I've taken every measure I can think of to hide from them.

        I pay to keep my name out of the phone book. I'm stingy about giving out my home number.

        I've purchased the phone company's caller ID service, which tells me who is calling and, most times, what number they're dialing from.

        Many direct-dial marketers have gotten around this by paying to block their numbers from appearing in my caller ID box. Now I pay extra to have the phone company block callers who won't reveal their numbers.

        Still telemarketers horn in. Now my husband and I have telephoned and e-mailed our way onto various “no call” lists.
       

Making lists

        Kentucky keeps such a list. People call or go online to register for free. Telemarketers nationwide are required to remove registrants from their prospect lists or face fines of up to $5,000 per call.

        Twenty states have similar lists, including Indiana, and many states attach civil penalties.

        Ohio has no list. Business lobbies killed a proposal three years ago.

        Ohio consumers can do as we did and sign up on national no-call registries.

        The Direct Marketing Association, for instance, has 4.1 million numbers on its no-call list. Telemarketers are encouraged, but not forced, to respect the list.

        I still didn't feel protected, so last week I signed on to a for-profit company's no-call list.

        Removeyou.com LLC, in Franklin, Ohio, launched its national no-call database May 13. Its list includes hundreds of thousands of “volunteers” like me who phoned in, as well as lists from the various states.

        I don't have to pay for it; telemarketers do, to get “clean” lists.

        For a fee, Removeyou removes the names of the unwilling from direct marketers' sales call lists, and keeps the lists updated. The price for such zippy zaps averages about $2,000 per national phone list, company president Thomas Brock says.

        The service can whack out a million names from a list in 60 seconds, Mr. Brock boasts. The company does the same thing for purveyors of junk e-mail (they don't like to call it spam).

        “It's click, click and it's over,” he says.
       

Calling costs

        Direct marketers can respect people's wishes and avoid getting in trouble with states' attorneys general, Mr. Brock says.

        “Some of those (state) fines can be hefty, anywhere from $2,000 total or $50,000,” he says.

        Missouri collected $500,000 in fines last year.

        Federal regulators may step into the fray. Next month, the Federal Trade Commission is holding public hearings on a national “do not call” list. Violators could be fined up to $11,000 per call.

        The FTC already forbids sales calls before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m.

        A national list would be good, if it minimizes loopholes. Most states have loopholes large enough for many a marketer to crawl through.

        In Kentucky, a company's telephone solicitors can call on past or present customers, regardless of whether they're on the no-call list. I'm convinced that's how my unwelcome callers reach me; they're affiliates or subsidiaries of companies I've dealt with before.

        I don't know; I won't talk to them.

        I could stop even these calls, by answering the phone and telling them not to call anymore, to remove me from their lists.

        But I don't want to talk with them, even briefly. After all the work I've done, that seems a further insult.

        Call Denise Smith Amos at 768-8395, or e-mail damos
       @enquirer.com.
       

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