Do Not Call Registry

[genealogynut]

I have heard somewhere that if you register with the Do Not Call Registry, and later register for any free prizes, giveaways, drawings, etc., your registration with the DNC registry becomes invalid.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Also when a person fills out registration forms for the free giveaways, drawings, etc., do the companies take that information and sell it to telemarketers and other lists, therefore leaving your door wide open for junk mail, spam, unwanted phone calls, etc?

Here is a link for registering with National  Do Not Call Registry:

http://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

[Wilma]

I do not know about if you register for a prize if it cancels your DNC registration, but I am sure that when you register for anything, that list is then sold and you become the recipient of scads of unwanted junk mail and other things.  Even changing the address on your magazines will generate a new flood of junk mail.  I am getting mail with my deceased husband's name on it and this was never his address.  I did change the address on a couple of magazines that were in his name and I am now getting all kinds of stuff in his name.  I also get telephone calls for him and this telephone number was never in his name.  All the utilities, (city, cable, electric, telephone) are in my name.  When someone calls for him I just refer them to Grace Lawn Cemetery.  It irritates me that they don't check to see if the number they are calling will get them the person they are calling for.  So much for my Soap Box today.

[Joanna]

Lois, I think what you have heard about is where there is usually (somewhere very inconspicuous) a small box you have to either "check" or "un-check" to keep from giving the company permission to "share" your info. On some recent pages I've looked at, it says that just by entering you give them permission to do so ~ those kind I just decline to do business with at all.

I've seen it on prize forms, catalog orders, subscription renewals, even free coupon sites or newsletters.  Sometimes you have to look pretty hard in the small print and in the page margins to find it. Usually though, if it's a legitimate business, it will be on the bottom of the last page.  Once you have missed even one of those boxes, you've given permission to share your number, even if you're on the "do not call" list.

Also, if you do business with a company, they can legitimately call you even if they don't "share" your info with their other 'valuable business associates' (LOL).  I read a story about a lady that was hopping mad because the collection company kept calling her even though she was on the list ~ she owed them money though, so they had the right to call her. (I know that doesn't apply, I just thought it was an interesting side-note.)

[Joanna]

Wilma, I know what you are going though!  We still get mail for Marty's parents.  I got mail for Jim at my place of business years after he died ~ we had even moved to a new town since his death, and bought the store after that.  I still can't figure how they connected him to that business address. 

My oldest son had a related problem last year.  It wasn't identity theft, but someone with his same name hadn't paid their bills (in a completely different town), and somehow that landlord's collection company attached it to my son's credit report! Then they claimed it was HIS responsibility to prove that it wasn't him!  We had to threaten them with a law-suit before they fixed it.  What a mess!  (That soap box is getting a workout this afternoon!)

[genealogynut]

I think it must be all this rainy weather, along with being kooped up inside for several days, that has us on our soap boxes.

While we were living in Winfield several years ago, I thought it was rather weird when we got some mail from the Ronald McDonald house addressed to Curt and Louise Morgan at Howard. (Curt is Don's second cousin.)

[Dee Gee]

My mother passed away 9 years ago and she never lived with us and we have moved once and 911 service has changed our mailing addres at least four times but we still receive magazines and catalogs addressed to her. I wish there was some way to stop them without several calls and replies to the company but I guess I will keep trying to get them to discontinue their mailings.  We also still get mailings for our daughter which never lived with us since 1985, and then we were in another town even.

[MarineMom]

When you register on the do not call list it tells you it is good for x amount of years but I have found it better to register every year and to register the cell phone as well. Anyone who you have done business with in the previous 3 years is allowed to call you. All charitable and political orgs. are allowed to call you forever unless you specifically tell them not to (and even then they still do). When you cut coupons from the newspaper never fill out your name and address on them they are still good without being filled out and when you do fill them out you have "done business" with them and they and their affilliates are now allowed to bug you for the next 3 years
I was getting phone calls for a girl that had lived in the same apaprtment building as I did, she had left without paying all her bills so they called me every saturday for about 3 months they had run her address on 411.com and it pulled up my number (in the phone book I only had the street address not the apartment # and she had done the same thing) they would not believe that I was not her and did not know her.