Consumer Inq

The headline on the letter from Time magazine seemed clear: "Our sweepstakes results are now final: Mr. Jean-Marc Richard has won a cash prize of $833,337.00!"

OK, I know what you're thinking. You're too savvy to fall for that, right? I am, too. Those of us inured to marketers' lies – let's call them what they are – know to look for the fine print, especially when something sounds too good to be true.

And, of course, the catch was there for Richard to find. In tiny type, the promise of riches was preceded by a contingency: "If you have and return the Grand Prize winning entry in time and correctly answer a skill-testing question, we will officially announce that...."

But last week, according to Canada's Globe and Mail, a Quebec judge awarded $100,000 (about $95,500 in U.S. dollars) in damages to Richard for having been unjustly snookered.

The Globe and Mail story said Justice Carol Cohen of Quebec Superior Court based the size of her award in part on Quebec's French Language Charter, saying the wrong was compounded by mailing the English-language pitch to French-speaking Canadians. (Not that language alone explains the problem. Richard uses English at work, and recalls showing the document to an anglophone colleague – who congratulated him on winning.)

An additional problem for Time was that the signature on the letter, "Elizabeth Matthews," was apparently for a nonexistent person – something Richard discovered when he called to complain that his magazine subscription had arrived but his sweepstakes award hadn't.

"It is patently obvious to any reader that the mailing from Time was not only false and incomplete, it was specifically designed to be misleading ... especially to a reader who is not reading in his or her mother tongue," Cohen said, according to the newspaper.

The paper said Time was expected to appeal. If the case were in the United States, I'd expect the magazine to win. Here, we think it's paternalistic to protect consumers from Wild West marketing tactics – even though we know that many people, particularly the elderly, fall for them.

But for the moment, our neighbors to the north have struck a small blow for the more trusting among us. Maybe even for good faith itself.

If you've been blissfully free from dinnertime interruptions by telemarketers for the last few years, I'll bet you a Florida time-share that I know the reason, and that it's not because the business suddenly vanished.

Your evenings are your own again because the government crackdown on unwelcome telemarketing worked. You added your number to the Pennsylvania Do Not Call list or to its counterpart in another state, or you joined the federal Do Not Call list, and telemarketers knew not to bother you.

Trust me: As sure as Mortgage Rates Have Never Been Lower! (well, surer), they're still calling sombody. I know this firsthand because, alone among my friends and acquaintances, I've never added my phone number to a do-not-call lists. Yes, keeping an ear on this often-smarmy business was a dirty job, but as a consumer writer I figured it was my duty. And thanks to my valiant sacrifice, I can assure you that lenders, vacation-deal peddlers, and home-improvement contractors are standing by, ready to call you first chance they get.

When might that be? Last week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett began a campaign to renew the no-calls status for the first million phone numbers that were signed up as soon as the state's list became available in mid-2002. If you were one of the first to enroll your number, and you don't renew by Sept. 15th, Corbett said you could start getting calls in November. (To enroll or re-enroll online, click here.)

Do you need to re-up for the Pennsylvania list if you're also on the national Do Not Call list, which was started a year later?

That's not clear. The state and federal lists both should spare you from the same kinds of calls and carry the same kinds of exceptions – such as for companies with whom you have an existing business relationship, nonprofits, and political calls. So I called Corbett's office to ask.

The answer: "The reason to be on both is that you might benefit from enforcement on both," said spokesman Nils Frederiksen. "It’s double the protection, and you get a financial bonus if you file a complaint in Pennsylvania and we’re able to collect a fine from the company."

The AG's office says that since the law was enacted, it has filed 75 legal actions against telemarketers who have made calls violating it, and collected more than $800,000 in civil penalties. Under the law, a consumer whose complaint leads to a successful prosecution is entitled to 10 percent of the fine, up to $100 apiece.

Could I talk to someone who got a check from the state? Frederiksen put me in touch with Joann Brown of South Philadelphia, a restaurant hostess who reported an unwanted call from a company called Vacation Depot.

Violating the telemarketing rules wasn't necessarily the worst thing the company had done. In December, Corbett settled a year-old state lawsuit against the Michigan company behind Vacation Depot, which agreed to pay $15,000 in fines and in restitution to consumers it was accused of misleading.

According to state investigators, the company called consumers and told them they'd won a vacation or a motor vehicle. But to collect, they would first have to listen to a seminar about the Vacation Depot club.

Those who heard the pitch were promised they could save up to 40 percent on vacations, "including cruises, hotel rooms, car rentals and airline tickets," the AG's settlement announcement said. It said club memberships ranged in price from $2,453 to $6,453.

"In reality, many club members complained that the promised discounts just weren't there," Corbett said in the statement. "In one case, the vacation package offered by the defendants was $500 more than a similar package a consumer found on Expedia.com, an online travel service provider. In other cases, the company was unable to arrange the requested trips and services at all. Dissatisfied customers were then told that they could not cancel their memberships and get their money back."

Joanna Brown was one of the club's luckier – OK, smarter – potential victims. She got a call, reported it, and eventually got a $15 check – her share of the part of the penalty not used for direct restitution. Never messed with the company itself.

Clearly, a side-benefit of the Do Not Call laws are that it makes it easier for state and federal officials to nail telemarketers who play so close to the edge that they forget there is one. In Vacation Depot's case, more than 50 consumers complained that they got the company's calls even though they were on the Do Not Call list. Those allegations were a key part of the case against the company, which otherwise could rely heavily on the usual buyer-beware defense.

How have the feds done in comparison?

At the end of December, the federal Do Not Call list had 132 million numbers on it. The federal law allows a penalty of $11,000 per violation, well beyond Pennsylvania's limit of $1,000 per violation. On the other hand, Pennsylvania has already filed more than twice as many cases as the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces the federal law.

As of Sept. 30, 2006, the FTC had filed 28 cases and settled 21 of them. But those 21 cases were clearly on a different scale than Pennsylvania's, generating more than $15 million in court-ordered penalties or redress, roughly half for do-not-call violations and half for other charges. (Want to read about its enforcement? Click here to read the FTC's annual report to Congress on the Do Not Call registry.)

The bottom line? Sign up for both lists, if only to encourage both the state and federal governments to continue enforcing the laws against marketing that crosses the line.

Someday, I just might join you. Maybe after I win the Florida time-share sweepstakes.

For instructions on renewing your Pennsylvania registration, click here.

For informationn and instructions about the federal law, click here.