Cell Phones and Telemarketers...

Most of us have registered our phone numbers with the National Do Not Call Registry, however, in the past this has been only a necessary requirement for any land-line phone. In recent months, the addition of cell phone numbers to telemarketers has prompted me to include all three lines of my family plan that I have with T-Mobile. I had read about three months ago that cell phone numbers were going to be released to telemarketing firms, so without hesitation, I proceeded to register my numbers and knew that I had to wait about 31 days in order for them to become effective.

Approximately three months later, I am still receiving phone calls, however, something more upsetting and astonishing is occurring: I have to pay for their harassment. I have a very inexpensive Nokia phone that does let me makes calls and send/receive text messages, however, with my cell phone plan, I have to pay for my text messages that I receive and make. Telemarketers, while still making calls, are thinking "outside of the box" and starting to send me text messages (sometimes two at a time from the same place) harassing me to sign up or buy so-and-so. At ten cents a message this is outrageous!

So while the "do not call" list has been wonderful with the amount of telemarketing calls it has been reduced, I am furious that this has given a green light to telemarketers who won't call, but instead text. I guess this means that they think nothing will happen to them because they are not breaking any laws. Unfortunately, consumers like myself, who have to pay for text messages are out of our hard-earned money; especially when we registered to be free of this menacing behaviour.

In the end, I have decided to document the date, time, and message from any of these spammers. I am also asking people if they are in a similar situation to do the same. While I don't know if it will do any good, I plan on writing my congressional representative to see if spamming cell phones via text messaging can also be included in perhaps an updated version of the National Do Not Call Registry. In case you haven't registered yet, or need to renew a registration (which will eventually need to happen, as registered numbers do expire), I am including the website for the National Do Not Call Registry under the "supporting links."