Telemarketers beware: Bill would create unit to investigate fraudulent calls
TRENTON — New Jersey would have a group of investigators tasked with looking into telemarketing fraud under a bill making its way through the Legislature.
The state Senate’s Community and Urban Affairs Committee today approved a bill (S247) to establish a “telemarketing fraud investigation unit” run by the state Division of Consumer Affairs.
The unit would investigate consumer complaints about calls from callers who ignore the do-not-call list, block their information from caller ID, call after permitted hours and “other such consumer complaints related to telemarketing practices as determined by the director.”
“The technology is more sophisticated, and the number of telemarketers who have been breaking the law has been growing,” said state Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May), a sponsor. “There are two levels of fraud. One is they’re breaking the law by calling when they shouldn’t be… And then secondly, what they are doing at times is fraudulent. It’s a fraudulent product or fraudulent practice.”
Rob Nixon, a lobbyist who is director of government affairs for the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, said the organization does not make telemarketing calls, but is often blamed for “fraudulent” groups that do make calls and purport to support New Jersey police officers. (Friedman/Star-Ledger)
Another unenforceable law.
I’m glad these dirtbags are getting attention, but with VOIP phone service and the ability to trick/mask ID, its worthless since most of the calls originate out of the country.
Lately many of the scammers that call are from Jamaica area codes.
And if you have phone service from Cablevision, you can log on to their web page and go to ‘phone’ and BLOCK a lot of numbers at no charge.
Its very helpful when dealing with the recent Jamaicans who are too stupid to have more than one #.
“Rachel’ from ‘card services’ had dozens of numbers but I haven’t heard from that scammer in months.
Any time my landline rings it’s a telemarketer. They ignore requests to be placed on do not call list and reporting them to donotcall.gov is useless. Blocking numbers through carriers becomes a full time job. Fines need to be enforced in addition to more serious charges because as a result I can’t even answer my phone anymore.
That’s good to know #2 I,m going to block the Mayors robo calls.