got a call at 6.24pm on 11-22-11- and some female rattled off - this is concerning your credit, there's nothing wrong with it, but push 1 for information. i hung up on it. we are on national dnc register, so how does this telemarketing racket get by with bothering people
First of all, no one sold your phone number or name to these goofballs. These guys use an automated dialer that simply randomly dials numbers. If a number doesn't connect, it's taken off the list, and a new one is tried. These autodialers can dial thousands of numbers in a minute.
These guys are breaking the law. It's that simple. They know about the DNCL, and are simply ignoring it. It's like saying why was someone allowed to break into your house and steal your jewelry. They weren't suppose to. They're just crooks who ignore the law.
Verizon nor AT&T are not "making money" on this. In fact, it is highly likely that they don't know who these guys are, and have themselves filed suits in various courts against these "John Does". I also suspect they're probably being investigated by Attorney Generals in many states.
Here's how it works. The company behind this scam "hires" an autodialing company to make the phone calls. When you press "1", or whatever, the auto dialing company switches the call to the company behind this scam. This is done for several reasons. It gives the company running the scam the ability to claim they didn't know the autodialing company violated the DNCL law. Plus, the dialing company has the technology to make millions of calls.
The company that does the dialing is located outside the U.S. This makes it difficult for the government to track them down. Although these are "long distance" calls, they're really VOIP calls done over the Internet, thus are just as cheap to do as regular domestic calls. Since this is done by a private VOIP network, they can put whatever name and number they want to appear on your caller ID. That's illegal, but the dialing company has set themselves up to be pretty immune from any sort of legal repercussions. It is highly likely that these calls are being dialed from either Russia or countries in the former Soviet Union where corruption is rampant, the rule of law is weak, yet you have millions of highly technical people available who can set these types of things up.
Now, to the company who is actually making the calls. If you ask them who they are, they'll hang up immediately. They're not interested in talking to you. If you ask them about their company, they'll hang up immediately. The only way they'll talk to you is if they're convinced you're a gullible customer who is willing to pay for their service or give them your credit card number.
I ran into a similar situation about two years ago with those automotive warranty companies. I ended up contacting a few dozens of my friends to set up a "sting" operation. We pretended to be people who were really, really interested in extended warranties, but tried to (gently) ask questions to help determine the company and the names of the people behind the operation. It wasn't easy.
After about three weeks, we had enough information from names they used, bits and pieces of information of who they said they were, the names of the "product" they're selling, to be able to trace the responsible parties to two companies located about 15 miles from each other in Missouri. We went to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile with this information. We contacted the attorney generals of almost 20 states. In three days, the entire operation was shut down.
And, in the end? The company was fined a few million dollars, and the guys running the company signed a promise that they would no longer do it ever again. No one was charged with criminal charges. Breaking the DNCL is a civil offense, and fraud charges were almost impossible to bring. And, the auto dial company? They were (past tense) based in Estonia, but closed down their shop and moved to Moldova and then to the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic where they're safely away from the law's reach.
I recommend that you hang up. Don't bother to press "3" to remove yourself from the list. In a few months, the scam will be over. Either the people behind it will collect their money, or more likely get caught and face a severe civil penalty in which they'll promise never to misbehave again. Then, they'll move to another state, rinse and repeat.
If you want to help catch these guys, pretend to be a customer and ask innocuous questions. See if someone will tell you the company's name or location. If you ask for it directly, they'll hang up. If you sweet talk them, you might find some information. Then, call your phone company with this information, and file a complaint to your state's attorney general. The more information you can give the phone companies and the AGs of the various states, the faster they can slap these guys on their wrist.
We are on the "do not call registry" ....but receive these calls daily!!!! What good is a registry if these calls are allowed to continue? I have already made a complaint.
Rachel better stop calling me because we are on the national do not call list. this time i was able to press '3' to opt out of future notices.
problem is, rachel calls from every state in the country using different company names, no names, bogus names at least once every other day/