E-mail on telemarketing warns cell-phone users

Despite e-mail warnings about an imminent barrage of unsolicited phone calls, cell-phone owners have nothing to fear from out-of-state telemarketers looking for a way around the National Do Not Call Registry.

The e-mail, which has been circulating since 2003, urges cell phone users to register their numbers with the registry. “Just a reminder,” reads one e-mail making the rounds this week. “In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS.”

Frank Dorman, public affairs specialist for the Federal Trade Commission, said telemarketers are prohibited by the FCC from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. And because most telemarketers rely on auto-dialers, cell phone owners are not at risk of being bombarded by sales pitches.

Depending on the service provider’s plan, cell-phone users can be charged for incoming calls.

The e-mail has been “updated to look like something’s about to happen,” Dorman said. “The only purpose for people to register their cell phones is to give them piece of mind.”

But that assurance begins at the state line. The Missouri No Call registry does not register cell-phone numbers, so the state’s telemarketers can call cell-phone numbers. John Fougere, press secretary for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, said telemarketers have access to cell phone numbers when people set up their residential lines to forward unanswered calls to their cell phones.

“The whole issue now is the transferring of residential calls to cell phone numbers,” Fougere said.

However, a bill proposed to the Missouri General Assembly would add cell and fax machine numbers to the Missouri No Call list. Adding cell phone numbers to the Missouri No Call law has been attempted before, but it has never been voted upon by lawmakers.

To prohibit Missouri telemarketers from calling, go to the Missouri No Call registry’s Web site at www.nocall.ago.mo.gov or call 1-866-NOCALL1. Registering your home or cell phone with the National Do Not Call Registry, at www.donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone you wish to register, will block calls from out-of-state telemarketers for five years.