Telemarketers in Colorado Increase Calls to Cell Phones July 31, 2002 â?? Telemarketers have dialed cellular phone users more often since the passage of Colorado's no-call legislation, and there's nothing the law can do about it. The state's no-call list, which has more than 836,000 home phone and fax numbers, was approved in May 2001 and went into effect this month. But the law does not cover wireless numbers. Meanwhile, telemarketers have made more sales pitches to wireless phone users over the past nine months, according to the Direct Marketing Association. And such calls â?? which the cellphone owner must pay for â?? could increase as more states place restrictions on sales calls made to home phones. "We do think that it may become a problem, and if it does become a problem, then the legislature should act on it," said Rutt Bridges, chief executive officer of the Big Horn Center for Public Policy, the advocacy group that led the push for Colorado's no-call law. "We wouldn't let the bulk-mail industry send us their materials postage due. Why should we allow the telemarketers to do that?" Bridges said he has received complaints from a handful of people who have been hit by solicitations on their wireless phones since the no-call law took effect. With fewer numbers to call, telemarketers may focus on cellphone users, said state Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, who sponsored Colorado's no-call legislation. "I suspect that since it's an avenue for unregulated solicitation, they may indeed head in that direction," White said. The Direct Marketing Association, a New York-based trade organization that represents 5,000 telemarketing firms, says sales calls made to mobile phones are inadvertent. "We feel that it serves no economic business purpose for you as a marketer to call and ask your consumer to pay for that call," said Louis Mastria, a spokesman for the association. The organization attributes the rise in cellphone spam to the dwindling pool of phone numbers. "The trouble comes in that right now it is relatively difficult to figure out which numbers are wireless and which aren't," Mastria said. "For instance, here in New York City, (the prefix) 917 used to be 100 percent wireless. That is changing just because numbers are running short, and so 917 is not universal anymore." Twenty-five states have no-call lists, and more than 7.5 million phone numbers are registered on those lists, according to Gryphon Networks, which helps telemarketers comply with no-call laws by blocking calls to numbers that are on no-call lists. Four years ago, only two states had such lists. White said lawmakers did not include cellphone numbers in Colorado's no-call legislation because such pitches were not considered a problem. "If it becomes a problem, you bet I'll carry legislation or amend the no-call-list legislation to include cellphones," he said. It was a problem for Parker resident Paul Gomez two months ago. A Colorado assistant attorney general, Gomez was doing legal research when a telemarketer pitching credit-card insurance called on his mobile phone. It was the third time in the past year that a telemarketer had interrupted him. "I was so upset that I told them to take my name off their call list," said Gomez, 45. Wireless phone numbers are unlisted, but once a consumer gives out the number â?? whether to enter a contest or to use a website â?? it can be sold to telemarketing firms. Gomez said he once gave his cell number to his credit card company when he was moving and didn't have a home phone. The Federal Communications Commission had considered requiring carriers to allow consumers to transfer their land-line numbers to cellphones by November, which would have further confused telemarketers. But the FCC extended the deadline earlier this month to November 2003. There are 137 million wireless users in the United States, and nearly 7 million don't have home phones, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. The Direct Marketing Association is working with the FCC to find ways to help telemarketers distinguish the difference between wireless and land-line numbers, said Mastria of the DMA. Meanwhile, the Denver/Boulder Better Business Bureau and the Colorado Attorney General's Office have not received complaints about cellphone pitches. "We haven't heard much of an outcry about unwanted telephone sales calls made to cellphones," said Garth Lucero, Colorado's deputy attorney general. "It seems most telemarketers perhaps recognize the inefficiencies of trying to sell things by contacting people on their cellphones and perhaps getting a very unfavorable reception." Indeed, if cellphone pitches became prevalent, the backlash from consumers who for those calls would be significant. "The outrage among cellphone users would be sufficiently great that state laws would be very quickly enacted to preclude that," said Herschel Shostek, president of the Shostek Group, a Maryland-based wireless research firm and consultancy. Although Colorado's no-call list does not cover cellphones, consumers may enter cellphone numbers into the list anyway. "We have no way of knowing if a phone number is a cellphone number or a home number," said Lee Sands, chief executive officer of e-InfoData, which compiles the no-call list. "But if people do put cell phone numbers in, and they get (telemarketing) calls, they can't make complaints against it. It'd be kind of a useless effort for them to do that." Source: The Denver Post - July 30, 2002
