Telephone consumer protection act

I did not know of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act before today. The FCC has a summary of it intended for the general public.

The next time I get called by a recording, and manage to get connected to a person afterwards, I'll ask the person to explain to me why their call does not violate the TCPA.

Apparently, when the autodialers call more numbers than there are telemarketers to handle them, people answering them get connected to nothing, and get hung up on, and, according to the FTC, that is required to be no more than 3% of their calls. Unless there is something about my phone number that causes me to get more than my share of those calls, no more than 3% of the telemarketing calls I get should be such calls. Since more than 3% of the telemarketing calls I get are such calls, it's likely that telemarketers are violating that rule.

My tactics of keeping telemarketers on the line rather than hanging up on them probably contributes to their overdialing. I feel all the more justified in continuing such tactics. The more they violate the rules, the more likely they will face legal problems, or they will have to hire more telemarketers, or they will have to reconfigure their dialers to call fewer people at any given time. Any of those will drive the cost of telemarketing up, making it less likely that any given telemarketing firm will stay in business.

On a different note, I have a cheap $10 phone. It has a switch on it that turns the ringer off. Apparently, a few days ago, I knocked the phone over, causing the ringer to get switched off, so I haven't been answering any calls from telemarketers, or anyone else, since then.