The phone rings two or three times during dinner. The mailbox is spilling over with unwanted solicitations from businesses you’ve never heard of. Is there anything you can do to stop the marketing onslaught?

On October 1, 2003 the National Do Not Call Registry, maintained by the Federal Trade Commission, went into effect, making it even easier to remove your name from mailing lists and prohibiting certain telemarketers from calling your home for a period of five years. Exempted organizations include most charities, political concerns and businesses with a pre-existing relationship with the customer. To register your home phone number with the National DNC Registry, visit www.donotcall.gov.

As an extra measure of protection, the sample opt-out letter templates below are recommended by the Center for Democracy & Technology. Identity Track® makes them available for your use, free of charge. Click on the links below to view the letter samples. You can either print them for future reference or copy them to your computer to customize and mail to the credit reporting agencies or Direct Marketing Association.