The National Political Do Not Contact Registry - Stop Political Calls BLOG

CCD in the news again! - John Matarese of ABC TV's "Don't Waste Your Money" does a story on the National Political Do Not Contact Registry

Citizens for Civil Discourse is in the news again!

Shaun Dakin, Founder and CEO of Citizens for Civil Discourse, was interviewed by leading consumer reporter John Matarese, of WCPO TV 9 from Cinncinati, Ohio this week via satellite.  John has a leading consumer TV show called "Don't Waste Your Money".

 

About John Matarese:

A veteran reporter and two-time Emmy Award winner, John is our Don't Waste Your Money consumer reporter. Each week he keeps viewers updated on the latest consumer information with Scam Alerts and Product Recalls. And when he finds a service taking advantage of us, he's not afraid to say "Doesn't that stink!" John's goal is to help viewers find good values and avoid bad deals, with his signature line: "Don't Waste Your Money."

"I truly enjoy being able to advise people, and steer them away from the scams and bad deals that any of us can fall victim to. It's always a pleasure when a viewer says 'thanks' for helping them avoid a frustrating problem or find the best product."

Traveling? You can now watch John's reports in the following cities. Tell your out-of-town relatives to watch!

 

 

CINCINNATI:	WCPO (ABC) 5:30 & 11PM
BALTIMORE:	WMAR (ABC) 5PM
CLEVELAND:	WEWS (ABC) 5PM
DAYTON:	WDTN (NBC) 11PM
INDIANAPOLIS:	WRTV (ABC) 6AM
MILWAUKEE:	WTMJ (NBC) 4PM
PHOENIX:	KNXV (ABC) 6AM
TAMPA:	WFTS (ABC) Noon & 5PM
TOLEDO:	WTOL (CBS) 6AM & 5PM
TULSA:	KJRH (NBC) 6AM & 6PM
WEST PALM BEACH:	WPTV (NBC) 11PM

When not clipping coupons, John enjoys writing a weekly newsletter, speaking to community groups, bike riding and skiing with his family, and attempting his own auto repair (often unsuccessfully) to save money. Among his most memorable activities was the four years he taught journalism to inner city students at Cincinnati's Hughes high school.

How to remove your residential listing from Google

Did you know that if you put your phone number in the regular Google search box, your name, number, and address with a link to Google Maps will appear?

If you would like to stop this, Google has an Opt Out page available for you to do so.

As Google is apt to do, they make it easy and simple to do so.

Check it out and do it now.

You can click here to go directly to the page or click on the link to the right.

Robo Calls Start In Local Baltimore Race

Interesting brief note on a Robo Call for a Mayor election in Baltimore by Baltimore Sun journalist Sumathi Reddy.

Did you get this?  Do you have a recording you can share?

Let the Robocalls begin

Get a message from a snarky-sounding woman on your answering machine? Just one day after City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. declined to answer questions about Mayor Sheila Dixon's payments to her sister Janice, the flap was the subject of a robocall.

The calls began just as the Mitchell campaign hired Julius C. Henson, the controverisal Baltimore political strategist.

Couple things to note:

1. Dixon is not under federal investigation.
2. The company that her sister worked for got city contracts but they were not no-bid contracts.
3. Dixon does not face charges regarding her old campaign manager, Dale Clark. The state is looking into the matter.
4. Strange that the woman didn't say City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr.
5. Last but not least, it's now The Baltimore Sun. NOT the Sunpapers (Sunpapers went out when the Evening Sun closed a decade ago) .

Here's the transcript:

Here we go again. Dixon is up to her old tricks. According to the Sun papers, Dixon's sister is getting paid again. Sound familiar? Isn't Dixon still under federal or state criminal investigation for giving the company that her sister worked for no-bid city contracts?

Didn't Dixon also face charges for paying her old campaign manager over $300,000 of city money for work he didn't really do?

It's clear. We cannot trust Dixon.

Want honestly and integrity. Choose Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. for mayor. Vote Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr for mayor.

Consumer Reports - Phone Scams and New Tricks

Great story on CBS, The Early Show, with Consumer Reports Sr. Editor, Mandy Walker, on five of the latest consumer phone scams to be aware of.

I personally have not received any of these scams.  Have you?

Click here to see the video.

