Cell Phone E-Mail Hoax

Did you get an e-mail this week that said telemarketers will have the right to call your cell phone after 1/1/05 and that if you don't sign up on the "Do Not Call" list by Wednesday, you could be hit with a rash of telemarketing calls after the first of the year?

Well, if you did, I am here to tell you that it was a hoax. And it was a beauty! We can laugh at it because it really did no harm.

The only one affected was the Federal trade commission who handles the "Do Not Call" list. They normally field about 200,000 requests per week. But last week, that number soared to 9.5 million as a result of the hoax.

Like many rumors, this hoax has a kernel of truth at its core. It was probably born as result of a new project called the Wireless 411 Service, which has been proposed by several major wireless phone carriers including AT&T Wireless. The service, expected to be available next year, will let people look up cell phone numbers the same way they look up numbers using the nationwide 411 directory service.

But unlike the directory for home and business numbers, people must ask their wireless phone carrier to be included in the cellular directory and telemarketers won't have access to it. Telemarketers are barred from calling cell phones under rules set by the FCC. Thank God!