Annoying calls may start again
If pre-recorded calls from political candidates and their friends gave you indigestion during the recent campaigns, reach for your Rolaids. The Federal Trade Commission is considering a change in rules that would increase the number of one-way conversations you have with a computer.
The agency is the keeper of the Do Not Call registry, which was implemented June 2003 to stop the flood of telephone solicitations that always seemed to coincide with the dinner hour. More than 73 million residential phone numbers, land line and cellular, have been put on the list the last 18 months. That’s a mighty response from consumers seemingly immune from so many other intrusions on their privacy.
By registering, consumers blocked almost all calls. Among the exceptions are calls from politicians, who just cannot stop themselves, and those from businesses with which a consumer already has a relationship.
Those stores, banks, credit card companies and the like have been allowed to continue calling as long as 18 months after the last transaction, unless the consumer asked to be put on their company do not call lists.
That will not change. What will change are the provisions governing “call abandonment,” not by consumers, but by the telemarketers themselves.
Automated dialing machines used by telemarketers ring several numbers simultaneously with the expectation that not every phone will be picked up. But sometimes more consumers pick up the telephone than the telemarketers have operators. When that happens, the consumer may get a pre-recorded message or – ominously – dead air. “You know it’s a telemarketer, but no one is there,” says FTC spokeswoman Jen Schwartzman.
Maybe, maybe not, depending on the depth of your paranoia.
Existing rules limit the share of calls that can be fielded by a machine instead of a human to 3 percent. But a California firm asked the FTC to lift that ceiling when the consumer has an existing relationship with a business. Voice Mail Broadcasting Corp. makes 2.5 million calls each day on behalf of many of America’s largest businesses, down from more than three million before the Do Not Call rules took effect. Of course, if there’s no limit, all the calls can be pre-recorded. Voice Mail argues, and the FTC agrees, that pre-recorded calls would actually reduce dead air because a machine would always be on the line to respond.
Also, the rule change would require the recorded message to include a 1-800 number the consumer could call to be put on a company’s do not call list, as well as a single key that, if pushed, would accomplish the same thing. But consumers would have to make the same effort with every one of the companies they do business with, instead of relying on the single FTC registry.
At the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., Associate Director Chris Hoofnagle says the company-by-company opt-out would be a nightmare for consumers who can be tracked down by companies that obtain even the smallest bit of personal information. Credit cards and checks are the most obvious clue, but how many clerks these days request information like your Zip Code? What does that have to do with buying running shoes, or a two-by-four?
Even home-based businesses with purchased consumer lists can inexpensively reach thousands of consumers each day, and costs will go down even further with voice-over-Internet dialing, Hoofnagle says.
Pity the consumer with a home-answering machine, which could become the gateway to telephonic spam.
The FTC, which voted 5-0 to approve the changes, will take comments on the changes until Jan. 10. The e-mail comment form can be found at https://secure.commentworks.com/
ftc-tsr. The mailing address is: Federal Trade Commission/Office of the Secretary, Room H-159(Annex K), 600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W., Washington, DC, 21580. Written comments must refer to “Prerecorded Message EBR Telemarketing, Project No. R411001” in the text and on the envelope. If you have not given up already, mail early, the FTC suggests, because of the scrutiny all mail into the capital undergoes.
Hundreds of telemarketers in the Inland Northwest make a living or second income placing or receiving “live” calls despite the restrictions imposed by Do Not Call lists. The system has worked for them as well as consumers. Recorded solicitations, besides being obnoxious, may endanger many of those positions.