“Over the past several years, the number of nuisance phone calls received by consumers has skyrocketed. Millions of calls per month are from telemarketers who often pose a risk to our privacy and personal information. That’s why I helped pass the Nuisance Call Act last year to curb this increasingly prevalent annoyance that far too many New Yorkers deal with on a near-daily basis.

“On March 1, the Nuisance Call Act goes into effect to close a loophole in New York’s Do Not Call law that had allowed New Yorkers on the list to still receive calls from live telemarketers (Ch. 572 of 2019). The law requires live telemarketers to inform a customer that they can request their number be added to the seller’s entity-specific do-not-call list. If the customer opts in, the call must end immediately and their number must be added to the registry. Under the law, telemarketers are also prohibited from sharing a customer’s contact information with another person, corporation or entity unless they have express written consent to do so.”