It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Has anyone else noticed this?

These are places that sell things for a dollar or 20, not 2000
dollars. For a 2000 item, if something were confused, they'd call me
on the phone, but for 10 dollars, they're never going to call me
about an order, are they? They'll email.

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.

Here is the relveant part of the Privacy Policy of a vendor I'm
looking at now, "Jxxxxx collects information largely to improve our
communication with our customers. Occasionally we make some
information available to a small selection of third parties who have
expressed interest in mailing information about related products or
services, but we never share e-mail addresses. "

Nothing about telephone numbers.

And even wrt email addresses, doesn't "share" mean give a copy to.
What's to prevent them from being paid to send an email (text provided
to them) to everyone on their email list? That's not sharing
addresses, that's sending an additional mailing.

(When I ran a hiking club, before email, on a couple occasoins we
enclosed with our mailed newsletter a page from a charitable group we
all approved of. But even then we didnt' give them a copy of our
mailing list. We only did this a couple times, but what prevents a
vendor from doing it hundreds of times, having their own set of
employees who would call using these phone numbers they've collected,
but call for 3rd parties? Is that against the Do Not Call law?


https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/st...ontent=privacy

Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?

On 02/20/2013 03:34 PM, micky wrote:
It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes, and I never give them my actual phone number. Hasn't been a
problem so far.

Jon

On 2/20/2013 5:34 PM, micky wrote:
....

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
....

If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.

As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at
least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it
more than once.

--

On 2/20/2013 7:07 PM, dpb wrote:
On 2/20/2013 5:34 PM, micky wrote:
...

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
...

If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.

As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at
least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it
more than once.

--

I don't mind giving mine out. It's listed and I even have it in my
websites. Vendors I deal with have not been bothering me.

However, the DNC thing has been violated with impunity.
I think every one is familiar with Heather from Account Services

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:07:23 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 2/20/2013 5:34 PM, micky wrote:
...

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
...

If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.

Yeah, but without the phone number, they can't call me. So more
vendors seem to be pushing harder to get my phone number.

As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at
least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it
more than once.

I've thought about that. When I shipped 27 cartons (all of her stuff)
to a friend who had moved to Swtizerland, I wrote her daytime phone
number there right on one or more cartons, so they'd have more than
her home address to find her, (if they didnt' tell her when they were
coming or arrived on a different day, etc. ) even though the shipper
hadn't asked for it. She got all her stuff with no problems.

This was before 9/11. Now the occasional shipper can only ship in the
US or from the US via the USPS, UPS, Fedex, and one or two more
shippers. But then I called shippers out of the yellow pages, and
found one that was right at the airport. As soon as I got there,
they put all the cartons** on one pallet and wrapped in Saran Wrap, or
something like that, They were much much cheaper than Mayflower Van
Lines, and much cheaper than Fedex iirc. Bu they had no idea who I
was or what was in the cartons (maybe a bomb) so one can't do that
anymore. In fact I had something else to ship and went looking for
their office and that was gone too, and other shippers next door etc.
said that an occasional shipper is limited to the companies above.

To save money, I piled all 27 cartons on to my convertible, going a
foot or more higher than my head was, and drove the quiet smooth route
to the airport. cargo terminal. At that point they told me they
would have picked it all up for $10. I lived 15 miles away and I
still can't believe pickup was that cheap. I would have done it had I
known.)

But I've never had a foulup delivering here, or a friend's store, so
Jon's convinced me. If I ever do, I suppose I'll start putting my
valid phone number.

Thanks to both of you.

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:15:11 -0500, Frank
wrote:

On 2/20/2013 7:07 PM, dpb wrote:
On 2/20/2013 5:34 PM, micky wrote:
...

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
...

If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.

As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at
least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it
more than once.

--

I don't mind giving mine out. It's listed and I even have it in my
websites. Vendors I deal with have not been bothering me.

However, the DNC thing has been violated with impunity.
I think every one is familiar with Heather from Account Services

I didn't get her name, but I've dealt with the company several times.
Once I asked her how I can trust the company, since it's already
breaking the law by calling me. After going around on that a couple
times, I think she said "F--k you" and I know she hung up

Since then -- assuming I'm thinking about the right company -- I've
learned that they're not very interested in you if you owe 3000
dollars to 3 credit card companies, but if you owe it to only one
company that they are int erested in. But I don't know t he account
number or something by heart and I have to go look for it, every time,
and I never manage to come back. The last time it took her about 5
minutes before she hung up on me. If even 10% of us did that, I've
read that they couldn't make any money and woudl stop calling.

