Telemarketers & Carriers

Maybe this has been asked before here. Does anyone know which Wireless
Carriers plan to let telemarketers access cell numbers. I heard that
this January is when they will be allowed to.

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Home --> Politics --> Business --> Celling Your Soul




Celling Your Soul


Claim: An upcoming directory will soon make all cell phone numbers
available to telemarketers.

Status: Multiple:
A consortium of wireless providers is planning to create a 411
(directory assistance) service for cell phone numbers: True.


You must register your cell phone with the national "Do Not Call"
directory before 1 January 2005 to prevent your number from being
provided to telemarketers: False.
Examples:

[Collected on the Internet, 2005]

DON'T FORGET TO DO THIS....
Telemarketing on cell phone starts in September.

JUST A REMINDER... 31 days from today, cell phone numbers are being
released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales
calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS...

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.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS


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[Collected on the Internet, 2004]

A directory of cell phone numbers will soon be published for all
consumers to have access to. This will open the doors for solicitors to
call you on your cell phones, using up the precious minutes that we pay
lots of money for. The Federal Trade Commission has set up a "do not
call" list. It is called a cell phone registry. To be included on the
"do not call" list, you must call from the number you wish to register.


The number is 1-888-382-1222 or you can go to their website at
www.donotcall.gov.


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[Collected on the Internet, 2004]

Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to
telemarketing firms. So this means as of Jan 1, your cell phone may
start ringing off the hook with telemarketers, but unlike your home
phone, most plans pay for your incoming calls. These telemarketers will
eat up your free minutes and end up costing money. According to the
National Do Not Call List, you have until Dec 15, 2004 to get on the
national "Do Not Call List" for cell phones. You can either call
1-888-382-1222 from the cell phone that you wish to have put on the "do
not call list" or you can do it online at www.donotcall.gov.

Registering only takes a minute, is in effect for 5 years. All of you
will need to register before Dec 15. You may want to also do your own
personal cell phones.


Origins: As the use of cellular telephone technology has grown
tremendously in the last several years, many consumers have given up
maintaining traditional land-line phone service entirely. They prefer
the convenient portability of cell phones, as well as the privacy: So
far, cell phone numbers have generally been excluded from printed phone
directories and directory assistance services, and protections have
been put in place to restrict telemarketing calls to cell phones.

Soon, however, some of the privacy that cell phones provide may be
eroded. Six national wireless companies (AllTel, AT&T Wireless,
Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS, and T-Mobile) have banded together and
hired Qsent, Inc. to produce a Wireless 411 service. Their goal is to
pool their listings to create a comprehensive directory of cell phone
customer names and phone numbers that would be made available to
directory assistance providers. (In most places, telephone users can
call directory assistance at 411 [for local numbers] or by dialing an
area code plus 555-1212 [for out-of-area numbers] and, by providing
enough information to identify an individual phone customer [usually a
full name and city of residence], obtain that customer's phone number.

Many cell phone customers are opposed to the proposed Wireless 411
service for a number of reasons:
They prefer the privacy of knowing that their cell phone numbers are
available only to those to whom they provide them. They don't want
other people being able to obtain their cell phone numbers without
their consent or knowledge.

They are concerned that their cell phone numbers will be sold to
telemarketers (or other groups that might make undesirable use of those
numbers).

They see one of the goals of the Wireless 411 service as a ploy to
spread cell phone numbers to wider circles of friends and
acquaintances, who will then place calls to cell phones and thereby
force cell customers to pay for additional wireless minutes.
The wireless companies behind the proposed Wireless 411 service contend
that their service will be beneficial to cellular customers and that
they have addressed those customers' major concerns:
The service would save money for the estimated five million customers
who use only cellular phones and currently pay to have their cell phone
numbers listed in phone directories.

The Wireless 411 service would be strictly "opt-in" - that is,
wireless customers will be included in the directory only if they
specifically request to be added. The phone numbers of wireless
customers who do nothing will not be included, those who choose to be
listed can have their numbers removed from the directory if they change
their minds, and there is no charge for requesting to be included or
choosing not to be included.

The Wireless 411 information will not be included in printed phone
directories, distributed in other printed form, made available via the
Internet, or sold to telemarketers. It will be made available only to
operator service centers performing the 411 directory assistance
service.
All of these points have been summed up in numerous media articles,
such as the following from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
There is a grain of truth in the message making it believable, but it's
wrong on two counts: Not all cell phone numbers will be listed in the
national directory planned for 2006. And telemarketers will not have
access to the directory. It is illegal for marketers using auto-dialers
- and most do - to call wireless phone numbers.

