Sep '12
Annoying phone calls
(Submitted article from Attorney Michael (Moshe) Fine)
A number of Local Jewish News readers have complained recently about receiving annoying telephone calls. This article will help you understand your rights and how to get the calls to stop.
In addition, illegal phone calls may give you a valuable cause of action against the callers (in some instances, valued at up to $1,500 per illegal call). This article will help you stand up for your rights.
To begin, calls fall into two categories: Those to your cell phone, and those to your home phone. (Calls to a business line are not discussed here.)
Generally speaking, unless you have given your consent, calls to your cell phone are illegal when they are initiated by an automatic telephone dialing system, and almost all telemarketing and similar calls are made from such systems.
Regarding calls to a residence:
- If the call is made by a business or a charity which is not tax-exempt
- If the call is made by a bona fide tax-exempt charitable organization, the call is exempt from many of the noted restrictions. However, the caller must still provide you a way to be removed from their list, and the caller may still be restricted from calling your cell phone.
Beyond these limitations, callers attempting to collect debts must comply with additional rules. A collector must treat you with dignity, honesty, and respect. Some rules regularly violated by debt collectors include:
- Calling you frequently
- Calling you at odd hours
- Calling you at work
- Calling on your cell phone
- Calling your relatives or neighbors
- Threatening to have you arrested
- Threatening that a process server is on the way
- Threatening to take your property
- Trying to get more of your personal information than they already have
- Trying to get you to pay on debt you don’t quite remember or are not sure of
- Demanding immediate payment over the phone
- Refusing to give you complete information about who they are
Although engaging in the conduct on this list does not mean for certain that a collector has violated the law, if, when you hang up the phone, you feel scared or somewhat degraded, most likely the collector has violated your rights and acted unlawfully.
In order to deal with annoying phone calls, one reader wrote, “I just ignore them.” However, this approach is not likely to get the calls to stop. And, if there is a reason you are receiving the calls (e.g. someone thinks you owe them money), it won’t help you resolve the issues behind the phone calls (in fact, in most cases, the underlying problems will only get worse).
To get the phone calls to stop, you need to:
- Answer every call! Think of the calls as a game. If you play well, the calls will stop, and the caller may even have to pay you for the annoyance.
- Take notes of EVERY call – even if every call is exactly the same. Who is calling? Who do they represent? What is their address/contact information? What number is the call coming from? Why are they calling you?
- Always be pleasant and polite! Getting irritated won’t help you.
- Tell the caller to stop calling you!
- If the call is automated, by law, it must provide you a method to be removed from the call list. If it does not, make sure that you take note of that fact.
- If the caller is a person, tell them three things: (1) If they are calling your cell phone, tell them, “Please be advised you are calling my cell phone, and you do not have permission to call my cell phone”; (2) tell them, “Please, do not call me again,” and (3) if they are a debt collector, say “I dispute the debt.”
- NEVER give out any personal identifying information (Social Security number, account number…) over the telephone.
This strategy may not get the calls to stop the first time, but if you follow through, you can get most callers to stop. Some calls, however, are from true scammers, who are not interested in following the law, leaving you with limited options. Still, following this strategy will help you protect yourself.
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For more information, please check out my website: www.OhioConsumerLawyer.com.
For a free consultation about how to best deal with your situation, please call me at 216.292.8884 or send me an email to MFine@OhioConsumerLawyer.com.
Michael (Moshe) Fine
03 September 2012, 10:23 pm
Thank you very much for that information. I will do as you suggest and start answering the calls, taking down their information, and asking them not to call back. Thanks again for the tips!
04 September 2012, 8:16 am
Does this apply to getting multiple calls a day from the Phone Tree announcing wig sales, etc? I’ve called the Phone Tree company and they said all they could do for me is to block my number from receiving any calls, which I don’t want as there is some important information in some of the calls. They were very interested however, in what times the calls were received because these call are in violation of the Do Not Call laws and they could be held liable as well as the sponsor of these calls.
04 September 2012, 1:04 pm
Chaim, I second that motion. One message about a wig sale after another sure is annoying. Is Phone Tree something different that CallingPost? CallingPost may be managed by Mrs. Sender Traube. on Bendemeer and covers the entire Mikvah Directory if that’s what the person wants to do. Don’t quote me on any of this.
04 September 2012, 2:10 pm
Not sure why a calling post or phone tree about wig sales or another service is any different than say an email blast, if you dont wat to read it, you delete it. So if you don’t want to pick the phone tree/calling post, dont pick up or pick up hang up, so it will stop ringing.
But I agree about annoyance of solicitation calls.
10 September 2012, 6:50 am
I’d like to suggest that LJN not accept comments that use pseudonyms. This isn’t a blog like goyishe blogs. Perhaps that way people would take a little more responsibility for what they say and who they say it to. Just a suggestion. I wonder what others think.
10 September 2012, 2:12 pm
Avrohom, I agree. If you don’t/can’t say it with your name attached, it has no credibility.
10 September 2012, 3:12 pm
Of course Avrohom and Dovid agree with each other!! They are from the very few people om LJN who post with their real name!! (assuming that they always use their real name)
However, if that would become a requirement, LJN would become a pretty boring place. I kind of have a feeling many people would stop posting.
There is a good reason why people would not use their real name. But lets not go there right now….
10 September 2012, 8:45 pm
I disagree. I value being able to say something anonymously, so that the focus is on what I’m saying rather than on externals. Also, I don’t want people who google me to see all the comments I made on LJN. There are some weirdos out there, unfortunately.
14 September 2012, 12:44 am
Is this more of an advertisement for mMr Fine?
I see no other point in having this posted!
Whats the purpose?
14 September 2012, 9:57 am
Mr Fine submitted the article to us as we had requested that someone who was an expert in this area offer some suggestions. I believe that we made it clear about his involvement and the information does seem useful. Do you have any better suggestions?