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Telemarketing Laws
In the Western world today, the most unfortunate, hated people
are probably the faceless telemarketers. One main reason for
this is the fact that these telemarketers typically interrupt
people at the most inopportune times, when either dinner is
placed on the table or a parent is reading to his or her child.
Because of such fact and the rapidly growing outsourced telemarketing,
in which citizens in Western countries get some 16 billion sales
calls each year, several telemarketing laws were passed and
amended. These telemarketing laws, however, differ from state
to state and from country to country. There are also some locales
that proposed additional legislation at the city as well as
at the country levels. With this variety, each user of outbound
dialing or telemarketing is given the sole responsibility to
familiarize themselves with the telemarketing laws related to
their specific application. They are also subjected to adhere
to these laws.
Here are the well-established federal telemarketing laws:
The Federal Agencies and the Statutes
The Federal Trade Commission and the Telemarketing Sales
Rule (TSR)
A number of federal antitrust and consumer protection laws were
enforced by the FTC to ensure that the nation’s markets function
competitively and are free of undue restrictions. Its efforts
are directed toward stopping actions that threaten the consumer’s
opportunities to exercise informed choice.
With such aim, the FTC passed the TSR which in turn implements
the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act
of 1994. The TSR was amended in late 2002 and today, it creates
a Do Not Call program that mandates a 3 percent abandonment
rate for predictive dialers. This program even mandates the
telemarketers to transmit caller ID information. However, there
are certain industries that are not covered by the TSR because
by law the FTC has no regulatory authority over them. These
industries include banks, federal credit unions, common carriers,
nonprofit organizations, and insurance companies.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Telemarketing
Laws
Just like the FTC, the FCC implemented certain telemarketing
laws that protect the consumers’ right to privacy. There is
the TCPA which covered in-house lists, prohibiting the telemarketers
from calling residential numbers unless the telemarketer has
instituted written policies and procedures for maintaining a
do not call list for the subscribers who ask not to receive
calls from them. Also, the FCC telemarketing laws mandate that
any call made by a predictive dialer to a wireless telephone
number is highly prohibited.
Acts of Congress
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA)
The TCPA basically restricts telemarketers from calling residential
numbers unless the telemarketer has instituted written policies
and procedures for maintaining a do not call list for the users
who ask to be listed on the Do Not Call registry. It is further
important to note that these set of telemarketing laws also
prohibit the sending of any unsolicited fax advertisement, as
well as the use of auto dialers and the sending of recorded
messages.
The Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud Act and Abuse Protection
Act of 1994
This set of telemarketing laws required the FTC to develop regulations
to prevent fraudulent and abusive practices by the telemarketers.
It also requires the FTC to develop rules against telemarketing
practices that are coercive or abusive of the customer’s right
to privacy. From this set of telemarketing laws, the FTC was
able to develop the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) which was
mentioned above.
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