Last DNC Resister Gives Up

7/29/2004 Raleigh, NC

Douglas Hansen, a retired postal clerk living in Raleigh, North Carolina, has long resisted signing up for the “Do Not Call” List, a national registry of people desiring not to receive annoying phone calls from telemarketers. “I just couldn’t sign up”, he said. “First of all, I prefer a low profile. I don’t want my name on a list maintained by the U.S. Government. I’m not a fugitive or anything; I’m not wanted by the FBI. It’s just that my telemarketing preferences are none of the government’s business. Secondly, I didn’t think it did much good to sign up. Those telemarketers cried so loudly about losing their livelihood, I figured it would be in the courts for the next century. I also figured having my name and number in a national, public registry was just too much temptation for some of those people. Finally, I’m just not a joiner.”

Hansen resisted signing up for the Do Not Call List since it’s inception in 2002. At first, things went well. When the Do Not Call Registry went into effect, Hansen noted that telemarketing calls decreased significantly. He thinks this was due to the uncertainty about the list and its legality. As time went on, however, the calls started increasing. Eventually, as more and more people signed up for the registry, Hansen started getting more and more calls.

He has a theory about that. “About the beginning of 2004, we reached a turning point. More Americans were registered than those not registered. At that point, the telemarketers found that it was easier to just find out who was not on the list, than who was on the list. As time has gone on, the not-registered list has gotten a lot shorter than the registered list. So those on the not-registered list started receiving more and more calls.”

The not-registered list dwindled down to just a few hundred names. Hansen got more and more calls. The day inevitably came when he came home to an answering machine filled to overflowing from telemarketing calls and hang-ups. As of March of this year, he had reached a milestone. He was the only American left on the not-registered list. Telemarketers called him constantly, since they had no-one else to call. His phone was ringing every moment, day and night. He tried every trick in the book – blasting the telemarketers with noise makers, disconnecting his answering machine and only answering calls at certain times of the day. Nothing worked.

As of July 1, Hansen took drastic action. He threw away all of his telephones, and his answering machine. He cancelled his service with the telephone company. He even had to give up his cell phone because of telemarketers, even though it is illegal in his state to do telemarketing calls to cell phone numbers. He complained to his cell phone service and to the government, to no avail. I asked him how he got in touch with his friends. “I call them from work. Sometimes I just wait until I get the chance to drive over to their house, just to catch up on the news.” What about emergencies? “The simplest solution imaginable – I got myself a pager”, he says proudly. What about signing up for credit cards? What about applying for loans? “I give them a fake phone number. They haven’t complained yet; and I’ve never been refused a credit card because they couldn’t call me on the phone. They’re happy just as long as they have a valid address to send the bills, and I pay them on time.”

“You’d be amazed how much simpler life is when it is not interrupted constantly by the phone. I can actually relax for five minutes, without having to get up to answer the phone.” So Doug Hansen has not entirely given up his resistance. He hasn’t signed up for the Do Not Call list. He’s just done away with the telemarketers altogether. Who says resistance is futile?