Thursday, January 27, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 3
State legislator wants to limit telemarketers
By Katrina Hull
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
"Hello? Anybody there?"
The phone rings and no one is on the other end. The caller ID reads "unavailable."
Chances are it's a telemarketer — and one state lawmaker has a proposal to put a stop to these mysterious calls.
"You don't know if it's a prank call or someone casing your home for a potential burglar," said State Rep. Douglas Johnston, D-Wichita. "Most of the time these calls are coming from telemarketers who use automatic dialing phone systems."
Technology has created a heartless breed of telemarketers — computers that dial hundreds of numbers at the same time without enough live operators to handle all the calls that are answered, Johnston told the House Business Commerce and Labor Committee yesterday.
"This has been driving my constituents insane since last year," he said. "To say the least, it's incredibly annoying, rude, unethical and, more importantly, it's a serious problem."
Steve Rarrick, a Kansas deputy attorney general for consumer protection, said the attorney general's office had received complaints continually since the voiceless callers began ringing Kansas' phones.
Telemarketers call the practice "predictive dialing." Stephen Altobelli, director of public affairs for the Direct Marketing Association, a coalition of direct marketers, said the technology's widespread use had begun within the last year.
Johnston's proposal would require telemarketing companies to have a recording or live operator come on the line within 15 seconds of the call being answered. But committee members said 15 seconds was too long and five seconds would be a more acceptable period of silence.
The attorney general's office recommended adding the requirement that all predictive dialers have a recording that identified who they were and why they were calling. Altobelli said that would
TELEMARKETER REGULATIONS
Know your rights when
the phone rings:
No means no.
Telemarketers must hang up after one "no" or other negative response.
Know who is calling.
Telemarketers are required to identify themselves, who they are calling on behalf of and why they are calling.
No call blocker. Kansas law requires telemarketing companies to register on caller ID units, unless the company's technology doesn't allow for it. Ask the company why its number doesn't appear on your caller ID.
Know who to call. If telemuseum break the law, get a company name and phone number and report it to the Kansas Consumer Protection Division of the attorney general's office at 1-800-432-2310.
Source: Kansas statutes and Kansas Attorney General's office
be expensive for telemarketers and that the cost would be passed on to the consumer.
Steve Rice, a sales manager at the telemarketing company GECKO Communications, 2449 Iowa St., said his company would favor the legislation despite the cost.
"I think that it's good that there have been a lot of laws." Rice said. "It's easier for a company like mine to stay in business because we've always followed the rules."
Catching predictive dialers is not easy, as the technology for predictive dialing does not show up on caller ID units. Altobelli said.
Rarrick said that as technology improved, the calls would show up on caller ID and citizens could report violators.
Johnston's proposal is on hold while telemarketing companies respond to the attorney general's recommendation for at least a voice recording to be on the other end of the line.
More telemarketing legislation may be on the way. Johnston said he was working on a law that would allow Kansans to be placed on a nocall list to avoid telemarketers.
Residents concerned about new rec center
concerned that the recreation center would increase flooding in her already wet basement.
Continued from page 1A
"My main concern would be that the sewer lines would not hold that much extra," she said.
Corman said that when the University built a new building, it also built holding ponds or tanks that released floodwater slowly and actually decreased runoff.
"It doesn't make it any worse," he said. "It would make it better."
The last hurdle the University must clear before beginning work on the recreation center is the Legislature, which will likely approve the site, Corman said.
"Sometime between now and May they'll probably approve it," he said.
If the Legislature approves the proposal, the University will hire an architect in June or July, he said.
The recreation center would take eight to 10 months to design, he said, a couple of months to hire builders and a year and
a half to build — meaning it could be open by Fall 2002. Corman said the proposed center would cost $17 million.
Residents of the 1800 block of Alabama St., gaze at the field behind their house. The proposed rec center would stand On this field that they use to play sports. Photo by Jason Dailey/KANSAN
Because the field is University property, Lawrence residents have not had a say in the process, but they could attend the Legislature's hearings, Corman said.
"It's none of their damn business," he said. "It's state property, and it's zoned for that."
Online options pushed back
By Ryan Devlin
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The sight of desperate students lined up like cattle outside the enrollment office in Strong Hall might be an image of the past — but not anytime soon.
Last semester, students wishing to access their grades online could do so for the first time. This semester, students can access their schedules online. Soon, online enrollment, add/drop, records and many other options will also be available, said Richard C. Morrell. University Registrar.
Morrall said the original plan was to have PeopleSoft up and running in time for enrollment during the Fall 2000 semester. But that will not happen.
"We bought version 7.0 first," he said.
"Version 7.5 came out next, and we began to do our prototyping on 7.5. But we discovered there were problems with both versions. Not all the functionality promised is there."
Morrell said PeopleSoft originally slated the release of the new version for summer 2000 — which would have given the University plenty of time to do the necessary testing to have the program in place for Fall 2000.
But PeopleSoft has since pushed back the release of 8.0 to January 2001 to ensure that all the problems are fixed, he said.
Morrell,has to be patient these days. In addition to his duties as registrar, he is project manager for PeopleSoft Systems, a program that will someday run online enrollment, records, financial aid, billing and academic advising at the University.
The University is not the first to discover problems with the PeopleSoft program. Several schools in the Big Ten purchased the software in 1997 and soon reported problems with the program's Web component, specifically its ability to handle large numbers of users.
Morrell said the University was waiting for the next version of the program, version 8.0, to be released.
Several other Kansas schools already feature online registration but not with PeopleSoft.
"Several of the previous problems should be fixed with version 8.0," he said.
Don Foster, university registrar at Kansas State University, said that they began online registration in 1998 and that it had been very successful.
But K-State doesn't use PeopleSoft because they didn't have the finances when they wanted to purchase a program, Foster said.
"We took our current information system which has been in place for 20 years and put a Web-based front end on it." Foster said.
K-State's system handled everything from enrollment to financial aid. As of last fall, K-State no longer issued printed grade reports or schedules, Foster said.
Foster said that he thought K-State's current system would be replaced by a program such as PeopleSoft in the future but that the current system served their needs.
But the program at the University doesn't serve students' needs — KU students said they were eager to get online enrollment.
"I'll definitely use it," said Ben Hayes, Milwaukee sophomore, while waiting outside the enrollment office. "It's a lot more convenient and will definitely save a lot of hassle."
Kari Manier, St. Louis graduate student. agreed.
"Enrolling in person is such a formality," Manier said. "It's just more paperwork. I've never seen such a mess."
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