Telephone privacy list a 'huge hit'

Many Hoosiers are fed up with receiving random, unsolicited calls from telemarketers.\nAbout 276,000 of them, to be exact.\nMore than a quarter million people have already signed up for Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter's telephone privacy list. Carter, who took office in January, made the list his foremost legislative priority during the spring's General Assembly session.\n"If you get on the list, you don't need to worry about taking calls at dinner time or just before bed," said Staci Schneider, Carter's press secretary. "You don't need to worry about the phone ringing when you're trying to head off to work in the morning."\nThe law requires the consumer protection division of the attorney general's office to publish a listing of telephone numbers of people who do not want to be solicited over the phone. Solicitors will be prohibited from calling any number that appears in a quarterly listing. \n"This is an issue of privacy," said Dale Sturtz, the Democratic state representative from La Grange who authored the privacy list legislation. "Nobody wants to be bothered at home by countless telemarketing calls. People are busy enough as it is; they don't need to be distracted by trivial matters." \nThe law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2002. Many Hoosiers have rushed to sign up on the privacy list.\n"We knew it was an extremely popular initiative," Schneider said. "But the response has been huge, considering that we can't enforce the law until next year."\nIf companies disregard the list, they face criminal investigation and civil penalties, including fines up to $25,000. The new law exempts only realtors, insurance agents, newspapers and not-for-profit charitable organizations. \n"There's still hundreds of companies that it keeps away," Schneider said. "The more reputable companies have shown that they want to comply with the law, and we've had a very good working relationship with them."\nCalls have flooded in since the attorney general opened a toll-free line in May. Carter's office outsourced the job to CallNet Call Center, a Bloomington firm.\n"No one -- not even the attorney general -- had any idea what the level of interest would be," said Charlie Webb, CallNet president. "For a period of time, we got 10,000 calls a day. It just blew us away."\nCallNet, formerly a division of Hirons & Co., had to hire 20 more full- and part-time employees to handle the account, its largest thus far. The company, an inhouse call center that specializes in business answering services, now employs more than 60 people at its N. Morton Street location. \n"It's an exciting account," Webb said. "Our operators really like it, because all of the calls are positive. People are very enthusiastic about this list."\nTo sign up for the telephone privacy list, call 1-(888)-834-9969 or visit www.in.gov/attorneygeneral.