Here is the article in Consumer Reports.

Here is a transcript of the story on CBS:

Phone Scammers Trying New Tricks

NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2007

(CBS) Many people think they're too smart to fall for a scam, but according to an article in the current issue of Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org), scammers are using some new ploys aimed at savvy consumers.

Mandy Walker, a senior editor of the magazine, visited The Early Show Tuesday to warn viewers about what to keep an eye out for.

Actually — an ear! All involve would-be thieves calling potential victims.

SCAM: CALLER SAYS 'YOU'VE JUST WON ...'

Someone calls to say you've just won something like a valuable prize or foreign lottery. To get it, you're told that you have to wire money or send it overnight to pay for insurance, taxes and shipping costs.

The new twist is that scammers are using telephone-number spoofing technology through the Internet to disguise their real phone numbers on your caller ID with legitimate numbers of federal agencies in Washington, D.C., such as that of the Federal Trade Commission. They may also make up a name that sounds official. According to the real FTC, more than 45,000 people reported scams like this in 2006.

Tip: Remember that real sweepstakes don't require up-front payments. So, consider any request for money a red flag.

SCAM: CALLER SAYS "THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH YOUR BANK ACCOUNT"

The way this works is that you receive a call saying there's a problem and they can help you resolve it. All you have to do is to give your Social Security number, account number, or online password to a phony e-mail address or Web site. In one scheme, people were tricked into thinking they were dealing with Bank of America and asked to reconfirm their account information by going to a Web site that turned out to be fake.

Tip: Never give personal information to unsolicited callers. If you're not sure if the call is legitimate, get the number of the company on your own and call back. Tell someone there about the call you received.

SCAM: CALLER SAYS "YOU DON'T NEED A PHYSICAL TO QUALIFY FOR THIS HEALTH INSURANCE!"

People are vulnerable to falling for this one because there is so much discussion today about health insurance and premiums going up. "You will be offered a plan that sounds too good to be true," Walker says. "They will tell you that you can participate in a union's plan that you don't belong to and get low rates. If you ask about licenses and if their company is registered with the state, they will say they don't have to be because they are an association."

Tip: Check with your state insurance department to see if the agent is licensed to sell a plan and if the company and the plan are with the state department.

SCAM: CALLER SAYS "YOU DIDN'T SHOW UP FOR JURY DUTY!"

The scammer calls up and pretends to be a court officer and threatens to arrest you for not showing up, even though you weren't notified. You're asked to provide your name and Social Security number to fix things. Approximately 1 million computer users have fallen for this one in the past two years.

Tip: This is similar to the bank account problem scam. Don't provide personal information to someone who calls unsolicited. Also, put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry at www.donotcall.gov or 1-888-382-1222.

SCAM: CALLER SAYS "THIS STOCK IS AT 50 CENTS AND GOING UP TO $5 OR $6. BUY NOW!"

The way this works is that someone leaves you a voice mail message, supposedly for the wrong person. Messages like this have enticed some people to call and buy the stock. It's called a "pump and dump" scheme. It usually involves a micro-cap stock. The price is pushed up, then it's dumped, with your shares being worthless by the time you catch on.

Tip: Ignore unsolicited pitches and "wrong number" tips for any investment. Also beware of any friend who volunteers to give you inside advice. Do your own research, and invest on your own initiative.

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

Walker says people are also being re-victimized: Scammers calling themselves "recovery operators" are buying lists of people who reported losing money in phony investment schemes!

Keith Olbermann on 2006 Election Robo Calls

Interesting report on election eve with an example of robo calls (this one from the GOP) and the impact that they could have on an election. I'd be interested in hearing about Democratic calls.

Top 10 Opt Outs (World Privacy Forum)

I just read a great article at the World Privacy Forum's website on the Top 10 Opt Outs for consumers.

Be sure to read the entire thing here.

Here is a summary:

1. National Do Not Call Registry

2. Prescreened offers of credit and insurance

3. DMA opt outs

4. Financial institution opt outs

5. CAN SPAM

6. Credit freeze

7. FERPA

8. Data broker opt outs

9. Internet portal opt outs

10. NAI opt out

                                                              

Citizens For Civil Discourse in the News!

Patricia Sabatini, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Business Reporter, published an article about CCD and the National Political Do Not Contact Registry.

