Would someone please set off an EMP next to their office, for the love of god?

Ha! Who uses cellphones anymore?!

Isn't it illegal for telemarketers to call cellular numbers? I only give out my cell numbers on my home accounts (water, power, cable, credit) and I never get hassled there, unlike the evil land lines that I had to get rid of to avoid hassles by telemarketing scum.

Or, you know, don't answer the phone if it's a number you don't recognize.

@dragonphyre: Doesn't quite work if you are being called repeatedly by various telemarketers, etc. Yes, I can choose not to answer, but I'll still be annoyed as heck. No good.

Intelius runs a "People Search" business. They won't be selling to telemarketers, they will be selling to stalkers, PIs, and anyone else with the cash and motivation to search for you.

Oh yeah, just thought of one more: Collections agencies.

[directed to Intelius]: Expelliarmus!

How do these people sleep at night? Intelius == scum of the earth.

just tell the telemarketers you'll sue them for harassment if they don't stop calling you on your cell phone (which IS illegal). that's what I did, and they stopped...

Does anyone have a fax number, mailing address or e-mail address for the company? I'd like to know where to forward them my cell phone bill for wasted minutes. Tools.

I put my cell phone on the Do Not Call List, that seemed to work.

My minutes are not free.
Therefore I propose that congress should pass a "call block & reverse charge" bill immediatly!

Some A-Hole calls you to sell viaga?
No problem, just press *FU
That would block them plus you get credited to your account your carrier's standard rate for overage minutes from them.

Get enough calls like that and your monthly cell phone bill is free and or pays for phone upgrades.

I'm sure calls will stop in no time

:)

Glad to be of service™ !

I just checked their website and they don't have shit on me. My dad is in there, but he's deceased and not taking calls.

@shortitalian: If they are calling you that much, sue them for harassment. They don't show up (they never do) you win.

This company is in Bellevue, WA, not Seattle.

Intelius Inc.
500 108th Ave NE
25th floor
Bellevue, WA 98004

Fax: 425-974-6199

Subject: How do I remove my information from your site?

Email Response from our customer service team:
In order for Intelius to 'opt out' your public information from being viewable on the Intelius website, we require faxed proof of identity. Proof of identity can be a state issued ID card or driver's license. If you are faxing a copy of your driver's license, cross out the photo and the driver's license number. We only need to see the name, address and date of birth.

Please fax information to our customer service department at 425-974-6194.

If you are not comfortable doing this, you can send us a notarized form proving your identity and we will be glad to remove this public information.

** Please note removing the data here does not prevent public records from sending us new information in the future. To permanently have your records sealed, you will need to contact your county's records department.

Sincerely,
Intelius Customer Service

@aec007: Beautiful idea.. too bad it will never happen. Too many thumbs in the pie.

This whole deal sucks. I guess for "true" phone privacy, we'll need to have disposable phone numbers, that are somehow routed through third party internet networks. kind of like an anonymous P2P phone network, running in parallel with the "real" phone networks. Let's hope it never gets that evasive.

Or something like the synched RSA I use for work, synched among your friends and family...

@aec007: *FU... Dude, you have busted my side!

@dragonphyre: Or, you know, don't answer the phone if it's a number you don't recognize.

I use my phone for my business. That's not an option.

I've used them, they were only capable of showing the owner's name. Nothing else.
For the record, their website misrepresents their services (shows sample reports full of details, with a RE-E-E-ALLY fine print "if available" -- oops, they are not).
And, customer service rep ended up shouting and hanging up on me, believe it or not.

Oh well, maybe your luck will be better.
Make sure you send them a copy of DL for service improvement :-)

@iridius: Time to blow up some fax machines.

@iridius: I was 'removed' from Intellius for all of 6 months by way of the notarized form method. Personally, I doubt that they really had "new information" on me sent to them, but instead they just re-upload the same info after a few months and claim it as "new" information in their disclaimer.

Right now they are probably in cahoots with facebook and are putting together the monster of all aggregate databases.

[www.ftc.gov]

Can I register my cell phone on the National Do Not Call Registry?

Yes, you may place your personal cell phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. The registry has accepted cell phone numbers since it opened for registrations in June 2003. There is no deadline to register a home or cell phone number on the Registry.

You may have received an email telling you that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls as a result of a new cell phone number database; however, that is not the case. FCC regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers don't call consumers on their cell phones without their consent.

