I received an email today from a mortgage broker colleague trying to “help” that said that tomorrow every cell phone number would be released to telemarketers. The email went on to say, if you want your cell phone on the National Do Not Call Registry, here’s the phone number to call (from your cell phone).
Thinking this odd, I went to the website of the National Do Not Call Registry. Sure enough at the top of the page there’s a comment about cell phones:
Did you get an email claiming that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls because of a new cell phone number database? Those claims are not true. In fact, federal law prohibits telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phones. You may place your personal cell phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry, but there is generally no reason to do so.
On occasion I do receive solicitations on my cell phone. These solicitations are always targeted to Steve Belt the REALTOR, not Steve Belt the consumer. They are annoying, but I get them over with quickly. Fortunately, they aren’t a daily occurrence, like home solicitations were before the National Do Not Call registry.
In my opinion, the National Do Not Call registry is working, and working well. If you haven’t added your home phone number to the registry, or are unaware it exists, I highly recommend adding it. There’s nothing wrong with adding your cell phone (I went ahead and did that today, just for grins), but it’s not supposed to be necessary.
Regardless, if you decide to register a phone as a Do Not Call Phone, I highly recommend doing it from the website above. You will need to supply a valid email address, but the process takes less than 30 seconds. I’m honestly afraid to know what the supplied 888 number that was in the email is really for, but something smells phishy…
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