Why hasn't the govt. been after them? And maybe one other place.

They can sequester all the money they want, but if they lower
enforcement of the do not call list, I'll complain big time. First
things first.

On 21 Feb 2013 00:37:59 GMT, RobertPatrick wrote:

Frank wrote in news:kg3ost$et9$1@dont-
email.me:

On 2/20/2013 7:07 PM, dpb wrote:
On 2/20/2013 5:34 PM, micky wrote:
...

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.
...

If you do business with them, that already gets them around it.

As much (or more than anything else) it's for the delivery folks--at
least FedEx, etc., will call if there's a foulup on address; have had it
more than once.

--

I don't mind giving mine out. It's listed and I even have it in my
websites. Vendors I deal with have not been bothering me.

However, the DNC thing has been violated with impunity.
I think every one is familiar with Heather from Account Services


One company won't stop calling me. I bought from them just once. Today
their number was on my caller ID, 7 times. I happened to be right there
when they called so I picked up and kept saying into the phone "do not call
this number." Said it over and over. They hung up on me and called right
back! Now I have their number programmed to go directly to voice mail.
They never leave a message.

Wow. Even from their pov it doesn't seem worth it.

The closest thing I have to that is Skype. My phone wasn't working
so I had to use Skype, and for the first 3 minutes or so, it worked
fine, but after that, it wanted to install the new version. And when
I said Later, it asked me again every 60 seconds, 20 or 30 times in
the 20 or 30 minutes I used it.

Since i had no regular phone, I didn't want to update until I fixed
my regular phone , and that took me most of 2 days.

Since i had no regular phone, I didn't want to update until I fixed
my regular phone , and that took me most of 2 days.

Here's a company that deals in spam and they list their phone number
on their web site

http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp

and an email address


maybe we should all let them know how we feel about spam..
redirect unwanted phone calls and email to them

Mark

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:39:30 -0500, micky
wrote:


Why hasn't the govt. been after them?

It isn't best in the interest of our idiot-in-chief to do something
worthwhile. When would he have the time? He's too busy golfing.

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:34:02 -0500, micky
wrote:

It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Somewhere around here I have a small book; it might be titled _How To
Create a New Identify_, ( taken from a prisoner - my relics now)

I don't give it up easily.

--
"There's nothing like the scent of Cordite in a woman's hair."

On Feb 20, 6:34*pm, micky wrote:
It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?

No, that's illegal. You should throw your phone through a window,
then post here asking how to fix it, then kill yourself.
-----

- gpsman

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:39:30 -0500, micky
wrote:


They can sequester all the money they want, but if they lower
enforcement of the do not call list, I'll complain big time. First
things first.

rots a ruc ree roy

"micky" wrote in message
...
It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Has anyone else noticed this?

These are places that sell things for a dollar or 20, not 2000
dollars. For a 2000 item, if something were confused, they'd call me
on the phone, but for 10 dollars, they're never going to call me
about an order, are they? They'll email.

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.

Here is the relveant part of the Privacy Policy of a vendor I'm
looking at now, "Jxxxxx collects information largely to improve our
communication with our customers. Occasionally we make some
information available to a small selection of third parties who have
expressed interest in mailing information about related products or
services, but we never share e-mail addresses. "

Nothing about telephone numbers.

And even wrt email addresses, doesn't "share" mean give a copy to.
What's to prevent them from being paid to send an email (text provided
to them) to everyone on their email list? That's not sharing
addresses, that's sending an additional mailing.

(When I ran a hiking club, before email, on a couple occasoins we
enclosed with our mailed newsletter a page from a charitable group we
all approved of. But even then we didnt' give them a copy of our
mailing list. We only did this a couple times, but what prevents a
vendor from doing it hundreds of times, having their own set of
employees who would call using these phone numbers they've collected,
but call for 3rd parties? Is that against the Do Not Call law?


https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/st...ontent=privacy

Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?

That'll do it.

