2torial #0805:
Learn2 Avoid Telemarketers (continued)

Understand how they get your name

Knowing how telemarketers obtain your personal information is a big step toward freeing yourself from their clutches. The first thing to check is how you might inadvertently be giving out information about yourself.

When a business or association gets information about you (for example, when you order a product or use your credit card), it can put you on its mailing or phone list, as well as sell or donate your name to other businesses' and associations' lists. Here's a rundown of places where this transaction might happen:

• Credit card companies

• Banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies

• Magazines and newspapers

• Mail order catalogs

• Universities and schools

• Airlines (particularly frequent flyer programs)

• Cable television and long distance phone carriers

• Product warranty cards

While some companies and associations make a point not to give out this information (and advertise as such), the majority will. To stop them, you usually have to tell them in writing: Simply type or print on a piece of paper, "Do not sell, rent, or in any way distribute my name and personal information." Sign and print your full name, include your address and phone number, and send it off. By law, they're required to honor your request.

Your personal information can also get on mailing and phone lists from a phone book listing or a post office change of address form. You can't tell these services not to give out that information, since once you give it to them, it's public. However, for a fee you can make your phone number unlisted (call your local phone company to see how). And instead of using a change of address form, you can directly contact everyone whom you want to have your new address.

If the task of contacting all the associations and companies whose lists you're on seems daunting, you can hire a service to do it for you. For a fee, the service will contact thousands of businesses, marketing agencies, and credit bureaus to have your name removed from (or make sure it's never added to) their mailing or telemarketing lists (although this doesn't guarantee all telemarketing calls will stop). To find these services, try typing "stop telemarketing" into an Internet search engine.