Someone please tell me this is an internet rumor!

treitz3

Real or rumor? This is an e-mail I got from my sis' out in Washington.

Cell phone numbers go public tomorrow.

REMINDER....all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing
companies tomorrow and you will start to receive sale 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. You must call from
the
cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a
different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
It takes about 20 seconds.

Please tell me that this is BS.

treitz3

Oh, it was dated for yesterday, so today it would have been in effect.

hoosier21

BS I would say, this is the 4th time this was to happen

F1nut

Telemarketing companies don't need a phone number list to call you. They have computers that just dial away.

If you want to stop such calls to your home or cell, register your numbers at the National Do Not Call Registry.

https://www.donotcall.gov/

petrym

+1 on F1nut, just enter any/all of your numbers and you're okay.

joeparaski

Or get rid of your cell phone

Joe

ben62670

F1nut wrote: »

Telemarketing companies don't need a phone number list to call you. They have computers that just dial away.

If you want to stop such calls to your home or cell, register your numbers at the National Do Not Call Registry.

https://www.donotcall.gov/

Thanks for the link. I am now registered!

MrNightly

Been registered there for a while now.. it takes 2 minutes, painless, don't have to talk to anyone and it works!

Use it!

dorokusai

I have yet to be called by a telelmarketer in 13 years on my various cell phones. I must not be as cool as the rest of you.

I-SIG

Snopes says: FALSE

Cell #'s released

Wes

mrbigbluelight

dorokusai wrote: »

I have yet to be called by a telelmarketer in 13 years on my various cell phones. I must not be as cool as the rest of you.

Well, ..... we weren't going to say anything, but ...... uhm .........

unc2701

F1nut wrote: »

Telemarketing companies don't need a phone number list to call you. They have computers that just dial away.

If you want to stop such calls to your home or cell, register your numbers at the National Do Not Call Registry.

https://www.donotcall.gov/

+1 on the do not call list, HOWEVER telemarketing to cell phones is illegal. If you have a cell phone # that you've transfered from a landline, you should definitely add that number to the do not call list since telemarketers not going to get into trouble for calling those. On the other hand, any cell phone company assigned numbers ARE illegal to call and due to the way their dialing works, telemarketers actually respect this law.

And now the too much info:

Contrary to what you might think, the telemarketers aren't out there dialing away at every number. They purchase lists of "100 banks"; the phone companies tend to assign phone numbers in blocks so if the number ****-****-XX00 is active, then ****-****-XX01, ****-****-XX02... ****-****-XX99 will probably be active. Furthermore, businesses and residential tend to be clustered on this (ever notice how you never seem to get anyone selling magazines calling you at work?)

There are a few companies that do the gruntwork of finding these active 100 banks, determine if they're business or residential and even do things like determining probable demographics, etc. The cell phone companies typically provide list of the cell phone banks to eliminate from the lists. Telemarketers then buy these 100 bank lists and set their computers to work dialing every number in each 100 bank.

I did some survey sampling work for my masters & had to work through the implications of telephone surveys based off of samples of the 100 banks, since there are some things that make you more likely to get a hit on them.

treitz3

I haven't gotten any calls. Thanks for your input. I just wanted to relay some updated information to my sis. Thanks again gentlemen, it is appreciated. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend!

dpowell

treitz3 wrote: »

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888-382-1222

It is the National DO NOT CALL list.

That number is probably put out by the telemarketing companies to try and phish cell phone numbers to put on their call lists.