Don’T Call Us; We’Ll Fine You, Lance Bill Says If Bill Passes, Telemarketers Would Face Fines If They Violate Don’T-Call List

Sen. Lin Whitworth keeps getting calls at home from a Spokane auto glass company even though he lives in southeastern Idaho.

Paul Andrews of Boise gets calls from sales people from all over the country. “We get so many calls from different long-distance companies, different mortgage companies - they bombard us from all over,” he told a Senate committee Wednesday.

The calls come at dinner time. They come when the family’s trying to enjoy a little time together. Above all, said Idaho Attorney General Al Lance, they’re going to folks who don’t want them.

Lance has a plan to stop unwanted telemarketing calls, and despite initial objections from a slew of business interests, his bill won unanimous approval from the Senate State Affairs Committee late Wednesday. It now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

Two senators on the committee said they’d like to be first on a list of people who shouldn’t get telemarketing calls.

Lance said his bill is a chance for Idahoans to “reclaim some of the privacy that they’ve lost as a result of intrusive and repeated phone calls by people trying to sell them something in their own homes.”

The man who proposed Idaho’s sex-offender registry and other significant, controversial legislation said this bill has drawn the most response from Idahoans - by far.

Here’s the plan: Lance would set up a list of don’t-call numbers. People could get on the list for three years by paying $10. Telemarketers could buy a copy of the list for $15, and they’d have a powerful incentive: If they try pitching their wares via phone to anyone on the list, they’d face stiff fines - as much as $5,000 for a third-time offense.

“I’ve had people call me and request to be No. 1 on the list,” Lance said. “I probably have been personally contacted about 50 or 60 times in the last few days.”

Connie Browning, director of corporate development for Dakotah Direct, paused Wednesday when told about the possible new law.

“Of course we don’t like to see it enacted,” she said, “but it’s something that we’re able to deal with.”

Several other states have gone this route, said Browning, whose telemarketing firm has a 64-phone call center in Coeur d’Alene. “We anticipate there will be many more that will be enacted this year.”

Ron Williams, lobbyist for Sprint Telecommunications, said he felt like he was representing “the evil empire” when he approached the committee to object to the bill. Williams was the only one of more than a dozen business lobbyists in the room who spoke up against the bill.

Jennifer Lindsay, lobbyist for the Idaho Retailers Association, said her members’ fears about the bill have been put to rest by Lance.

That’s because the new law would apply only to calls selling a product or service, on the spot. If it’s just a call to set up an appointment, Lance said, the law won’t apply. So that leaves the real estate and insurance businesses off the hook. The law also wouldn’t apply to calls from a business to its existing customers.

Charities also wouldn’t be covered if they’re calling to seek donations, he said.

Lance said if he were calling around for a favorite charity, he’d get the list first. “I don’t think I’m doing my cause any good if you’re on that list and I’ve disturbed you in the middle of a meal or your family time.”

“Legitimate telemarketers avoid calling those who don’t want to be called,” Lance said.

Technically, the law could apply to schoolchildren calling around to sell magazine subscriptions or Girl Scout cookies, but Lance said that’s not where he’d choose to turn his enforcement efforts.

“I can’t see the A.G. going after the Girl Scouts,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Boise. “I’d like to be there if he did.”

The bill wouldn’t stop all pesky sales calls, Lance said. But if someone on the list got a call, they could complain to the Attorney General’s office, and Lance could go after the violator.

Brian Dean, a Boise fund-raiser, said the $10 fee is too high. “To me it sounds like old Chicago - I’ll give you protection, but it’s going to cost you.”

Committee members said fees, which would cover the program’s operating costs, could be waived for those who can’t afford to pay, and Idahoans want this kind of law.

Said Whitworth, D-Inkom, “I don’t know of anything else I’ve had more demands for from my constituents.