This number called me Jan 23rd, there was a significant delay from the time I answered the phone "Hello" to the time the caller responded.  And that's usually how you know they're a telemarketer, or at least calling from a call centre.

The caller was Ottawa Police Association, or actually, Xentel, the King Kong of charity telemarketers in Canada.  Xentel makes millions calling on behalf of many charities, and keeping about 50-80% of the donations for themselves.

The Do Not Call lists do not apply to them because they are "calling on behalf of a charitable organization".  So don't bother registering on a DNC if you expect to stop receiving these calls.  

Just politely tell them that you are not interested, and to please code the call as "Not Interested", they will know exactly what that means.

Thank you Dave for this information, didn't realize we had the ability of sharing information like this.  I like !!

Thanks again,

Aline

FYI, it's a little different in the USA. Charities are exempt from our DoNotCall Registry and charities can telemarket DNC registrants. However third party fund raisers hired by charities to raise funds on their behalf are not exempt and may not call DNC registrants.

It comes across as a personal call of someone who knows you and turns out to be"no one" you have ever spoken to ! DON'T FALL PREY TO THIS ONE ! Aside from wasting your time and supporting nothing you care about,  it definatly takes away from our local existing police communities and frustrates the community leaders .  I am sure our chief of police will be happy to tear this one down to shreads !!

I dumbly fell for this and donated for a police association's ALS (an important cause in my life) charity drive - thinking the police association was the person doing this - now I get mails and calls galore from the company's various charities. I don't know how much money actually went to the research, but Xentel sure punishes you for donating with piles of calls and disturbing mail. It's made a new no-phone-charity policy in my life. Donate straight to the charity, no thru Xentel. Although they do it for charity, they sell it like a telemarketer so it was hard to choose which category to put it in.