Since I have the luxury of working from home, I am able to keep track of how many phone calls our home phone number receives on a typical day. Today, the daily number has reached a double digit for the first time.
I am not amused.
I just checked the National Do Not Call Registry and confirmed that our number has been registered for quite some time. Since we are well beyond the 31 day “grace period”, theoretically I should not be receiving any telemarketing calls, never mind upwards near a dozen a day.
If the United States Government can’t manage a database that theoretically contains one table with three columns (serialid, phone number, effective date), it is beyond my comprehension to think that any sort of data can be effectively managed by them. This makes me very nervous, because if they’re aggregating all sorts of data on its citizens and tell us not to worry because we won’t be tagged in error, how on earth am I suppose to believe this when they can’t even reliably list my phone number in a list of forbidden-to-telemarketers phone numbers?
In all reality, the Do Not Call Registry appears to be a complete waste of time and quite frankly, I feel the need to double up the foil on my tin foil hat.
Companies with whom you’ve done business are exempt, unless you explicitly tell them no calls.
Caller ID is great. 95% of our incoming calls are “Toll Free Number” or “Unavailable” or “Unknown”. I see that, I let it roll to VM because if it is urgent, they will leave a message. 99.9% of the time, no message is left.
When the call is identified, most of the time I still let it roll.
Also, I have blocked caller ID blocked. This vexes my parents. 🙂
And this is why the home phone is on silent. If they’re important, they have my cell number. 😉