Re: Block Telemarketing Calls On Any Phone For FIVE YEARS!
Anastacia Iacono
Numbers are downloaded from the National Do Not Call Registry on a quarterly basis and included in the Colorado No-Call List. While it is not necessary to register on both lists, the Public Utilities Commission recommends that consumers do so.
The Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the states enforce the National Do Not Call Registry. Placing a number on the registry will stop most, but not all, telemarketing calls.
On June 17, 2008, the Federal Communications Commission amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules to require telemarketers to honor registrations on the national Do-Not-Call list indefinitely, so that registrations will no longer expire after five years. Under the revised rules, numbers will remain on the national do-not-call list unless the consumer removes his or her number or discontinues service. Consumers will no longer need to re-register their numbers on the national do-not-call list every five years.
In recent years, Congress has enacted several federal laws addressing telemarketing fraud and practices. As a result, both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have established regulations covering the $720 billion telemarketing industry in the United States. It is estimated that consumers lose over $40 billion a year to fraudulent telemarketers. Although the vast majority of telemarketers are legitimate business people attempting to sell a particular product or service, there are unscrupulous individuals and companies violating telemarketing rules and promoting various fraudulent schemes aimed at parting consumers from their money.
The FCC, FTC, and several consumer groups and government/business partnerships identified in this report provide extensive information on telemarketing. This report provides summaries of the federal laws and regulations particular to telemarketing, the establishment of a national do-not-call registry, and on the options that are available to consumers to attempt to limit the calls that they receive from telemarketers and to report questionable telemarketing practices to local or federal authorities. The report also lists sources of additional information with addresses, phone numbers, and Internet sites (if available) and will be updated as legislation or news events warrant.
Telephone marketing, better known as telemarketing, is an approximately $720 billion business in the United States, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). As telephone technologies become more advanced, it becomes more cost-effective for telemarketers to use these technologies to sell various products and services directly to consumers. Only a few households have not received a telemarketing call. However, with the expansion of the telemarketing business comes the expansion of telemarketing fraud. Although the vast majority of telemarketers are legitimate business people, there are other individuals and companies who violate existing laws and rules and bilk unsuspecting customers of $40 billion a year according to some estimates.
In recent years, several federal laws that deal directly with telemarketing issues have been enacted. Each of the laws has a different focus relative to telemarketing, but all attempt to limit or prohibit certain abusive, fraudulent, or deceptive practices. Because both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are responsible for different aspects of telemarketing, both agencies were directed to promulgate regulations. The FCC generally covers consumers' privacy rights relative to telemarketing practices and the use of the telephone system by telemarketers to transmit information whether via facsimile machine, automated dialing mechanisms, recorded calls, or by a live person. The FTC is concerned more with the content and consequences of the call, and its regulations focus on whether certain sales practices are misleading, fraudulent, or deceptive. Individual states have passed laws relating to telemarketing practices within a state.
The TCPA, P.L. 102-243, was signed by President Bush on December 20, 1991. It was the first of the six federal laws passed dealing specifically with telemarketing issues. This act directed the Federal Communications Commission to issue rules balancing the fair business practices of telemarketers with the privacy concerns of consumers.
If a consumer's name is on a company's do-not-call list and the company places more than one call to that consumer in the year after the consumer has been placed on the list, the consumer may, if he/she wishes, sue the telemarketer in state court, usually a small claims court. Should a consumer pursue court action, he/she should maintain records of all calls and contacts with the company.
On September 12, 2002, the FCC announced that it would review its existing telemarketing rules due to changes in telemarketing practices and the introduction of advanced technologies, enabling new marketing techniques. The FCC noted that these new practices and technologies have increased concerns about consumer privacy.1
The commission sought public comment on issues such as the need to revise its rules to more effectively follow the directions of Congress provided in the TCPA concerning balancing privacy rights, public safety interests, and commercial freedom of speech; revising or adding to its rules concerning autodialers, prerecorded messages, and fax advertisements; the effectiveness of company do-not-call lists; and the creation of a national do-not-call list. The Federal Trade Commission also considered establishment of a national do-not-call list. However, since the FTC is prohibited by statute from regulating certain industries (banks, credit unions, savings and loans, common carriers, and insurance companies, for example), an FCC national do-not-call list applies to industries not covered by an FTC list. The FCC considered creation of a national do-not-call database during promulgation of TCPA rules in 1992. It decided not to create such a database at the time because of issues such as cost, maintaining the accuracy of such a system, security of telemarketer proprietary information, and privacy of telephone subscribers with unlisted or unpublished numbers. Instead, the FCC required companies to maintain their own do-not-call lists.
A summary of the FCC's proposed rule review appeared in the Federal Register on October 8, 2002, on pages 62667-62681. Comments relating to the review were due by November 22, 2002. Following the Federal Trade Commission's December 18, 2002 announcement of its amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the FCC extended the reply comment period to January 31, 2003. The extension was to ensure that all interested parties could take the FTC actions into account before submitting their comments.
On June 26, 2003, the FCC announced that it would establish a national do-not-call registry covering both interstate and intrastate calls. The FCC noted that its update of the TCPA rules does not require states to discontinue their individual do-not-call registries, but any state do-not-call registry must include the name of any of its residents that are in the national database. States may adopt more restrictive laws relating to intrastate telemarketing, but may not establish practices less restrictive than the federal regulations. As with the FTC rules, consumers may continue to request that their names be added to individual company do-not-call lists if they so choose. On the other hand, consumers may also provide written permission to specific companies from which they wish to receive telemarketing calls even if they are on the national registry. The registry became effective on October 1, 2003, when consumers could also begin registering complaints, if necessary.
Telemarketers may continue to call consumers with whom they have an "established business relationship." The FCC definition of established business relationship would permit a company to contact a customer for 18 months following a business transaction and for three months following an inquiry or application. However, the company may not call the customer again if the customer requests to be put on the company's do-not-call list.
The updated TCPA rules also included additional restrictions on predictive dialers in an attempt to reduce "dead air" and quick hang-up calls by requiring that no more than 3% of all calls placed and answered by a person may be abandoned. In addition, when a call is abandoned within the 3% range, the telemarketing company must provide a prerecorded message identifying the company. Also prohibited is the blocking of caller ID information.
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