I just had a call from Callright Marketing who were calling on behalf of the Ottawa Citizen.  They started to explain why they were calling (apparently the Ottawa Citizen is running a pre-Christmas subscription campaign) and I politely said I was not interested and told him to put me on their do-not-call list.  He then proceeded to offer me a different subscription option, to which I reiterated that I was not interested and again told him to put me on their do-not-call list.

He persisted, albeit politely, and asked why “for their records”, to which I repeated I was not interested, wanted to be put on their DNC list and was now considering a complaint to the CRTC.  He started to respond, but I hung up.  The call should have ended the very first time I indicated I was not interested.

A quick check of the logs on my Asterisk system shows that this was their ninth call since the 29th of October.  Most of the time they did not wait long enough for the voicemail to kick in, though they did reach it one time (but they didn’t leave a message).  I’ve put some rules in place in my Asterisk system so that future calls from them will be met with a fast busy signal.

Now, I have registered all of my phone numbers with the CRTC’s National Do Not Call List, but we’re still within the post-registration grace period so Callright is allowed to call me.  Given that the lists are updated every day, there’s no reason that telemarketers should have more than four weeks from the time someone subscribes to the list to the last day they can be called.  A clever telemarketer would download the lists every day and identify new numbers as they appear on the list and call them before the grace period expires.  From a technical perspective, I can understand why a short delay (a day or two) is understandable, but four weeks is too long.

It could be pure coincidence, but I can see from the logs that the calls started about four days after I registered with the National Do Not Call List.

Today is the day when we stop to remember all those who have made the supreme sacrifice in order that we may have peace and freedom.

Thank you seems so inadequate.