Any online vendors who want a phone number but themselves don't have one??
LOL
I wouldn't be surprised.
--
EA

On 2/20/2013 6:39 PM, micky wrote:

I didn't get her name, but I've dealt with the company several times.
Once I asked her how I can trust the company, since it's already
breaking the law by calling me. After going around on that a couple
times, I think she said "F--k you" and I know she hung up

Since then -- assuming I'm thinking about the right company -- I've
learned that they're not very interested in you if you owe 3000
dollars to 3 credit card companies, but if you owe it to only one
company that they are int erested in. But I don't know t he account
number or something by heart and I have to go look for it, every time,
and I never manage to come back. The last time it took her about 5
minutes before she hung up on me. If even 10% of us did that, I've
read that they couldn't make any money and woudl stop calling.

Why hasn't the govt. been after them? And maybe one other place.

You must not follow the news. The FTC recently shut down several of
the companies that were running that scam. They were charged with
making misrepresentations to consumers in violation of the FTC Act,
along with multiple violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule for
misrepresenting their services, making illegal robocalls, , calling
numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, and collecting up-front fees.

http://ftc.gov/opa/2012/11/robocalls.shtm

Per micky:
It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Has anyone else noticed this?

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.

Makes a certain amount of sense to me. Even though the DNC lists are
becoming increasingly irrelevant as the big players move offshore and
hide behind multiple VOIP relays... being legally exempt would seem to
have some appeal to the little guy.

Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?

I don't give out my real phone number or my "real" email address to
merchants or businesses.... period.

For email, I have "Junk" addresses that I give out.

For phone, I've been giving out a work phone number that does not have a
phone connected to it. Lacking that, I would look for some number that
costs the caller money to call.... but I wouldn't even *think* of giving
out my "real" number.

Not that any of that helps much phone-wise. At the start of the DNC
thing, our solicitor calls dropped to zero. We even got a check for
thirty dollars and change as our share of a class action suite that the
Penna Atty General's office won against a solicitor.

But things went downhill from there and I started collecting a stack of
lame-sounding letters from the Penna Atty General's office to the effect
of "These guys are going offshore and using VOIP and it's just too hard
to get to them...".

As of now, we get about six robocalls per day on our land line and 3-4
on my cell phone. It's to the point where we are missing legitimate
calls because we wait a second or so to hear somebody on the other end
and then hang up if we don't hear anybody within that time frame.

My take is that challenge-response is the only answer.

- You call me

- My phone does not even ring yet

- You hear something like "Press 1 for Same, Press 2 for Sue,
....press 8 for Joe.... where the only choice that works
is, maybe, "9"

- Once somebody presses 9, then my phone rings.

- Experienced callers know to press 9 as soon as they hear
the pickup so they don't have the message inflicted on them.


I'm sure the technology exists for a technophile to implement that
scheme on their land line... but I'm not a technophile... just a
wannabe. Cell phones, OTOH, it seems like it would have to be
implemented by the carrier in order for the cell phone owner to avoid
the minutes. OTOOH, I can imagine it being implemented as a sort of
reject-list alternative on a smart phone except that the phone owner
would have to eat a minute or so for each call rejected.

I'd be interested to hear some other suggested solution because this is
the only one that I can think of that would actually work....and, at
this point, some of us really need something.
--
Pete Cresswell

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...
Per micky:
It seems like more and more online vendors want my phone number, and
they even make it a required field.

Has anyone else noticed this?

So I'm thinking they want this to get around the Do Not Call list.

Makes a certain amount of sense to me. Even though the DNC lists are
becoming increasingly irrelevant as the big players move offshore and
hide behind multiple VOIP relays... being legally exempt would seem to
have some appeal to the little guy.

Should I make up an invalid phone number and give them that?

I don't give out my real phone number or my "real" email address to
merchants or businesses.... period.

For email, I have "Junk" addresses that I give out.

For phone, I've been giving out a work phone number that does not have a
phone connected to it. Lacking that, I would look for some number that
costs the caller money to call.... but I wouldn't even *think* of giving
out my "real" number.

Not that any of that helps much phone-wise. At the start of the DNC
thing, our solicitor calls dropped to zero. We even got a check for
thirty dollars and change as our share of a class action suite that the
Penna Atty General's office won against a solicitor.

But things went downhill from there and I started collecting a stack of
lame-sounding letters from the Penna Atty General's office to the effect
of "These guys are going offshore and using VOIP and it's just too hard
to get to them...".

