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Next telemarketing scam: effort to reduce exemptions By David T. Thompson The next great telemarketing scam in Kentucky won’t come from a telemarketer but from anyone who believes legislation will actually will reduce the number of calls made to individual households. It just ain’t gonna happen. It is annoying to sit down to supper, put the first helping on the fork and be interrupted before it makes it to the mouth. The phone’s ringing. Don’t people know 6 p.m. is typical supper time in Kentucky? You can identify a telemarketing call within a second of picking up the receiver. You say “Hello?” and there’s no response. You say “Helloooo?” and finally there’s a voice asking for the Mr. or the Mrs. That silent second shows the caller is using automated equipment that identifies the difference between a real voice and an answering machine clicking on. Exemptions in Kentucky’s laws might be numerous, 21 or 22 depending on who’s doing the counting, but consider who has the exemptions: •Colleges and universities. Even with two daughters, never once did my phone ring trying to get me to send either or both to Podunk U. •501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) organizations. These are tax-exempt groups, like our own Kentucky Journalism Foundation. How many calls have you had from a charitable organization? I admit I’ve had one, in 1998, from the American Heart Association Scott County Chapter. Since I had my heart attack in 1997, they thought I was a prime candidate to make a donation in 1998. •A school or person on behalf of a school. Never have had one myself. More annoying are the parade of people at the front door selling cookies, candy, flowers, magazines, Christmas cards. •A real estate broker or agent. I get the postcards myself from real estate friends but never has one called the house in a telemarketing way. •An insurance agent. See real estate agent above. •An employment agency. How many employment agencies do telemarketing calls in the first place? •A person soliciting the sale of a subscription to a newspaper,
magazine...Okay, I’ve had two in 2001. Neither at home. Both at the
office. Both on my private line. I think I startled both by saying,
“We get four copies of your newspaper already.” I’m not being
smart, I’m being honest. It’s part of the dues structure for KPA.
I can just hear the caller thinking, “Why in the *#&*(*#$ does
this guy get four copies of my newspaper?” •A merchant soliciting the sale of food costing less than $100. I think I had a call years ago from some guy who was in Georgetown to deliver a truckload of beef but the grocery or restaurant had closed, he said, and he had this truckload of food that he was trying to sell. Yeah, right! But that’s the only food-related call I remember in my 54 years. Can’t call that a distraction. •A business or corporation regulated by the Department of Financial Institutions. They’re talking about banks and savings and loans associations, I think. If so, never had one. But they’re getting close to the real problem. •A merchant subject to the control or licensure regulations of the Federal Communications Commission. Are we talking about viewership and listenership surveys here? If so, yeah, I’ve gotten some. Maybe one a year in the last 10 years. So how many times have you had a telemarketing call from WXYZ-TV or FM/AM? Doubtfully many, if any. There are a few more, but too convoluted to explain. Suffice it to say, my phone hasn’t rung this year, or last year, or even the year before that from those companies that are exempted under ones I haven’t listed. The real problem telemarketers, the most annoying, are beyond the control of the Kentucky General Assembly, the American Association of Retired Persons, the Attorney General and anyone else who thinks a revised Kentucky law will make the difference. We’re talking credit card companies, and retailers with their own credit cards (those major department stores). We’re talking companies that are beyond the borders of the Commonwealth, who make their calls within the limits of federal law. Well, sometimes. Some don’t know my part of Kentucky is in the Eastern time zone and they’ve called close to 10 p.m., thinking it was only 9 p.m. in Georgetown. One of the exemptions I did not list reads, “A telephone call made by a merchant or telemarketer located in Kentucky to a location outside the Commonwealth of Kentucky.” Now we’re getting somewhere. Make every state have that language, so that telemarketers in New Jersey telling me about this great new credit card that will consolidate all my wife’s bills into one easy monthly, low interest rate payment, won’t be able to interrupt my fork to plate to mouth routine. But if the AARP, AG or any other person really thinks the legislature is going to cut telemarketing calls by decreasing the exemptions from 22 to five or six, give me their home telephone number. I have some ocean front property in Pike County I want to sell them.
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