Phone rings…..You put aside whatever you’re doing….or you wake up from a nap….and get to the phone before the answering machine kicks in…. and it’s a recorded message, perhaps from a politician whose name you recognize, urging you to vote for someone or something—or against someone or some thing…. Even if you’re on the state’s no-call list, you might be getting annoying calls from people you wish would go away. But there’s almost nothing you can do about it because some of the people you’ve elected HAVEN’T done anything about it. Attorney General Jay Nixon says his office that handles no-call complaints is getting almost 70 complaints every day about these calls. The state no-call law does not list these recorded messages among the things that are banned. He says it’s the legislature’s fault. He says lawmakers have failed to add automated recorded messages, cell phone calls, and faxes to the no-call law. Nixon says the high number of complaints about the automated calls during this election season could carry weight with lawmakers in the 2007 session. He says some of these automated calls do not release a phone line until the recording has run out—-which poses a danger for the person who has to make an emergency call out before the message is finished. Nixon says people can continue calling his consumer complaint hotline about these calls if they want to. But he suggests it might be a better idea to call the state representatives and senators who have failed to expand the no-call law to include these automated messages.