As of now, we get about six robocalls per day on our land line and 3-4
on my cell phone. It's to the point where we are missing legitimate
calls because we wait a second or so to hear somebody on the other end
and then hang up if we don't hear anybody within that time frame.

My take is that challenge-response is the only answer.

- You call me

- My phone does not even ring yet

- You hear something like "Press 1 for Same, Press 2 for Sue,
....press 8 for Joe.... where the only choice that works
is, maybe, "9"

- Once somebody presses 9, then my phone rings.

- Experienced callers know to press 9 as soon as they hear
the pickup so they don't have the message inflicted on them.


I'm sure the technology exists for a technophile to implement that
scheme on their land line... but I'm not a technophile... just a
wannabe. Cell phones, OTOH, it seems like it would have to be
implemented by the carrier in order for the cell phone owner to avoid
the minutes. OTOOH, I can imagine it being implemented as a sort of
reject-list alternative on a smart phone except that the phone owner
would have to eat a minute or so for each call rejected.

I'd be interested to hear some other suggested solution because this is
the only one that I can think of that would actually work....and, at
this point, some of us really need something.
--

I don't have a problem giving out my landline.
All calls are filtered though an answering machine
I also have CallAlert, that you run off your PC and Modem
All acceptable numbers are put in the Allowed list
Numbers that call repeatedly and don't leave a message, or spammer - who
usually don't leave a message, go into the blocked list.
The blocked list tells their machine that this is a disconnected number.

When someone calls and tells me they always get my machine, I answer, my
phone is for MY convenience not his.
I pick up when someone I want to talk to is leaving a message. Otherwise I
presume the call was not important

My current message is:
"Hi. We filter calls, please leave message to get a return call."

A lot of "8xx". "Out of Area", "Unknown ID" calls just stop after a few
attempts.

For those who keep insisting, the PC has a message for such numbers that
goes:
"Hello, if you keep calling and hanging up, you are a stalker. If you
persist, a criminal complaint is the next step."

Per Robert Macy:
made a Telemarketer Stoper by presenting a 'sit' tone:

The SIT tone has been on my land line's answering machine for almost a
year now.

I don't have a "Control" phone next to my land line, so I cannot say if
it helps any - but the number of robo calls is still pretty bad even
after a year.

I didn't really expect much... but hoped that the robocallers used by
political organizations during the past election season just *might*
have it programmed in to remove the number from their dialing list if
they hear a SIT tone bco cost considerations. But my guess is that
mostly they don't.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 08:38:11 -0600, Moe DeLoughan
wrote:

On 2/20/2013 6:39 PM, micky wrote:

I didn't get her name, but I've dealt with the company several times.
Once I asked her how I can trust the company, since it's already
breaking the law by calling me. After going around on that a couple
times, I think she said "F--k you" and I know she hung up

Since then -- assuming I'm thinking about the right company -- I've
learned that they're not very interested in you if you owe 3000
dollars to 3 credit card companies, but if you owe it to only one
company that they are int erested in. But I don't know t he account
number or something by heart and I have to go look for it, every time,
and I never manage to come back. The last time it took her about 5
minutes before she hung up on me. If even 10% of us did that, I've
read that they couldn't make any money and woudl stop calling.

Why hasn't the govt. been after them? And maybe one other place.

You must not follow the news. The FTC recently shut down several of
the companies that were running that scam. They were charged with
making misrepresentations to consumers in violation of the FTC Act,
along with multiple violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule for
misrepresenting their services, making illegal robocalls, , calling
numbers on the Do Not Call Registry, and collecting up-front fees.

http://ftc.gov/opa/2012/11/robocalls.shtm

Thanks. I didn't know that and it was good to read. Even if they
didn't get all of them yet, it will give me more things to say to
Heather when she calls again. LIke, "Does your father know you do
this for money?"

BTW, despite my previous post, I'm not one who thinks the govt. is
goofing off when it spends its time on one thing rather than another.
I was sort of pointing out that, Though these phone calls aren't the
biggest problem I could have that the govt. could help solve, they are
t he problem I most want the govt. to solve. Because they are
ANNOYING.

I'm certainly not stupid enough to think the president shouldn't play
golf once in a while. or that the people at the FTC shouldn't play
golf every weekend if they chose, or that that affects how much work
gets done.