Here's the truth:

A national directory will be compiled, but numbers will be included on
an opt-in basis. If a cell phone subscriber does nothing, the number
will not be listed. When the directory is ready, it will be available
only as part of the existing 411 directory service, accessed by calling
in and asking for a specific number. It will not be published in a book
or on the Internet. And it will not be sold to telemarketers.

Cell phone subscribers can list their numbers on the do-not-call
registry if they choose, but there is no deadline to get on the list,
as the e-mail messages now circulating suggest
Nonetheless, many consumers don't trust the Wireless 411 consortium to
uphold their promises, and although Qsent and its clients plan to make
the Wireless 411 service available sometime in 2006, its implementation
is far from certain as the wireless companies are still contesting
proposed legislation which seeks to regulate wireless phone
directories.

So, although the gist of the message quoted at the head of this page is
correct in alerting consumers to a proposed directory of cell phone
numbers, it is misleading in stating that such a directory will "soon
be published" (the word "published" implies making a printed directory
available, which the wireless consortium maintains they will not do)
and in directing readers to 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).

Some versions of the exhortation to cell phone users to add their names
to the Do Not Call Registry erroneously state there is a 15 December
2004 deadline for getting listed. Says Lois Greisman, the Federal Trade
Commission official who oversees the anti-telemarketing registry:
"There is no deadline; there never has been a deadline to register."

However, belief that there might be such a cut-off coupled with the
e-mailed alerts themselves have served to multiply many times over the
number of registrations. Since the initial wave of sign-ups following
the 2003 launch of the list, registrations have come in at the rate of
200,000 new numbers a week. Yet in the final week of November 2004,
nearly 1 million new subscribers were added, and in the first week of
December 2004, that figure jumped to 2 million. At this point in time,
69 million phone numbers are contained in the registry.

Adding one's cell phone number to the National Do Not Call Registry
(even if currently unnecessary) won't have any adverse effect, but
customers should be aware of exactly what that action will and will not
accomplish.

Updates: Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular Corp. have always been
opposed to the proposed cell phone directory, and initial partners
Sprint Corp. and Alltel Corp. have since pulled away from the project
due to concerns about bad publicity and possible new government
regulations. So, as of January 2005, even if the cell phone directory
database was compiled as planned, at least 45% of U.S. cell phone
numbers wouldn't be included.

In April 2005, USA Today reported that registrations for the national
do-not-call list for the week ending April 2 were about double the
normal level, and registrations for the following week reached a peak
five times higher than average. The newspaper also reiterated what we
stated above:
.. . . the anxiety is unfounded. First, it's illegal to make sales
pitches to wireless phones by using automatic dialers - which is how
the vast majority of telemarketing calls are placed. (One reason is
that cellular users must pay for incoming calls.)

Also, most of the big wireless carriers have chosen either not to take
part in the directory or to put off any plans to do so in light of
consumer fears. They say any directory would include only those
customers who agreed to participate and that the numbers would not be
shared with telemarketers or anyone else. Congress has considered a
bill to codify such rules.

Additional information: Wireless 411 Service: Q&A (Qsent)
Privacy and the Wireless 411 Service (Qsent)

Last updated: 1 May 2005


The URL for this page is
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cell411.asp

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2006
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission.

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Sources:
Choi, Candice. "Cell-Phone Telemarketing Rumor Hooks Americans."
Los Angeles Daily News. 10 December 2004.

Dalton Jr., Richard J. "FCC Warns Telemarketers Against Calling
Cell Phones."
Contra Costa Times. 20 November 2003.

Davidson, Paul. "Telemarketers Won't Ring Up Cell Phones."
USA Today. 18 April 2005 (p. B4).

Drucker, Jesse. "Phone Directory of Cell Numbers Creates Static."

The Wall Street Journal. 14 January 2005 (p. B1).

Hajewski, Doris. "Cell Phone Directory Won't Be on Autodial."
[Milwaukee] Journal Sentinel. 29 April 2005.

Mayer, Caroline. "Bogus E-Mail Worries Users of Cell Phones."
The Washington Post. 10 December 2004 (p. E1).

Stinnett, Chuck. "Wireless Phone Privacy."
The [Henderson] Gleaner. 14 November 2004.

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