Realty Times March 27, 2003

Do-Not-Call Rule Schedules Telemarketing Offensive
by Broderick Perkins

Before the year-end holidays -- just in time to defend against telemarketers' seasonal offensive on your home phone -- you'll be able to e-bomb telemarketers out of you life and once again enjoy evening meals as you should -- without a dinner bell you dread.

The Federal Trade Commission earlier this week released its calendar for implementing the National "Do Not Call" Registry for consumers who want telemarketers out of their life.

Telemarketers, who generate nearly $300 billion in consumer sales a year, are cold calling salespeople who telephone their pitches -- too often with a disturbing ring right at dinner time when they know you are home.

Late last year, the FTC amended its Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to give consumers a national registry that promises to provide them with more control over who can telephone them with a sales pitch.

Last week, President Bush signed financial legislation that allows the Federal Trade Commission to collect fees from telemarketers to fund the registry -- $16 million for the first year.

Telemarketers must be in full compliance by January 29, 2004, but enforcement begins in October.

This year, at the onset of the month when the nation celebrates its independence, the law will also usher in the beginning of liberation from telemarketers. In July, consumers nationwide may begin signing up with the registry for free, electronically, online. Anticipating a rush by consumers to take the telemarketing bullseye off their backs, the FTC says the initial sign-up by a yet-to-be-disclosed, toll-free telephone number will be phased in, region-by-region, over an eight-week period, also beginning in July.

Do-Not-Call details

Details of the new do-not-call law are being funneled through the FTC's "Do Not Call" Web site. Letting you make the call about telemarketers, the new law says, in part:

  • If you sign up for the registry, certain telemarketers may not call you for five years. You'll have to renew after five years, if you change your phone number, or if you take your number out of the registry and later want to put your number back on the list. Once you sign up, you should begin to get fewer calls within three months.

  • Telemarketers must search the registry every 90 days and delete registered phone numbers from call lists. Consumers can file a complaint against telemarketers who violate the rule. Violators can be fined up to $11,000 for each illegal call.

  • Unfortunately, some businesses not governed by the FTC are exempt from the rule, including long-distance phone companies, airlines, and insurance companies. The Federal Communications Commission oversees calls made by those industries and is working with the FTC to add them to the program.

    The FCC also says late last year grifters began a do-not-call registry verification scam designed to illegally obtain private information.

    The FCC warns consumers that both federal and state do-not-call registration is initiated by the consumer, not by any company or government agency.

    Hang up on such calls, the feds advise.

  • Organizations with which you have an established a business relationship can call you for up to 18 months after your last purchase, payment or delivery, even if your name is on the national do-not-call registry. Companies to which you've made an inquiry or submitted an application can call you for up to three months.

  • You may ask any company not to call you and it must honor your request, even if you have an established business relationship. That's also true if you do not put your number on the national registry -- you can prohibit individual telemarketers and any company from calling, one by one, by asking them to put you on their company's do-not-call list.

  • Callers soliciting charitable contributions do not have to search the national registry, but a for-profit telemarketer calling on behalf of a charitable organization must honor your request to be put on its do-not-call list.

  • You may also give written do-call permission to particular companies that you want to hear from.

  • More than three dozen states have do-not-call registries and the FTC is working to coordinate the national registry to avoid duplication, but that could take a year.

  • When they are allowed to call you, telemarketers must transmit their telephone number and company name, if possible, to your Caller ID service.

    DMA suit

    The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in January filed a law suit opposing the new do-not-call rule claiming it violates free speech.

    Some real estate companies have also voiced displeasure over the rule.

    The DMA (DMA) offers its own do-not-call registry, the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) for $5 online, free by mail. TPS contains 7.5 million phone numbers, according to the DMA.

    DMA President & CEO H. Robert Wientzen said the U.S. telemarketing industry this year is projected to generate more than $296 billion in consumer sales.

    The forecast does not consider the potential impact of the new do-not-call rule.


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