You can read it here.

About 300 people responded to this article and asked to be placed on the launch list.

If you can't link above here is the article:

Not all calls are created equal

Politicians, nonsellers are exempt from do-not-call lists

Thursday, August 09, 2007

By Patricia Sabatini, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Many people who register with do-not-call lists to block telemarketing calls are surprised to learn that charities, survey takers and politicians can continue to disturb them.

Those groups, and several others, won exemptions under state and federal laws because they technically aren't calling to sell anything. In the case of politicians, rulemakers also determined that banning those calls would violate rights of free speech.

	Stacy Innerst/Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

But relief may be on the way.

At least one effort is under way aimed at curbing political calls, which can be particularly irksome at election time when research has shown households can get 10 or more phone calls a day.

Of the 146 million phone numbers on the national do-not-call registry, "My hypothesis is that the vast majority would also like politicians to be included," said Shaun Dakin, founder of Citizens for Civil Discourse, a nonprofit group preparing to launch a political do-not-call registry in September.

"Most people are pretty angry when they find out politicians can call at will," Mr. Dakin said.

Complying with the registry would be voluntary, of course. But Mr. Dakin believes that if he can get enough people to sign up, most politicians would honor the list, not wanting to anger voters by continuing to pester them.

Right now, people can visit the group's Web site, www.stoppoliticalrobocalls.org, to get on a pre-launch list to be contacted when the registry goes live.

Since Mr. Dakin began publicizing the registry about three weeks ago, about 200 people have signed on, he said.

He expects interest will pick up after Labor Day when political parties start gearing up for the presidential primaries and calls for support start invading the dinner hour.

Mr. Dakin, 40, whose wife's salary as a doctor allowed him to quit his job as a product manager at the financial Web site Motley Fool in January to work on the effort full time, plans to focus initially on getting the lists to candidates in federal elections.

Instead of requesting that all political calls stop, registrants will be able to specify how and when they want to be contacted, such as only during certain hours or only by e-mail.

Registration will be free, but Mr. Dakin plans to charge politicians to get the list, just as telemarketers pay for state and federal do-not-call lists. Any profits will go to a charitable cause, he said.

Mr. Dakin said he had always wanted to do something "positive" in the political realm.

He called his idea for a political no-calls list a "no brainer" because of the popularity of do-not-call lists for telemarketers.

People who want to limit calls from charities and other exempt groups not covered by Mr. Dakin's effort can do so on a call-by-call basis, said Mitchell Katz, spokesman at the Federal Trade Commission, which runs the national telemarketing registry, www.donotcall.gov.

Companies are required to maintain internal lists of consumers who don't want to be called, he said.

"If you ask them to put you on their company-specific do-not-call registry, they should do that and not call you again," he said.

Because so many people find prerecorded sales pitches bothersome, the FTC has proposed an amendment to the Telemarketing Sales Rule that would prohibit prerecorded messages without a consumer's consent -- but again, politicians would be exempt.

---

(Patricia Sabatini can be reached at psabatini@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3066. )

146 Million Telephone Numbers Registered by Consumers on the Federal DNC Registry

According to testimony by Lydia Parnes, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission,

Consumers have registered more than 146 million telephone numbers since the Registry became operational in June 2003, and the Do Not Call program has been tremendously successful in protecting consumers’ privacy from unwanted  telemarketing calls.  A Harris Interactive® Survey released in January 2006 showed that 94% of  American adults have heard of the Registry and 76% have signed up for it.29  Ninety-two percent of those polled reported receiving fewer telemarketing calls.

Twenty-seven of the Commission’s telemarketing cases have alleged Do Not Call violations, resulting in $8.8 million in civil penalties and $8.6 million in redress or disgorgement ordered.

Have you submitted a complaint?

Was it resolved?

PA State Do Not Call List Starts to Expire First Group of Registrants from 2002

According to Attorney General's office in the State of Pennsylvania

Registration on the Do Not Call list is only valid for five years from the date you initially register, or when a telephone number is no longer valid. For example.if you were among the first group of registrants in 2002, you must re-register by September 15, 2007, or your number will be dropped from the Do Not Call list on November 1, 2007.

Learn more at the Attorney General's website.

The AG is Tom Corbett.