Telemarketers strike back at consumers
By Lucy Lazarony • Bankrate.com

The battle between telemarketers and consumers is heating up with telemarketers firing the latest salvo.

New software that allows telemarketers to bypass phone company privacy services and thwart privacy gadgets such as the TeleZapper hits the market in June.

"There's an arms race going on," says Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Inc. "Consumers buy gadgets and telemarketers find countermeasures."

The TeleZapper wards off some computer-dialed telemarketing calls by faking the tones of disconnected numbers. You can download similar tones for free off privacy sites such as Private Citizen and Junkbusters.

Privacy systems from some phone companies reject calls that fail to provide caller ID.

But none of these privacy defenses will deter calls from telemarketers using DirectQuest software from Castel Inc.

Guess who's calling?
To learn a phone line's condition, DirectQuest reads signals from a phone company's computer. It doesn't actually listen to a phone line, so blaring out phony, disconnected tones does little good.

DirectQuest gives a telemarketing company the ability to specify a caller ID for each client it calls for, rather than just listing the main number of the company.

"Nobody is going to take a call if it says Acme Teleservices," says Geoffrey Burr, president of Castel Inc.

And that's why so many telemarketing companies fail to list caller IDs.

A telemarketer using DirectQuest software would be able to list a specific caller ID for a client, say a cell phone company. Such a call would slip right by a privacy program that automatically rejects calls without caller ID.

"It would have the correct caller ID and the called party could pick up the phone or not, which is the whole point of caller ID," Burr says.

Despite the software's ability to outfox privacy programs and gadgets, Burr does not view the product as anticonsumer.

If anything, he says, it will help telemarketers abide by the new rules laid down by the Federal Trade Commission, which require telemarketers to transmit telephone numbers, and if possible, the name of the company, to a consumer's caller-ID service. This rule takes effect in April 2004.

DirectQuest software also promises to reduce "dead air" at the start of telemarketing calls and minimize abandoned calls, those that ring and ring and nobody is there when you answer.

"The fundamental thing is to eliminate the annoying, almost intimidating nature of picking up the phone and nobody being there," Burr says.

Tougher rules for telemarketers regarding dead air calls and abandoned calls were finalized back in December with other amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule. These rules take effect in October.

Don't-call-me lists
The most promising new rule and the biggest consumer weapon in the privacy war to date is the establishment of a federal do-not-call registry.

Signing up for the federal registry is free. Once a consumer is on this list, most telemarketers would be prohibited from calling.

And just as importantly, a telemarketer that calls a consumer listed on the federal do-not-call registry could pay quite a price.

Any registered consumer who receives a single, unsolicited and prohibited call may file a complaint. Violators could be fined $11,000 per incident.

"It's going to be a lot easier to get the lawbreakers," Catlett says.

Enforcement of the national do-not-call list takes effect in October.

If you enroll in the registry, the only information that will be kept is your telephone number. Registration can be renewed every five years; and your number stays in the registry for five years unless you want it deleted.

But don't expect to eat your dinner uninterrupted every night. Many companies are exempt from the new rules. They include companies you have previously done business with, some banks, long-distance phone companies, airlines and politicians.

The war rages on
And don't expect the privacy battle between telemarketers and consumers to end anytime soon. There's too much money at stake.

Telemarketing is a big and effective business. Call centers employ more than six million workers and rake in more than $660 billion in sales each year.

Consumers, who don't buy over the phone and are fed up with telemarketing calls, are just as resolute.

Robert Bulmash, president of Private Citizen, a privacy group in Naperville, Ill., foresees continued resistance against the "telenuisance" industry.

"There's one place human beings have the right to be left alone," Bulmash says. "And that's their home."