My column on Sunday obviously hit a nerve, given the volume of calls I’ve gotten from people besieged in their own homes. Tom Maggi called me from his home in Minneapolis to alert me about one little-known remedy. A 1991 federal law called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act gives consumers the right to sue telemarketing scofflaws in small claims court (we call it conciliation court here in Minnesota). It’s hard to know how often that happens. But a California man fed up with mortgage offers and other solicitations got some notoriety two years ago after he sued four companies and won $6,100. He also set up a web site, amusingly titled killthecalls.com, for those who want to follow in his litigious footsteps. His site links to the law, whose relevant portion reads as follows:

A person who has received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the regulations prescribed under this subsection may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State bring in an appropriate court of that State–
(A) an action based on a violation of the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation,
(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive up to $500 in damages for each such
violation, whichever is greater, or
(C) both such actions.

How many lawyers would Voice Touch Inc. and Network Foundations LLC, the two companies the feds say made at least a billion calls, need to handle all the lawsuits that could be filed against them?

My Sunday column follows up on my rant last month about a rude telemarketer who interrupted my domestic tranquility. For a brief moment last week, I thought Whistleblower truly had some juice. I found myself on a teleconference with the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who had alerted the media about his agency’s legal bludgeoning of a rogue telemarketing scheme. Alas, it wasn’t Whistleblower’s tantrum - but those of two U.S. senators, Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, who finally felt the people’s rage when they got calls on their cell phones offering the warranty extensions.Judging by the comments on my column, telemarketers are not beloved by Whistleblower readers. Click here to put your numbers on the federal do not call registry. To file a complaint, click here. You have to know the date of the call, and the name of the company or the number you were called from.

Three stories over the weekend originated with tips phoned or emailed to the newsroom. My Sunday column described how two individuals dealt with mystery charges on their bank statements. Today, my colleague Pam Louwagie told the story of a Minneapolis homeowner still fuming over a police car chase of a shoplifting suspect that damaged her garage and very well could have killed somebody. Sunday Star Tribune readers have already seen the story by my colleague Chris Havens and me about the code enforcement sweep in St. Paul that has declared 1,125 windows unsafe, despite dissension about the city’s stance within its Department of Safety and Inspections. As part of our incentive to pick up the Sunday paper, online readers will have to wait until Wednesday to see that one.

I don’t get to the movies much. But I did make it to the Lagoon Cinema in Uptown to see State of Play, where, as one of my colleagues observed, the reporters are the good guys. Russell Crowe plays a rumpled investigative reporter at the fictional Washington Globe, uncovering vast conspiracies on Capitol Hill. It should be reassuring to me that Hollywood believes movie audiences will pay money to watch famous actors pretending to be reporters doing their jobs.

Lest viewers think that it’s even a vaguely accurate depiction of how an investigative reporter operates, allow me to compare the working life of Crowe’s reporter avatar, Cal McAffrey, with my own:

(more…)