Friday 19 September 2008

Canada gets a Do Not Call Telemarketing AntiPhoneSpam List

As of September 30, 2008, Canada will have an official National Do Not Call List (DNCL).


Canada's National Do Not Call List

Supposedly, anyone who adds themselves to the list should no longer be bothered by telemarketers. By supposedly, we mean that there are certainly a lot of exceptions to the rules! Essentially any telemarketers, charities, and others already in the telemarketing business are exempt from what we have seen.

So, we need to be diligent in identifying the organizations calling us, writing times and numbers called down, and making sure they understand that we want to be removed from their call list. If we receive repeated calls, we can file a complaint and hopefully the Canadian enforcement organization follows through on their commitment to punish the offender(s).

We can also use the iOptOut Web site to further grind the telemarketer's wheels to a halt ... though the list of companies contained therein is rather slim at this point. It is still worth the time to fill out the form there as it will be honoured by the DNCL.

This is how we answer any call soliciting funds for any cause:

Telemarketer: Hi, we represent this most awesome cause and want to know if you would support us by buying ...."

Us: Hi, I am sorry but we have a company policy to never support any organization that phones us to solicit any form of support. There are no exceptions to this policy thank you very much. Also, remove us from your call list please (if we make it that far).

For the most part it works. And, if everyone adopted the this policy both in their place of business and at home, we would see a lot of telemarketers going out of business and some relief from the time wasted answering their calls at our place of business and the supper time phone calls that we now ignore.

The wikipedia entry for the National Do Not Call List.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

No comments: