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Blocking the Calls

Aired June 27, 2003 - 14:29   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Don't call us, we'll call you. Telemarketers try to make 104 million phone calls a day, not all of them, believe it or not, during the dinner hour, but now people across the nation can block those calls. You can register your number on a do-not call list, and the Federal Trade Commission will begin enforcing it on October 1st. President Bush kicked off the program this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they're all too common. When Americans are sitting down at dinner or a parent is reading to his or her child, the last thing they need is a call from a stranger with a sales pitch. So we're taking practical action to address this problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, you can register online at www.donotcall.gov. The toll free number is 1-888-382-1222. That number is available west of Mississippi today and nationwide by July 7th.

Now, if this sounds like nirvana to you, well, don't be fooled because you can still get some unwanted phone calls. Certain groups and individuals, including politicians, are exempt from the restrictions on telemarketers. Roben Farzad is with "Smart Money" magazine. He joins us now live from New York.

Roben, good to see you.

ROBEN FARZAD, "SMART MONEY" MAGAZINE: Hi, Kyra, how are you?

PHILLIPS: Good. Let's talk about a couple of these groups that are exempt and why.

FARZAD: The FTC list is kind of riddled with loopholes here. Telemarketers have to observe this list of people in October, and people who are precluded from that are political organizations, charities that are calling you, any business that you dealt with in the past 18 months, and the logic of that is being that this might be the kind of call that you want to receive. These people aren't doing it nefariously. They have a relationship with you, and you certainly want to know if something is going on with your account.

PHILLIPS: But you can still tell those folks, hey, look, don't call me back, right? FARZAD: Absolutely, You can do that on a one-on-one basis. Whether someone setting you up for campaign money, if it's a charity that you contributed to once before, you can tell them that perhaps if they'd like to e-mail you. There are others ways of doing this. And remember, your name can kind of get out exponentially. There's going to be big demands for amenable names once this list is finally enforced.

PHILLIPS: I was reading, too, there may be stricter rules for telemarketing calls, these ones that can go through? Is that through, and what do they mean by stricter rules?

FARZAD: I mean, that stuff is just up in the air. I believe there's something out there that dead time that you get when these telemarketers do call, and you hear four seconds of nothing, I believe that they're going to kind of shoot that down. And if you do have the right to call someone, you have to get to your point immediately. Let's see how this all unfolds. Certainly the government had decades to enforce this and start some sort of rule, so this is long overdue.

PHILLIPS: What about cell phones. I haven't had this problem yet, but a lot of people here in the newsroom say, hey, I'm getting these calls on my cell phone.

FARZAD: Cell phones, there isn't a central directory out there. I think you have opt out of getting your number published in a yellow page, whether you're in New York, D.C., Angeles. Cell phones, on the other hand, are the property of the cell phone provider.

But to the extent that you don't give out that number to credit card companies, you don't give it out to merchants, you're not going to be bothered. But increasingly, these merchants have proved to be pretty adept at getting those numbers. And it's problematic, because you have to pay to answer the call.

PHILLIPS: So we can get on this now with regard to our phone, but does this mean we're going to get more spam? Are we going to get more junk mail?

FARZAD: Yes, I certainly think so. If you kind of pinch the telemarketers, the direct marketers, whoever they are, who believe that they have a God-given right to contact you, they're going to pursue other avenues. I mean, the second most popular way to do this is postal mail, and they drive up the cost of postage for everybody else.

And if they can't call you legally any more, they're going to redouble their efforts in sending junk snail mail. And obviously legislation is something that could be in the offing, but this would embolden them to use the e-mail medium, which is really cheap, and you can send out millions of messages for just dollars. So that's pretty scary.

PHILLIPS: All right, Roben, real quickly, before we let you go, is it possible that we could one day see no more telemarketing calls? I mean, already they're bumping up some restrictions? FARZAD: You would have to have the government, state, local, federal governments, everybody get together, and with the Better Business Bureau and whatnot and actually put together tight rules. I am pretty skeptical with regards to this do not call list, because it's riddled with loopholes. It leaves marketers to use spam, and direct mail marketing. There has to be this grassroots push to get rid of these people. And once again, they think that you want to get this stuff. But if you look at the Web site today, the do not call Web site, it's received hundreds of thousands of hits, so that should be a clear message.

PHILLIPS: I got to tell you, Roben, there's a lot of my friends who take those calls, and they're on the phone for a while.

Roben Farzad, "Smart Money" magazine. Thank you.

