Phone Solicitation - When Does it Become Illegal Harassment?
By Lynn Proctor
@ThankyouLord (698)
St. Petersburg, Florida
December 15, 2015 10:01am CST
My phone rings off the hook some days, with solicitors from Austin Texas to Charlotte North Carolina. Some calls are from numbers that just list the city, others are unavailable. Some, oddly, are just a series of numbers. I usually don't answer.
Answering a phone call without first checking my caller I.D. can land me in a non-ending fight for my right to say, "No thanks." After my third "No thanks" if the person keeps trying to convince me that I really do need to refinance, or keeps pestering me to take that poll, I hang up on them. Being polite doesn't always work, because they are not being polite to me, and they don't care.
I get these calls every day almost, as many others do. How many calls from one company can be made before it becomes harassment? How many dinner times do I have to listen to my phone ringing? How many mornings should I be denied my right to sleep in without the phone waking me up? Can I not have peace on Sunday without the local paper forcing their subscriptions on me?
I have tried telling any/all solicitors to remove me from their call list. I have registered with the Do Not Call Registry. It makes no difference. Are there no tools with which to fight back? Is there no number to call to complain that a company is harassing you?
I will now finish my morning coffee in not-so-much peace after the lineup of solicitors has already begun.
Thank you for letting me vent.
8 people like this
7 responses
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
15 Dec 15
Like many people I am inundated with such calls and never pay much attention to them. Many are the same type of call that I have already received dozens of times.
The ones that really annoy are those that ask me to answer surveys, which is a strict "No" from me. I will not provide them information to sell to other companies and generate more calls for me.
1 person likes this
@ThankyouLord (698)
• St. Petersburg, Florida
16 Dec 15
I checked the "Do Not Call" registry after I wrote this post, and found that if a certain phone number keeps calling you, you can go to their site and register a complaint. The solicitors get around this by not letting their numbers come up on your phone. This should be illegal, as they are doing illegal activity if you are registered. So, therefore it should be required that all businesses have to display their phone numbers. But, that would lessen the sales, and the taxes that are paid on these sales, so they don't want to do that. I can't think of any other reason.
2 people like this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
16 Dec 15
@ThankyouLord The majority here do not transmit the telephone number either. The biggest surprise is that these telesales must generate a decent amount of business, otherwise they would cease to waste their time.
@Morleyhunt (21744)
• Canada
16 Dec 15
My response, I'm rude and interrupt, is I'm not interested and then I hang up. I don't give them a chance to argue or even attempt to make their pitch.
1 person likes this
@ThankyouLord (698)
• St. Petersburg, Florida
16 Dec 15
Sometimes, when I do that, I feel guilty about the poor slob who is just trying to make some money. The calls I hate the most are from the Police Athletic League who want my donations for their kids. They sound like Gestapo. They hang up on me if I refuse.
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
4 Feb 17
more than 2 to me is harassment..i hang up on them too..they launch into the hard sell,i'm definetly doing it.no means no.
i screen my calls most of the time now.
@OreoBrownie (3755)
• Commerce, Georgia
16 Dec 15
I have a cell and if I don't recognize the number or if it says blocked I will not answer. I hate them.
@BelleStarr (61225)
• United States
16 Dec 15
I did a discussion about my ongoing relation ship with Rachel from card services. She calls me several times a week, sometimes every day and always from a different number.
@ThankyouLord (698)
• St. Petersburg, Florida
16 Dec 15
You would think that solicitors would get tired of calling people that don't answer. But I think most calls are done by the computer, and the seller only picks up after you do. At least that is what I found most of the time.
@JudyEv (346668)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Dec 15
If you're registered with the 'do not call' people I don't know what else you can do. Some people here play games with them asking them to hold for a minute then not coming back but nothing seems to stop them ringing in the first place.
