Canadian National Do Not Call List It’s Free
SAY GOODBYE TO THOSE ANNOYING PHONE CALLS
Unwanted calls are the worst and there is never a good time to talk to someone you have no interest in talking to.
Now, there’s something Canadians can do about these phone calls whether it’s your home or wireless phone. It’s fairly straight forward system to take a chance on in Canada and it’s called the “Do Not Call List” but does the list actually work?
Yesterday was the breaking point for me when I figured there has to be a way to stop these people from taking valuable time away from me, even if for merely seconds.
If you add up all those seconds over the course of a year even if it adds up to one hour, that’s one hour I’ll never get back.
I’ve allowed these annoying phone calls to take that hour away from me. Sounds silly but at one point or another you have done the same.
Telemarketing Complaints
Who do you call with all these telemarketing complaints?
Who are these people calling that are trying to convince us we have a virus on our computer or to buy something we don’t need?
Telemarketers and scammers, that’s who!
Telemarketing is a means of direct marketing to the customers, similar to someone who comes right to your front door. The only difference is you can’t chase a telephone call like you can a front door salesman.
Now I’m not suggesting that, I’m merely stating the obvious.
Telemarketers are people who sell or market products mainly through unsolicited phone calls from a list of phone numbers to potential customers.
They can multi-dial so if you get hang ups at your house that’s because some other donut has answered the call and yours got dropped. (Be Happy)
There are 2 types of telemarketing Inbound which is when you call a call centre to place an order or ask questions about products etc, but it’s you making the call.
Then there is the outbound call centres who contact you to convince you that you need to get your air ducts cleaned. (obviously you can read what type of company set me off)
Speaking of air ducts,whoever you people are…..bug off. What get’s me all confused is that here we have a company who is aggressively trying to sell air duct cleaning and have been for over 3 years (since we moved in our house).
They call us on average 4-5 times per week and most times we play around with them wasting our valuable time but also the company’s time. The company is “paying” these workers to contact the “same” people over and over who have “begged” them to stop calling.
They “do not” want or need their services but what happens? They keep calling.
The obvious business plan and overall goals of this company likely exist as much as the Wizard Of Oz, nil.
Who runs a company and pays employees to waste company time and wages to make $0 and they know they will make $0 because they’ve been told over and over by the same customer, NO!
Although we have call display that doesn’t solve the problem as they use various phone numbers to call. We do have an answering machine and sometimes we let it go to the machine but if we’re having a less than stellar day, we answer.
Air Duct Cleaning Telemarketing Phone Conversation
Sometimes we like to have a laugh ….. here’s one of many repeated conversations…
Mr. CBB- Yes, Hello
Air Dork Service- Hello Mr.CBB, I am (insert name) from Air Dork Cleaning Services and we are in your area (they have been for 3 years time to move out) and want to clean your Air Ducts for a cheap price
Mr. CBB- What? Ducks? No, no we don’t like Ducks only Goat… we eat goat.
Air Dork Cleaning Service- Still tries to convince me….
Mr. CBB- Hang Up…
Sign Up For The Do Not Call List in Canada Free
So, they keep on calling and yes I’ve flat-out asked them to stop calling, remove me from their list and I am not interested etc.
Last night I was told about this Free Service called the National Do Not Call List (DNCL) operated by Bell Canada that I should register my phone number in to stop these calls.
I thought, great I’ll check this out. Once registered on their list your number will be disclosed to Canadian telemarketing companies and clients of telemarketers so they no longer contact you.
You can register all your phones including fax machines and cell phones but give it 31 days to fully activate the service.
This also includes callers from the US and other countries. They must follow the rules set out by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
If you have a national do not call list complaint you should have it investigated. Violations are investigated and can result in fines of up to $1500 for each violation or up to $15,000 for corporations.
Registering your number does not mean that the calls will stop but they will slow down although some say to register every few months.
Some of the places that can still contact you even though your number is on the list according to the DNCL website are:
- Registered charities ( this I don’t mind for clothing drives)
- Political parties and candidates (my favourite)
- Polls and surveys by marketing firms (seriously… time is money unless they are paying me to do a survey and a silly draw doesn’t count… I don’t even know you)
- Newspapers calling to sell a subscription (normally if people want them, they will call you although I’ve been suckered into a month free before then had to cancel on my own)
- Organizations you’ve done business with in the past 18 months or that you had interest in and contacted with-in the past 6 months for products or services. ( this I can understand and doesn’t bother me)
They do warn that you may still get telemarketing calls and if you believe they are fraudulent you can call the Canadian Anti Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501.
