Once upon a time, telemarketing was a relatively new thing. The idea of people calling you up at your home to try to sell you something was unheard of, but it quickly became very profitable. Suddenly, there were telemarketing companies popping up all over the place. It was no longer safe to answer your phone. People were starting to get annoyed, to put it mildly.

To the rescue came congress and the beginning of telemarketing laws as we know them today was just on the horizon.

Congress actually got into the act in 1991. What they did was pass an act that granted consumers certain rights to defend themselves against these annoying telemarketing calls, no offense to those in the industry. One of the things they did, which was actually a work of genius, was to write up what was called an anti telemarketing script for consumers to use when receiving a call they suspected was a telemarketer. In this script they would ask questions like, “Are you calling to sell me something?” “Can you tell me your full name?” “Can you tell me the company name?” “Do they have a do not call list?” “Can you put me on that list?” If they answer no to any of these questions then you can legally sue them.

Congress was finally going to take a proactive role against annoying telemarketing calls. In addition to the script, obviously there had to be laws put in place. Unfortunately, congress didn’t have control over the telephones. This was an FCC matter. So the best congress could do was to go to the FCC and ask them to solve this problem, giving the FCC their suggestion to set up a national database of telephone numbers of all consumers who wished not to be called by telemarketers.