Sour Grapes
Of course we're Fair and Balanced!

2004-12-10

Cell phone telemarketing hoax



I've gotten a couple of e-mails like the following lately:




In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls on cell phones. Call this number from your cell phone 888-382-1222. It is the national Do Not Call list. It blocks your number for 5 years. Please pass on,



Or, here is the online form: https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx




Apparently I'm lucky to have gotten only a couple. It's a fast-spreading hoax. Hoax is the one-word summary for a status that is actually somewhat more complicated than that. The toll-free phone number and web link are good and can be used to register phone numbers with the FTC's National Do Not Call Registry. Over the last few weeks the rate at which people are registering phone numbers there has gone up by more than an order of magnitude (200,000/week to over 2,000,000/week), presumably due in large part to the prolificacy of this hoax. It probably does no harm to register, although some suspect otherwise.



We won't get fooled again.



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