This reminds me of a call I received a few weeks back where a guy was trying to tell me that someone was stealing bandwidth from me and a technician that “I” ordered would be there in the morning.
He wanted personal information from me until I told him to go spin on it.
If you really want to stop more calls you can ring up individual organizations and ask them to take you off their list.
I’m not sure I’m prepared to invest that type of time into stopping them from calling though, buy you might.
How to handle Sketchy Phone Calls
Some of the ways other’s handle these unwanted cold calls they are not interested in are:
- They call me 5 times per day. Last night I handed the phone to my 5-year-old and told him it was Santa looking for his wish list.
- I get those calls at least once a week. I like telling them dumb random *stuff* when they call.
- I tell them to hold on and put the phone down and ignore it for an hour or so! Or if they call and I want someone to talk to I let them talk then say what ever I can think of.
- I have call display…if I don’t recognize the number, I don’t answer. If they don’t leave a message – how important could it be? Even the charities & political parties leave you a message.
- I had one call years ago from some company that did lawn maintenance. They were in my area and wanted to look at my lawn to see what it needed from them to keep it healthy etc. Given that they called in February I asked how they planned to do that analysis given that the lawn was buried in a food deep in snow.
So if you want some of the calls to stop, take a moment to register your number today.
One less call means more time to spend with your loved ones or doing something that you should be doing, like saving money using a budget!
Discussion: How Do you handle telemarketers who call your home?
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I re-enter my number on the dnc list every 10 months or so, they recommend every 12 but I can’t stand that 30 day flood of calls that I get if I wait the full year. (they have radar and every time you start doing something like have a nap, they call.cook dinner, they call, go downstairs out of reach of the phone, yup, they call again)
I still get a lot of calls from overseas though, and even had them yell at me when I asked to be taken off the call list. My phone provider tells me there is nothing that can be done about those ones. I think laws need to be looked at.
We also call every so often to put our number in again. It’s sad that they can just flood our phone lines like that and you are right something needs to be done. Even if by putting our number on the list helps get rid of some that’s part of the battle. Cheers and thanks for stopping in.
I registered my number in 2010 but lately I’ve been getting more telemarketing calls than usual. Just went to the site again to re-register, but it says my number is already on file. My husband likes to have fun with the telemarketers, too – so it’s actually pretty entertaining sometimes! I don’t have that kind of patience with them, though. I usually say “no thanks” right away, even if they’re still talking & hang up.
Yes some people say they register again (not sure how if it tells you your number is already in) and it helps. In all honesty if registering our number even removes 2 or 3 callers it’s still 2 or 3 less headaches phoning the house. We will never know. Like it mentions in the post as well some organizations can still call so we will never be rid of the callers completely unless we rid of the phone … maybe that’s what it will take for it to stop.. everyone cancel their home phone. Cheers Mr.CBB
If it’s a robo-call I have no problem hanging up on it. If there is actually a person on the other end I try to say we are not interested but sometimes it’s very hard to get that word in sideways as they have their script to read. I had one that went on his script then asked if I had any questions….yup… what part of no is it you didn’t understand… the n or the o…. Click.
hahaa… yes it’s just aweful when they are reading a script and you know it. It sounds so unprofessional to me. Cheers Mr.CBB
I totally know what you mean! I had a similar situation a few months ago and finally found out about the national do not call list. So far so good, I haven’t gotten a call since! Thought I still want to have an opportunity to Seinfeld a telemarketer
We’re on the DNCL but sometimes we get calls from scam credit card companies, usually ones based in Florida (based on internet research – there are actually sites / forums out there dedicated to listing these annoying callers and sharing details about them). My husband thinks we should start using a whistle for the seriously annoying, persistent ones. I’m beginning to agree with him!!!
It gets so frustrating especially when they struggle to speak English. I really do feel sorry for some of them but I know they are trying to make a pay cheque just like the next guy but at our expense and peace. Oh well.. what can you do… I’m trying what I can. Cheers Mr.CBB
registered, thank you!!
when i get calls from telemarketer, i just tell them i am not interested, thank you bye bye and hang up. i dont wait for their reply at all. rude, yeah, but they are used to it lol
Hey WING!!! cheers mate for dropping in… ya sometimes we do that to, but like I said depends on the mood and the day haha.. Cheers Mr.CBB