Federal Judge Won't Let FTC Share List With The FCC
http://www.kirotv.com/consumer/2535864/detail.html
Unwanted calls from telemarketers were supposed to have stopped last Wednesday.
That's when the Do Not Call Registry was supposed to take effect.
KIRO-7 Consumer Investigator Wayne Havrelly explains why many telemarketers are still making these infuriating calls.
The Do Not Call Registry has certainly proven that most of us don't like to be bothered at home by phone solicitors.
55 million have signed up for the list, but thanks to endless government red tape, it's not working.
Complaints about telemarketers haven't slowed down at all since new telemarketing rules went into effect at the beginning of October.
Last spring, the Federal Trade Commission decided to create a Do Not Call list to stop these annoying phone calls.
Lawyers quickly got involved and a judge determined the FTC didn't have the authority to enforce a Do Not Call list.
The house and senate slapped together legislation to make the Do Not Call list legal. The President quickly signed it into law.
Now a federal judge has decided all telemarketers can keep calling you because congresses new law is unconstitutional.
The judge says it restricts similar types of free speech. It allows politicians and charities to call you and ask for money but not the people selling time shares and light bulbs that last 50 years.
Now the Federal Communications Commission claims it can still enforce the new do not call telemarketing rules which went into effect October 1. But there's a huge problem, the Federal Trade Commission is the agency that has the Do Not Call list which probably has your name on it. Now that federal Judge won't let the FTC share the list with the FCC. So the FCC can't do anything.
The bottom line is that until this gets resolved, don't be surprised if telemarketers keep bothering you.
The lawyers, politicians, lobbyists and judges are all swarming over this issue.
Now it's all up to a federal appeals court to decide whether the do not call list is constitutional or not.