It looks like more of us are getting calls at home from telemarketers? Complaints are up, especially for those automatic, or what they call "robo" calls. But what about the "do-not-call" list? Are telemarketers ignoring it?
When the phone rings at Larry Willis's house, chances are it's not a call he wants to answer.
"My reaction is, I don't have time, how did you get my number?" says Willis.
Willis is talking about the growing number of telemarketing calls that are interrupting his work and meals.
"I would say in the last six months it was zero, then all of a sudden it started to pick up again," says Willis.
Calls are from people offering Willis a new credit card or asking about his house.
"You've lived here for 13 years, how's your mortgage, is your house upside down? So a lot of mortgage calls," says Willis.
Steven Osinski is a marketing professor. He says telemarketing calls generate millions of dollars every year, but what about the do not call list? It's still the law, but Osinski says enforcement is spotty, and really doesn't stop the people behind the phone calls.
"You capture somebody when they are at home. If you have the right offer and the right marketing message, it goes all the time," says Osinski. "From their angle, they're going, you know what? we may get slapped on the hand down the road but we're generating a lot of business with these home calls, we can't abandoned it so lets keep calling."
Now not all telemarketing calls break the law. You can legally get a call from a politician, a survey or someone you've done business with in the past.
"Lately it's been political stuff," says Willis.
Those calls could easily double in the next few months. In the mean time, what can consumers do? Hang up, demand the telemarketer stop calling, and continue to complain to federal authorities. But most people are taking a more passive approach to these annoying calls, they are just not picking up.
"My wife and I have given up answering our home phone cause we know the only people that are going to call our landline right now are basically telemarketers," says Osinski.
Now we've had the do-not-call list for nearly a year now. There are more than 200 millions phone numbers on the list, but telemarketers much check the list to know who's on it. By one report, fewer companies are checking that list.
(Information courtesy NBC News)
