Lately, the fight against telemarketers has shifted toward Washington and the state capitals, inspired by not only constituent complaints but also the personal experiences of lawmakers like Carl Carpenter. Back in 1987, Carpenter's mother Ruth suffered a stroke, making it almost impossible for her to talk. But she always wanted to hear from her adult children and excitedly answered when the phone rang in her small apartment in Plant City, Fla., east of Tampa. Trouble was, most of the calls were from telemarketers. She was finally driven to create a code for her family: whenever they called, they should let the phone ring three times, hang up and then call back. Carpenter, then a member of the Florida house of representatives, led his state's 1989 adoption of a do-not-call plan in which phone companies were required to put an asterisk in the phone book beside the names of people who did not want to hear from telemarketers. This law was soon modified into a formal do-not-call list. But the law didn't completely shield Floridians because out-of-state telemarketers, often unaware of the list, continued to call. And Florida-based firms started annoying residents of neighboring Georgia â?? and helped inspire Georgians to pass their do-not-call law. Politicians in other states have begun to realize how much voters hate telemarketing. In Indiana, attorney general Stephen Carter was elected with help from an ad that showed his daughter spilling milk on the dinner table as Carter is saying, "Not interested" to a sales caller. Carter pushed the state legislature to adopt a do-not-call list, for which more than a million Hoosiers have signed up. And he has aggressively prosecuted companies that call people on that list. Overall, states have collected more than $3 million in fines against telemarketers over the past four years.