FARZAD: Thank you, Kyra.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired June 27, 2003 - 14:29   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Don't call us, we'll call you. Telemarketers try to make 104 million phone calls a day, not all of them, believe it or not, during the dinner hour, but now people across the nation can block those calls. You can register your number on a do-not call list, and the Federal Trade Commission will begin enforcing it on October 1st. President Bush kicked off the program this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unwanted telemarketing calls are intrusive, they are annoying, and they're all too common. When Americans are sitting down at dinner or a parent is reading to his or her child, the last thing they need is a call from a stranger with a sales pitch. So we're taking practical action to address this problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, you can register online at www.donotcall.gov. The toll free number is 1-888-382-1222. That number is available west of Mississippi today and nationwide by July 7th.

Now, if this sounds like nirvana to you, well, don't be fooled because you can still get some unwanted phone calls. Certain groups and individuals, including politicians, are exempt from the restrictions on telemarketers. Roben Farzad is with "Smart Money" magazine. He joins us now live from New York.

Roben, good to see you.

ROBEN FARZAD, "SMART MONEY" MAGAZINE: Hi, Kyra, how are you?

PHILLIPS: Good. Let's talk about a couple of these groups that are exempt and why.

FARZAD: The FTC list is kind of riddled with loopholes here. Telemarketers have to observe this list of people in October, and people who are precluded from that are political organizations, charities that are calling you, any business that you dealt with in the past 18 months, and the logic of that is being that this might be the kind of call that you want to receive. These people aren't doing it nefariously. They have a relationship with you, and you certainly want to know if something is going on with your account.

PHILLIPS: But you can still tell those folks, hey, look, don't call me back, right? FARZAD: Absolutely, You can do that on a one-on-one basis. Whether someone setting you up for campaign money, if it's a charity that you contributed to once before, you can tell them that perhaps if they'd like to e-mail you. There are others ways of doing this. And remember, your name can kind of get out exponentially. There's going to be big demands for amenable names once this list is finally enforced.

PHILLIPS: I was reading, too, there may be stricter rules for telemarketing calls, these ones that can go through? Is that through, and what do they mean by stricter rules?

FARZAD: I mean, that stuff is just up in the air. I believe there's something out there that dead time that you get when these telemarketers do call, and you hear four seconds of nothing, I believe that they're going to kind of shoot that down. And if you do have the right to call someone, you have to get to your point immediately. Let's see how this all unfolds. Certainly the government had decades to enforce this and start some sort of rule, so this is long overdue.

PHILLIPS: What about cell phones. I haven't had this problem yet, but a lot of people here in the newsroom say, hey, I'm getting these calls on my cell phone.

FARZAD: Cell phones, there isn't a central directory out there. I think you have opt out of getting your number published in a yellow page, whether you're in New York, D.C., Angeles. Cell phones, on the other hand, are the property of the cell phone provider.

But to the extent that you don't give out that number to credit card companies, you don't give it out to merchants, you're not going to be bothered. But increasingly, these merchants have proved to be pretty adept at getting those numbers. And it's problematic, because you have to pay to answer the call.

PHILLIPS: So we can get on this now with regard to our phone, but does this mean we're going to get more spam? Are we going to get more junk mail?

FARZAD: Yes, I certainly think so. If you kind of pinch the telemarketers, the direct marketers, whoever they are, who believe that they have a God-given right to contact you, they're going to pursue other avenues. I mean, the second most popular way to do this is postal mail, and they drive up the cost of postage for everybody else.

And if they can't call you legally any more, they're going to redouble their efforts in sending junk snail mail. And obviously legislation is something that could be in the offing, but this would embolden them to use the e-mail medium, which is really cheap, and you can send out millions of messages for just dollars. So that's pretty scary.

PHILLIPS: All right, Roben, real quickly, before we let you go, is it possible that we could one day see no more telemarketing calls? I mean, already they're bumping up some restrictions? FARZAD: You would have to have the government, state, local, federal governments, everybody get together, and with the Better Business Bureau and whatnot and actually put together tight rules. I am pretty skeptical with regards to this do not call list, because it's riddled with loopholes. It leaves marketers to use spam, and direct mail marketing. There has to be this grassroots push to get rid of these people. And once again, they think that you want to get this stuff. But if you look at the Web site today, the do not call Web site, it's received hundreds of thousands of hits, so that should be a clear message.

PHILLIPS: I got to tell you, Roben, there's a lot of my friends who take those calls, and they're on the phone for a while.

Roben Farzad, "Smart Money" magazine. Thank you.

FARZAD: Thank you, Kyra.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com