Patrick Madden

>Being harassed daily on the telephone by people who want you to take a survey? Not interested in taking it and want to get them off your back? Well, there are a couple things you can do to stop these calls.

Wait, I’m on the National Do Not Call List, You Can’t Call Me! Much to your chagrin, yes you still can get called for a whole bunch of reasons even if you are on the do not call list. Established in 2003, the Do Not Call Implementation Act made it illegal for telemarketers to call consumers with whom they did not have a prior business relationship. There are a number of exemptions under this rule, however, including political calls and calls to conduct surveys. Why? Because these types of calls do not involve sales. Well, at least in theory they don’t.

So, generally it’s a waste of time to try to convince the telephone interviewer that you shouldn’t be called because you’re on the do not call list. Also, I’d avoid threatening to sue the interviewer or the survey company, threatening to report the company to the attorney general, or threatening physical violence on the interviewer or their children. They’ve heard all of that before.

So, what you can do to stop being called for surveys

1. Screen Calls – The preferred method for most people of avoiding telemarkers, surveys and “friends” is to simply screen your calls, which is made easier nowadays thanks to caller ID. If the daily and repeated calls don’t bother you and you can live with phone ringing, then more power to you.

2. Call Blocking – Another option is to block or screen unwanted calls, typically with the help of services provided by your phone company. Note that these are not fool proof methods and usually require an additional fee, but they should effectively block many unwanted calls.

3. Just Refuse – The goal of a telephone interviewer is to complete a survey obviously, however, a secondary goal is simply to identify whether a telephone number contains an eligible and willing respondent or not. When a telephone interviewer calls a number and gets a voice mail, answering machine, or no answer at all, the number typically gets flagged as an unresolved case. Industry standards say that a telephone number can be called up to 10 times in an attempt to “resolve” it, which is the reason for the repeated calls every day. So, if you don’t want to do a survey, the easiest thing to do is answer the phone and just say no. Bam, you have just resolved your number and (provided the organization is legitimate) it should be taken out of their database.

4. Never Call Me Back – most survey organizations keep their own personal do not call lists, so if you are the type of person who never does surveys, ask to be put on the organizations do call list. It won’t stop you from receiving calls from other companies, but it’s a start. Many of the surveys within a state will come from small group of organizations who do a lot of survey work in that state, so getting on those lists will help.