In the past three months, the hallways at Groesbeck-based Tel-A-Sell Marketing Inc. have become a lot less crowded. CEO O’Connor has been forced to trim his telemarketing staff from 72 to 18. “I WAS RUNNING a full house earlier this year,” said  the president of the American Teleservices Association’s, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan. One of the big reason for the job cuts: the chilling effects of the National Do Not Call Registry and other similar efforts in statehouses across the country.
Nearly 30 million phone numbers across the United States have been registered for the federal Do Not Call list. That number could double by the time the list takes effect on Oct. 1.
The ATA, which is challenging the list in court, said the national list could eventually cause more than 2 million lost telemarketing jobs. The ATA estimated that telemarketers are responsible for $660 billion in sales. The combined effects of do-not-call lists and the movement of jobs overseas have left the industry ailing.
“It’s going to cause significant business problems for this industry,”.

“Consumers need to find a way to say ‘no’ to telemarketers and protect their privacy,” Lippe said. “The sheer volume of signups shows how important this legislation was.”
With more than 30 states now adopting no-call lists, O’Connor said the challenge is daunting for telemarketers. He said they must not only ensure that they have up-to-date lists to avoid calling certain households, but the varying rules from state to state also are difficult to track.
“There are some states you just avoid altogether,” O’Connor said. Kentucky, for instance, has some of the strictest penalties for telemarketers. In its first year, Kentucky has added about 800,000 households to its no-call list and garnered more than $500,000 in fines.
The state attorney general’s office said calls complaining about telemarketing have dropped by 90 percent since the law took effect.
In Ohio, Senate Bill 28 is focused on creating a state no-call list that would be enforced by the Ohio attorney general’s office.

The legislation was passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and is expected to be brought before the state House this fall. The bill would create a registry for home, cellular and fax numbers and would authorize the attorney general to seek fines of up to $2,000 for each violation. Lippe said.
O’Connor said many telemarketing companies are abandoning the consumer market, and more companies are starting to target business-to-business customers.
He said telemarketers must adjust or die.
“They’re being left with no choice,” O’Connor said.
DON'T CALL ME (I 'LL CALL YOU)
“That’s what they have to do.”