Saying no to robo

The Federal Communications Commission clamped down on telemarketers yesterday — even those from companies you do business with, such as your bank — by placing severe limits on robocalling and even texting. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Congress and his agency have long recognised the need for consumers to have control over the telemarketing calls that come into their homes, and the FCC has long had rules to put consumers in control. But despite these clear ground rules, too many telemarketers, aided by autodialers and prerecorded messages, have continued to call consumers who don't want to hear from them. But now, this can come to a long overdue end. Telemarketers will now have to:

• obtain prior written consent before placing robocalls to consumers. Written does not mean handwritten, though — electronic forms are OK.
  
• obtain consent even if they had previously done business with the person they want to call. According to Consumer Reports, this means that if you have a checking account at a bank, marketers cannot call you to try to sell you on a home equity line of credit unless you sign off on being contacted.
  
• provide an automated way for people to revoke their consent to the robocall by pressing a few keys on their phone during the call. If this happens, the new rules require telemarketers to add the person to the company's Do Not Call list.
  
• strictly limit the number of so-called dead-air calls in which consumers answer phones and hear nothing.

In other news, a man who was eating at a downtown Las Vegas restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill (it offers "Bypass" burgers, "Flatliner" fries, and free meals to people over 350 pounds) had to be wheeled out of the restaurant on a stretcher on Saturday evening, after a medical episode that restaurant employees say looked like a heart attack.