Pesky phone calls from telemarketers may be a thing of the past if the Vermont Attorney General has his way.
A landline phone. (Flickr/smilla4)
Illegal telemarketing calls were made at least 3,200 landline subscribers, who contacted the AG’s office to complain. That number is likely a “small percentage of the calls actually received by Vermont consumers,” the office said in a statement.
A state law passed in 2002 made telemarketing calls illegal unless the company has registered with a state directory, represents a state-incorporated tax-exempt or nonprofit group, is responding to a customer’s inquiry, or has an established relationship with the customer.
Following a rule clarification by the Federal Communications Commission stating that the federal law doesn’t consider call-blocking a prohibited service, state Attorney General Bill Sorrell co-signed a letter urging the five phone companies in the state to provide such technologies to customers. The effort was part of a campaign by Sorrell and 38 other state attorneys general through the National Association of Attorneys General.
“Every year, our offices are flooded with consumer complaints pleading for a solution to stop intrusive robocalls,” the letter reads. “Your companies are now poised to offer your customers the help they need. We urge you to act without delay.”
The appeal was made to AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and CenturyLink, and Sorrell’s office will monitor the progress of the request, the AG’s office said.
The new clarification has the potential to put phone companies on the same side as consumers, Sorrell said in a statement.
“Phone companies can assist us in our fight against unwanted, annoying, and sometimes expensive calls,” Sorrell said in a statement, referring to telephone scams, like these, that some customers fall prey to.
“The phone carriers must … give their customers what they have been asking for – a way to stop these calls before they ever come through.”
The FCC’s recent action came after a July 2013 hearing about robocalls, in which phone service providers testified that “legal barriers prevented carriers from implementing advanced call-blocking technology to reduce the number of unwanted telemarketing calls.”
Last year, Sorrell and other attorneys general requested that the FCC make it possible for companies to offer call-blocking services. The commission endorsed the request and it was passed by the FCC as a rule clarification on June 18.
The AG’s office did not respond immediately to inquiries as to whether Vermont providers FairPoint, Comcast or Burlington Telecom were included in the letter’s recipients list.
Consumers wishing to file a complaint with the state should call the consumer protection line at (800) 649-2424.
The post Telemarketers, robocalls can be wiped out by call-block services, Attorney General says appeared first on VTDigger.