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American Morning

Cell Phone Next Frontier For Telemarketing Invasion

Aired July 10, 2002 - 07:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: They call you at home, clog up your computer, stuff your mailbox, but at least one thing is getting less clutter these days, thanks to telemarketers: your wallet. That's right. Your cell phone is the next frontier for telemarketing invasion. Yes, they can find you anywhere now and leave you footing the bill for the calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a plan, you know, and I don't want to waste my minutes on a telemarketer, you know, because they just ramble on and on and on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who do you know that really likes telemarketing period, you know? To receive any call, inconvenienced at any time that's not related to something personal or somebody you want to hear from.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It' a little ridiculous. I mean, based on the fact that if you to pay for a phone call, you know, someone else calling, they are wasting your time. And after a while, those minutes add up. So you know, you have to add (ph) a month (ph) to your bill, you could be spending more time talking to telemarketers than you can to your girlfriend or your mom or your grandma.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Can anything be done to stop these evildoers? Joining us now from Washington, D.C. is Sam Simon. He is the chairman of the Telecommunications Research and Action Center -- good morning. How are you?

SAM SIMON, TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH AND ACTION CENTER: Great -- good morning to you.

HARRIS: I have to say this is the one thing that has not happened to me, on my cell phone, is I have not received one of these calls. But it's incredible to hear how many people actually are. Is there something sinister afoot here, or is this just a natural evolution here?

SIMON: This really is a natural evolution caused by really two things. One, more and more people have cell phones and leave them on all of the time. And the other thing is that the phone number system is being blurred. What used to be just home numbers and cell numbers are being interchanged, so the telemarketers don't have the ability to know who they are calling. And it's an emerging problem, and it's going to get worse.

HARRIS: Yes, it's only going to get worse, because coming down the road, the FCC is pretty much opening things up, so that people will be able to transfer their land lines or their home phone numbers to their cell phones. And that's going to make the problem worse, isn't it?

SIMON: Exactly, because the telemarketers won't know, and they'll be unintentionally calling cell phones.

HARRIS: Now, let me ask you about, we have been talking about this story all morning, and we've had -- as you probably have seen on the air, we have had little blurbs about this. And we received an e- mail from a fellow who calls himself Brian Bell (ph), who says that there is a law actually right now already on the books that should address this problem. Are you aware of this? It's 47 USC 227. It says that you can sue for up to -- for between $500 and $1,500 if you do get a call like that. Do you know about that?

SIMON: You can sue only if you have already told them to take your name off the list, and they haven't done that. And here is sort of the dilemma. If you give them your name, you actually have to talk to them and use your minutes. One of our suggestions is you actually not answer the phone, or as soon as you realize it's a telemarketer, hang up. But if you give a telemarketer your name, say take me off your call list, and then they call you back, you do have the right to file a complaint or a lawsuit and a penalty.

HARRIS: So no matter what, you still have to pay for at least the first phone call.

SIMON: You would have to. You know, there was a proposal that the FCC had at one time that would fix this. It's called Calling Party Pays. That means the person who calls your cell phone would have to pay. It was not very popular at the time. They withdrew it. Maybe it's one that has to be reconsidered in some fashion, so that when they call your phone, they actually incur the cost and not you, the consumer.

HARRIS: I guarantee you that law will get reconsidered as soon as a couple of senators start getting some telemarketing calls on their cell phone. All right. Now, for folks out there that may be having this problem on a regular basis, give us some tips. What should they do?

SIMON: Well, first of all, be careful about giving out your phone number. Don't give it out. Treat it as an unlisted number, because right now, it is unlisted. Don't answer your cell phone if it's from numbers that you don't recognize. Use your voicemail, and definitely use the do not call list, and do it two ways. One, if you can, give the caller your name and number, and say, take me off the list, record it yourself. Or the Direct Marketing Association has a global list. Call them up, and get your name on the national do not call list. And if your state has a do not call list, use your cell phone number. Give them that number. You can also give them your home number if you want to exclude them from your home.

HARRIS: Now, do you have to pay anything to have your number registered in any of these do not call services or lists?

SIMON: DMA does charge you if you do it online, but not if you call them or send them a letter. But most of the states don't require you to pay anything.

HARRIS: OK. So you have to pay to get off the list. You have to pay for the first phone call. It's almost like you can't win in this situation, huh? And now...

SIMON: Now...

HARRIS: Go ahead.

SIMON: Well, I was going to say, not only that, but you know, wireless consumers aren't used to getting these calls. They are more vulnerable right now. You get a call, even it leaves a number on your cell phone, you think it's important. Some of the scams that are out there, you get these phone calls or numbers from overseas, you may end up calling the Caribbean or overseas and getting hit with long -- you know, international rates. So you have to be very careful. Don't return a call if you don't know who the caller is.

HARRIS: Smart idea. Sam Simon, we sure appreciate your ideas this morning -- thank you very much -- take care.

SIMON: Thank you.

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