Hold those robo calls

Wow! When I posted about robo calls last week, I never expected a response like that. Not only did people lash out in the comments of that post, but I got a ton of e-mail on the topic. Apparently I’m not the only one who is irritated by marketing calls, political calls, or “surveys” that arrive via phone.

The question on everyone’s lips seems to be, “If these are so universally unpopular, why do companies and political parties persist? Don’t they know they are just pissing us off?” OK, they must have numbers that say it’s worth it, but maybe they aren’t reading those correctly.

One of the responses I got to that article was from Shaun Dakin — CEO and founder The National Political Do Not Contact Registry. And he claims (on his site) that “the only third party and legitimate studies [on the effectiveness of robo calls] have been performed by Dr. Green and Dr. Gerber at Yale University. According to Dr. Green robo calls have ‘a perfect record of never having worked.'”

Dakin also offered some great tips for avoiding the particular irritant that is the political robo call. He lists them on his site, and they are terrific. For example, you probably know to unlist your phone with the telephone company. But did you know that you can unlist your phone number from Google (and it’s free)?

Some states ban robo calls altogether — with no exemptions. Does yours? Check it out. According to Dakin, “California is the biggest state with a robo call ban. If you live in CA, robo calls are illegal according to the California Public Utilities Code sections 2871-2876. We have set up a specific web page to help CA residents file a complaint and to learn more about the law.”

There is a ton of information at Dakin’s site, but he has one more tip I want to weigh in on: Dakin suggests you refuse to offer up your phone number when you register to vote, volunteer for a political party, or donate to a political party. If you do, you will get calls. That’s a good one.

I would add that if you do have to put a phone number on forms like this, make it a virtual number that does not ring your house or cell. You can get those from Skype, Vonage, GrandCentral.com, and many other places. They are cheap, and you can send all calls — or the ones with numbers you don’t recognize — to voice mail from most of those services. (This makes a good number to put on business cards, hand out at dance clubs, or use for eight-minute-date events, too.)

If it’s your cell phone that’s being pestered, sign up at YouMail.com (a free service). That way, you can set your voice mail to play a greeting (“This phone number has been disconnected,” for example) and hang up before your telemarketer can leave a message. It uses caller ID to identify callers so your own calls will still get through.

(Thanks for the shout-out on Twitter, Shaun!)

I also heard from Julia Forte from 800Notes.com. She says, “800Notes.com collects phone numbers used by telemarketers, con artists, and other businesses that call from unknown numbers. Users then share what they know about the callers including opt-out phone numbers, business addresses, and other information that helps to identify the number owner and stop the calls. Usually within minutes of receiving a suspicious call, people log the phone number along with the comments.” So if you get a call that really ticks you off, check it out there. You might discover the source. Or, at the very least, you can warn others.

Got gripes? Send them to christina_tynan-wood@infoworld.com.