kept calling."

On New Year's Day, the list can be reached by calling toll-free number 866-TXNOCALL or going on-line to www.texasnocall.com

Starting Jan. 1, the ringing may stop. That's when Texas will start a computerized registry for people who don't want to be bothered by telemarketing intrusions.

The first published list will be available to telemarketers April 1. The business will have 60 days from the date a number appears on the list to remove it from the database.

Texas is among at least 24 states trying to put the kibosh on telemarketing calls with "do-not-call" lists, reports the Pew Center on the States, a research organization based in Richmond, Va.

The list is a computerized registry of people who don't want to be bothered by telemarketing intrusions. Companies doing business in Texas buy the database and update it quarterly.

On New Year's Day, consumers can place their names, addresses and telephone numbers on the statewide list maintained by the Texas Public Utility Commission. It costs $2.25 to register for three years.

State legislators passed the bill to start a registry last spring. It's created quite the buzz among consumers fed up with unwanted calls.

"I don't believe anything in telecommunications has produced as many calls as the do-not-call list," said Theresa Gage, a spokeswoman for the commission. "People are really excited about putting their names and numbers on this."

The concept is catching. This year, six other states also adopted laws to limit telemarketing calls, the Pew Center said.

A reported 1.5 million people in New York signed up when that state's law went into effect April 1. In Florida, almost 140,000 have paid $10 apiece to get on a registry, the center said.

Telemarketing is a $668 billion industry. The Web site of a company that tracks the industry estimates that there are several hundred call centers operating in the United States. A single computer auto-dialing numbers can make roughly 500,000 calls in about 12 hours.

Solicitors have become so abusive that the Federal Trade Commission chairman included a national do-not-call list in his new privacy agenda.

In October, FTC Chairman Timothy Muris announced plans to increase enforcement of existing privacy laws, including the one that prohibits telemarketers from calling people who have asked them to stop calling.

"There is no question that consumers are deeply concerned about the privacy of their personal information ... how it's being used ... and who is using it," he said in a news release.

Telemarketing calls are a hot-button issue. Radio Shack spokeswoman Jill Lain said one of the most popular gifts this holiday season is the TeleZapper.

A little black box that "zaps" most automated telemarketing calls, the TeleZapper fools the computer into think the number has been disconnected. The computer then hangs up, removing the number from its database.

The Better Business Bureau has some reservations about the effectiveness of such registries, especially when it comes to unscrupulous telemarketers.

"I don't think it's going to work," said Dan Parsons, executive vice president of the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Houston.

He has worked undercover in a "boiler room" telemarketing operation, where, he says, the goal is to call as many people as you can, pitch them a product or service and sell, sell, sell.

"The (state registry) may stop the small telemarketing companies," Parsons said, "but the big, nasty aggressive ones, the out-of-state ones, they aren't going to care about some list that says don't call."

He noted that Caller ID was touted as an unwanted-call killer but it didn't bring an end to the solicitations.

The state's do-not-call law isn't without some teeth. Consumers may file a complaint with the Public Utility Commission against a telemarketer. The state can fine the company $1,000 per violation if it breaks the law.

Mike Patterson, a NASA computer specialist, is so fed up with getting the calls that he's considered getting rid of his home phone.

"I'm thinking about getting a cell phone," he said, adding that telemarketers as far as he knows aren't using cellular numbers yet.

Patterson says he tries to be courteous to telemarketers, but he can't stand them. He tries to get them off the phone as fast as he can.

"They're why people are doing things like blocking calls, getting Caller ID and unpublished numbers," he said. "Sometimes they just won't leave you alone."

Beverly Price experienced that firsthand. She repeatedly told a North Texas carpet cleaning company to leave her alone. She asked to be put on the company's do-not-call list. But they kept calling.

For at least two years, the carpet company harassed her, she said. She thought it would stop once the state Attorney General's Office sent the company a letter, but it didn't end.

The calls didn't stop until the company was kicked out of the Better Business Bureau after Price filed a complaint.

Parsons uses her case as an example of the cavalier attitude some telemarketers have toward privacy laws. He said the do-not-call list may just be another placebo.

Price plans to look into the state's registry.

"If it can be enforced, it's a good idea," she said. "They need to do something about telemarketers."

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