Well, just looking at my own info [without going into details}:

2 addresses in City/Town A [where I had one address]
1 address in City/Town B [where I lived for about 14 months]
1 address in City/Town C [where I went to high school, about 25 years ago]
1 address in City/Town D [where I had both a physical address and a post office box, no mention of which one they've got]

No mention of the city/town I currently live in. [Where I actually ran for a public office at one point...]

Yeah. I'd trust their information...

@yelraf: "I just checked their website and they don't have shit on me."

They do now! Bwahaha!

@Mandatory_Field: Seriously, what better way for them to quickly collect a whole bunch of valid numbers, than to have everybody up in arms, pumping numbers into their website to see if they're already there? They can also claim, in some twisted way, that this constitutes "opting in". Better to just stay far, far away....

Bellevue.@iridius: To anyone outside of the area anything between Everett and Tacoma is "Seattle". And those are just the people who live in eastern/central Washington. To someone outside the state "Seattle" is anywhere in Washington.

I may have to pay them a visit next time I'm in Bellevue.

Well - that's all fine and good but at least in the US there is already legislation for Cell Phones/ Providers and Networks that forbid unwanted Tele-Marketers from targeting Cell Phone Users/ Owners_

So it'll be interesting to see how this US based company is getting around and thru all the red tape that already exists_

I had the unfortunate pleasure of working for a telemarketing company for awhile. I did not know who they were beforehand, just another client. From my personal experience handling some of their databases and working with them for a short while this is what I learned from the inside:

1) There are 3 organizations they have to deal with. The Attorney Generals for the states, The FCC, and to a lesser extent, the BBB. Specifically, these are the people that can stop them from a) doing business in a state and b) fine the living shit out of them.

2) Even IF the call centers are outside of the US, if it is proven that a US company is making the product, selling the product, profiting from the product.. then they are the ones fined.

3) The Do Not Call Registries went Federal a few years ago. It used to be per state. The fine is now 50K per phone number, per incident for violations. They only have to make sure that the number is "clean" every 30 days in their dialers. So if you put your number in the DNC, it could take up too 31 days for it to stop.

4) Cell Phone numbers are 100% ILLEGAL for a telemarketer to call PERIOD. The reasons are obvious. It is actually their responsibility to find out. Things have got a little weird lately, but putting your cell phone number in the federal DNC is actually redundant, but EFFECTIVE. You need to do it at least every 2 years. I honestly forgot what the length is... but it is NOT permanent. They will fall off the list and there are no methods of automatic renewal. Otherwise telemarketers would not constantly be checking the list and instead would be getting difference updates.

5) When called, bitch the living shit out of the moron on the other end. The more raving pyschotic you sound, the less likely a call back from that company. That means multiple calls on multiple products. If you sound like you are going to track them down and kill them, they can put a record for that phone number which basically takes you out of the dialers. Opt-out rarely works since they don't respect anything except hostility and fear (theirs, and specifically profit). So if you make them believe it is a complete waste of time, good chance your number will be blacklisted.

There is another method, which is cumulative. Actually spend the TIME to talk to them on the phone. Act really stupid and interested in the product. Get as much INFORMATION as possible. Then politely say you have to go masturbate your poodle while thinking of their voice and hang up. Take all of that information and write a simple letter/email to the FCC with your phone number and the information of the product. This does ADD UP AGAINST THEM. Send the same letter to the AG for your state. This is HOW the 50K fines get handed out in the FIRST PLACE. If they mess up enough, the AG might just threaten them with legal action if they operate in his/her state. Believe it or not, this is the most damaging thing you can do them.

Another good solution, which only works for smartphones and pdas, is to obtain some call blocking/id management software. Photo Contacts Pro is pretty good, but here are the features you are specifically looking for:

1) Blocks ALL unknown, restricted, anonymous Caller ID.
2) Can block all Caller ID not in your contacts
3) Distinctive ring and scheduling

Your life can be SO much easier with this. I block all incoming calls that do not have a caller ID that is in my contacts. It directs them immediately to my voicemail and when I check it I can add that person to my contacts. The distinctive ring is nice and the scheduling allows me to have phone muted during certain times of the day, automatically muted on meetings, etc.

I also have not had a landline telephone in 6 years. I also get zero telemarketing calls/hassle calls at all.

Bliss.