International Law

Fraudsters Abusing do-not-call list - What a Surprise!

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The story that the Canadian do-not-call registry is being sold to scam artists should be a non story. 

The Consumers' Association of Canada says it has been inundated with complaints from people who have been called by scam artists after placing their telephone numbers on the registry, which went into effect last September.

The do-not-call list was created to prevent telemarketers from contacting people who do not want to be pestered with uninvited sales pitches.

For companies to find out who they are not permitted to call, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sells the list online for a fee.

"You can buy any list you want of people who subscribe to the do-not-call registry online.

The whole of Toronto costs you 50 bucks for 600,000 names," Bruce Cran, president of the CAC, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

I have consistently railed about this myopic regulatory response.  Over a year and half ago, I predicted that people who put their name on do not call list would find that they were getting more and not less telemarketing calls - because the list would be sold.

Buy an answering machine, screen your calls, and don't signal to the world that your identity is important enought to steal.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on January 26, 2009 (boomark / email).