Background
Has your evening quiet time or dinner been
interrupted by a call from a telemarketer? If so, you’re not
alone. Congress first passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act
(TCPA) in 1991 in response to consumer concerns about the growing
number of unsolicited telephone marketing calls to their homes and
the increasing use of automated and prerecorded messages. In
response, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted
rules that require anyone making a telephone solicitation call to
your home to provide his or her name, the name of the person or
entity on whose behalf the call is being made, and a telephone
number or address at which that person or entity can be contacted.
The original rules also prohibit telephone solicitation calls to
your home before 8 am or after 9 pm, and require telemarketers to
comply with any do-not-call request you make directly to the
caller during a solicitation call. In June 2003, the FCC
supplemented its original rules implementing the TCPA and
established, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the
national Do-Not-Call list.
The National Do-Not-Call List
Once you have placed your home phone number
or numbers, including any personal wireless phone numbers, on the
national Do-Not-Call list, callers are prohibited from making
telephone solicitations to those number(s). Your number or numbers
will remain on the list until you remove them or discontinue
service – there is no need to re-register numbers.
The national Do-Not-Call list protects
home voice or personal wireless phone numbers only. While you
may be able to register a business number, your registration will
not make telephone solicitations to that number unlawful.
Similarly, registering either a home or business fax number will
not make sending a fax advertisement to that number unlawful, but
the FCC has separate rules that prohibit unsolicited fax
advertisements under most circumstances. For more information on
the rules for fax advertisements, see our consumer fact sheet at
www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/unwantedfaxes.html, or visit our
Web site at
www.fcc.gov/cgb/policy/faxadvertising.html.
A telephone solicitation is a telephone call
that acts as an advertisement. The term does not include calls or
messages placed with your express prior permission, by or on
behalf of a tax-exempt non-profit organization, or from a person
or organization with which you have an established business
relationship (EBR).
An EBR exists if you have made an inquiry,
application, purchase, or transaction regarding products or
services offered by the person or entity involved. Generally, you
may put an end to that relationship by telling the person or
entity not to place any more solicitation calls to your home.
Additionally, the EBR is only in effect for 18 months after your
last business transaction or three months after your last inquiry
or application. After these time periods, calls placed to your
home phone number or numbers by that person or entity are
considered telephone solicitations subject to the do-not-call
rules.
While registering home phone numbers on the
national Do-Not-Call list prohibits telephone solicitations, this
action does not make prank or harassing calls unlawful. For
problems with such calls, contact local law enforcement agencies.
You can register your home phone number or
numbers on the national Do-Not-Call list by phone or by Internet
at no cost. To add a phone number to the national Do-Not-Call list
via the Internet, go to
www.donotcall.gov. To register by phone, call 1-888-382-1222
(voice) or 1-866-290-4236 (TTY). You must call from the phone
number you wish to register. For more information on the national
Do-Not-Call list, visit our Web site at
www.fcc.gov/cgb/donotcall.
Company-Specific Do-Not-Call Lists
Whether or not your home phone number or
numbers are registered on the national Do-Not-Call list, the FCC
requires a person or entity placing voice telephone solicitations
to your home to maintain a record of your direct request to that
caller not to receive future telephone solicitations from that
person or entity. The calling company must honor your do-not-call
request for five years. To prevent calls after five years, you
will need to repeat your request to the company, and it must honor
it for another five years (and so on). Your request should also
stop calls from affiliated entities if you would reasonably expect
them to be included, given the identification of the caller and
the product being advertised. Unless your home phone number or
numbers are registered on the national Do-Not-Call list, however,
you must make a separate do-not-call request to each telemarketer
from whom you do not wish to receive calls.
When you receive telephone solicitation
calls, clearly state that you want to be added to the caller’s
do-not-call list. You may want to keep a list of those persons or
businesses that you have asked not to call you. Tax-exempt
non-profit organizations are not required to keep do-not-call
lists.
State Do-Not-Call Lists
Additionally, many states now have statewide
do-not-call lists for residents in their respective states.
Contact your state’s public service commission or consumer
protection office to see if your state has such a list, and to
find out how to register your number or numbers. For contact
information for your state public service commission, go to
www.naruc.org/commissions.cfm. You can also find contact
information for these offices in the blue pages or government
section of your local telephone directory.
Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems and
Artificial or Prerecorded Voice Calls
The FCC has specific rules for automatic
telephone dialing systems, also known as “autodialers.” These
devices can be particularly annoying and generate many consumer
complaints. The rules regarding automatically dialed and
prerecorded calls apply whether or not you have registered your
home phone number(s) on the national Do-Not-Call list.
Autodialers can produce, store, and dial
telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator.
They often place artificial (computerized) or prerecorded voice
calls. The use of autodialers, including predictive dialers, often
results in abandoned calls – hang-ups or “dead air.” Except for
emergency calls or calls made with the prior express consent of
the person being called, autodialers and any artificial or
prerecorded voice messages may not be used to contact numbers
assigned to:
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any emergency telephone line;
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the telephone line of any guest or patient
room at a hospital, health care facility, home for the elderly,
or similar establishment;
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a paging service, wireless phone service
(including both voice calls and text messages), or other
commercial mobile radio service; or
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any other service for which the person
being called would be charged for the call.
Calls using artificial or prerecorded voice
messages – including those that do not use autodialers – may not
be made to home phone numbers except for:
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emergency calls needed to ensure the
consumer’s health and safety;
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calls for which you have given prior
express consent;
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non-commercial calls;
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calls that don’t include or introduce any
unsolicited advertisements or constitute telephone
solicitations;
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calls by, or on behalf of, tax-exempt
non-profit organizations; or
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calls from entities with which you have an
EBR.
In addition, the FCC’s rules prohibit the use
of autodialers in a way that ties up two or more lines of a
multi-line business at the same time. All artificial or
prerecorded telephone messages must state, at the beginning, the
identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is
responsible for initiating the call. If a business is responsible
for initiating the call, the name under which the entity is
registered to conduct business with the State Corporation
Commission (or comparable regulatory authority) must be stated.
During or after the message, the caller must give the telephone
number (other than that of the autodialer or prerecorded message
player that placed the call) of the business, other entity, or
individual that made the call so that you can call during regular
business hours to ask that the company no longer call you. The
number provided may not be a 900 number or any other number for
which charges exceed local or long distance charges.
Autodialers that deliver a recorded message
must release the called party’s telephone line within five seconds
of the time that the calling system receives notification that the
called party’s line has hung up. In some areas, you could
experience a delay before you can get a dial tone again. Your
local telephone company can tell you if there is a delay in your
area.
Telemarketers must ensure that predictive
dialers abandon no more than three percent of all calls placed and
answered by a person. A call will be considered "abandoned" if it
is not transferred to a live sales agent within two seconds of the
recipient's greeting.
Caller Identification (ID)
If you have caller ID, a telemarketer is
required to transmit or display its phone number and, if
available, its name or the name and phone number of the company
for which it is selling products. The display must include a phone
number that you can call during regular business hours to ask that
the company no longer call you. This rule applies even if you have
an EBR with the company, and even if you have not registered your
home phone number(s) on the national Do-Not-Call list. Before
these rules took effect, the words “private,” “out of area,” or
“unavailable” might have appeared on the Caller ID display.
What You Can Do
The FCC can issue warning citations and
impose fines against companies violating or suspected of violating
the do-not-call rules, but does not award individual damages. If
you receive a telephone solicitation that you think violates any
of these rules, you can file a complaint with the FCC. There is no
charge for filing a complaint. You can file your complaint using
an on-line complaint form found at
esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm. You can also file your
complaint with the FCC’s Consumer Center by e-mailing
fccinfo@fcc.gov; calling
1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC
(1-888-835-5322) TTY; faxing 1-866-418-0232; or writing to:
Federal Communications
Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries & Complaints Division
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554.
What to Include in Your Complaint
The best way to provide all the
information the FCC needs to process your complaint is to
complete fully the on-line complaint form. When you open
the on-line complaint form, you will be asked a series of
questions that will take you to the particular section of
the form you need to complete. If you do not use the
on-line complaint form, your complaint, at a minimum,
should indicate:
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your name, address, e-mail address,
and phone number where you can be reached;
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the phone number where you received
the call, and whether this number is on the national
Do-Not-Call list;
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the date and time of the call;
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whether the call advertised or sold
any property, goods, or services;
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any information (including a caller
ID number) to help identify the individual or company
whose property, goods, or services were being advertised
or sold, and whether any of this information was
provided during the call;
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whether you or anyone else in your
household gave the caller permission to call;
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whether you have an EBR with the
caller (specifically, whether you or anyone else in your
household made any purchases of property, goods, or
services from the individual or company that called, or
made any inquiry or filed an application with the
individual or company prior to receiving the call); and
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whether you or anyone in your
household previously asked the caller or individual or
company whose property, goods, or services are being
advertised or sold NOT to call, and when you made
the request.
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Some states permit you to file law suits in
state court against persons or entities violating the do-not-call
rules. You may be awarded $500 in damages or actual monetary loss,
whichever is greater. The amount may be tripled if you are able to
show that the caller violated the rules willfully and knowingly.
Filing a complaint with the FCC does not prevent you from also
bringing a suit in state court.
States also can bring a civil law suit
against any person or entity that engages in a pattern or practice
of violating the TCPA or FCC rules. You can contact your state
Attorney General’s office or consumer protection agency with
particular complaints, or to encourage such suits.
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