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(NBC News) -- If there's one thing you need to know about the "National Do Not Call List", which went into effect last year - it's this: It doesn't cost anything to sign up!
Yet people across the country are still getting offers to have their names added to the list for a price.
Tim Waller tells us these offers are nothing more than a scam, as Doug Shaw recently found out.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "They's some really intelligent people out there that can come up with some real doozies."
Like most people these days, he's heard plenty of doozies.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "Cosmetics, medications, dream vacations was the biggest one..."
But recently, Doug Shaw heard something bigger.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "They was saying, they were from the National Do Not Call list, and I was sitting there, and I was like.. yes."
But Shaw said "no" when the man on the phone starting asking for things Do-Not-Call operators have no business asking.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "The guy asked me, he said well, can I have your routing number for your checking account and your credit card numbers, and I'm like, well, I normally don't give that stuff over the phone."
A good move on Shaw's part, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which has been flooded with complaints over calls like that one.
Brad Winter, Federal Trade Commission: "There have been complaints, and there have been cases. The FTC has brought a couple of law enforcement actions against con artists, fraudsters that try to take advantage of the popularity of the list."
The government, he says, will never call you to ask you to register for the do-not-call list. Nor are private or third-party companies allowed to solicit services on behalf of the government.
Shaw hung up on the pushy caller, but the man on the phone was by no means through.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "They called back 3 or 4 more times, and every time they called, I just picked the phone up and hang it up because I didn't want to hear it anymore."
Ironically, he found, it's the very type of call, the do not call list was designed to overhaul.
Doug Shaw, Scam Victim: "I probably cut the phone and pulled it out of the wall."
