Protect your cell phone minutes

[Sir_Shootsalot]

----- Subject: CELL PHONE NUMBERS GO PUBLIC NOV. 10TH]
>
> > JUST A REMINDER: 0n, Nov 10, cell phone numbers are being released to
> > telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales call.
> >
> > NOTE; Besides being disturbed by unwanted sales calls, YOU WILL BE
> > CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS.
> >
> > These Telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing
> > you money in the long run.
> >
> > To prevent this, call the following number from YOUR CELL PHONE;
> > 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL LIST. It will only take a
>
> > minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.
> >
> >OR REGISTER YOUR # ON LINE AT WWW.DONOTCALL.GOV
> >
>
>

Hey guys just thought that you might want to know about this.When I read it I signed up pretty quick.


Sir Shootsalot

[RedRock]

Don't they call that the BE SURE TO CALL THIS GUY, HE VERIFIED HIS NUMBER list?

[Sir_Shootsalot]

Red I thought it was on the level but what do you think.Maybe I should delete it . Waiting to see what you think.

Sir Shootsalot

[Lost_Child]

Did you research this Red or
is this just an uniformed opinion ?
From what I have found it is a legitimate site
from the Federal Trade Commission .

[Woody]

Not sure if it is the same down there, but in Canada all one has to do is contact their cell phone provider to not release it. I was contacted by my provider asking if I wanted the number released. Canadian companies are not allowed solicit over cell phones but US firms can...wierd

[Lamron]

Not true! Internet scare based on a proposed pooling of info between cell phone providers. Telephone numbers are owned by the phone companies, and there are several ways of obtaining and using this information. BUT, cell phone providers lease a block of numbers and then sub-lease them to you. The actual phone company that owns the number and equipment doesn't even know who the end-user is. They only know the name of the provider they leased to. For example, if you asked the phone company who was using my number, they would only know that I was part of the block of numbers they leased to Cingular.


The proposed sharing of info between providers was intended to be used as a Wireless 411 directory assistance service. This might be useful for people who have ONLY cell phones, but no land lines (a growing number of people).

The whole idea of this database scared users who valued their perceived anonymity, and liked knowing that they could only be called by people who they personally gave their number to. All of the cell phone providers have abandoned the idea, since no one trusted that the usage restrictions would actually be enforced.


Read more about it here:
www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp

[Lamron]

redrock said:

Don't they call that the BE SURE TO CALL THIS GUY, HE VERIFIED HIS NUMBER list?

That sure is true of spam E-Mails!

NEVER NEVER NEVER "UNSUBSCRIBE"

This just confirms that it is a valid address with a real person reading the messages. After that, you might as well abandon that E-Mail address and get another, because
your "confirmed" address will be sold to every spammer out there!

Its hard to believe, but spam is sent out "blind". Meaning, they don't actually try to find addresses to mail to. An address is made up of random letters and then is mailed to. If you have the computing power to do this millions of times a day, eventually by shear dumb luck you will find some real addresses. Then someone clicks "unsubscribe" or actually clicks on what they're trying to sell, and confirms it.

[RedRock]

lostchild said:

Did you research this Red or
is this just an uniformed opinion?

I swear I wasn't wearing a uniform when I wrote my post!

I had heard about this multiple times on the Clark Howard radio show. Yes, the site shootsy gave is a real one, but it's really for your home phone or other land lines, not for cell phones. See, for example
clarkhoward.com/library/tips/wireless_phones.html from his website:
"Congress halts cell phone directory - September 23, 2004
Clark has been following the news about the cell phone directory that most of the major cell phone companies are putting together. About 90 percent of consumers don’t want the directory. But the cell phone industry only sees the dollar signs involved. They will charge telemarketers who want to send junk phone messages and ads to our cell phones. In turn, we will have to pay for those messages. So, the industry is hoping to make billions. Verizon, to its credit, is the only one of the major companies that is not participating in this ludicrous plan. But the rest of the industry has gone before Congress to talk about what a great idea the directory is. The U.S. Senate wasn’t buying it, though. The Senate Commerce Committee voted overwhelmingly that the companies must get expressed permission from its customers before they are put in the directory. So, they’re hoping it will be an “opt in” only program, and Clark is very excited about this. For Congress to act before this has even happened speaks volumes about the cell phone industry’s reputation. It is an industry that cannot be trusted. Until they can, we cannot believe these companies will do what they say."

Other episodes of Clark Howard followed up by providing the info in Lamron's reference, and Lamron's reference was a good one (although was last updated May 1, 2005) and it says, in part, : .....sign up with the The National Do Not Call Registry. The latter step will not keep wireless customer listings out of the proposed Wireless 411 database — it will only add their phone numbers to a list of numbers off-limits to most telemarketers, a step which is premature (because the Wireless 411 directory has not yet been implemented) and largely unnecessary (because the Wireless 411 directory information is not supposed to be supplied to telemarketers, and because FCC regulations already in place block the bulk of telemarketing calls to cell phones).

The one thing that Clark has repeated, though, is that the Do Not Call List will not prevent your phone company itself from calling you with offers, as the law allows unsolicited calls from business types that you have an ongoing business arrangment with (I forget the exact legal language), which is your phone company but not the midwest frozen steak delivery service that the phone company sells your number to, for example. You need to contact the phone company directly to tell them not to contact you. Likewise, the language in the reference above has some "weasle" words in it that, if someone wanted, would not legally keep out all such calls ("largely unnecessary," "bulk of telemarketing calls").

I thought it was also well known that to respond to an unsolicited email with "unsubscribe" just in effect is a verification that your email account is active and that you check it, which makes you the perfect target for more such email.

So I put 2 and 2 together and gave my little witty answer, followed by my wink emoticon. I apologize to all for being obtuse, unclear, and, apparently, unfunny.

In fact, I thought it was a good posting, Shootsy, in that it made it easy to do the Do Not Call for my home phone, which I've been meaning to do for a long time but just kept forgetting, and I went ahead and put my 5 cell phone numbers in it, too, just for the heck of it! So there!

[BAT*21{usa}]

thanx 4 posting that site shoots. i needed 2 put a new # on it but couldn't remember the site's name