Posted on 09/24/2003 1:08:49 PM PDT by scab4faa
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority in creating the national ``do-not-call'' list against telemarketers.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by telemarketers who challenged the list of 50.6 million numbers submitted by people who do not want to receive business solicitation calls.
The immediate impact of Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee R. West was not clear. He did not issue an order directing an action by the FTC. The list was to go into effect Oct. 1.
West said the main issue in the case was ``whether the FTC had the authority to promulgate a national do-not-call registry. The court finds it did not.''
In 1994, Congress enacted the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act that directed the FTC to ``prescribe rules prohibiting deceptive ... and other abusive telemarketing acts.''
But the judge said Congress gave the Federal Communications Commission, not the FTC, the authority to operate ``a single national database to compile a list of telephone numbers of residential subscribers who object to receiving telephone solicitations.''
The FTC said the Omnibus Appropriations Act, signed by President Bush in February, authorizes the FTC to ``implement and enforce the do-not-call provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule.''
``This decision is clearly incorrect,'' FTC chairman Timothy Muris said Wednesday. ``We will seek every recourse to give American consumers a choice to stop unwanted telemarketing calls.''
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., said they were confident the ruling would be overturned and that they believe Congress gave the FTC authority to operate the registry.
``We will continue to monitor the situation and will take whatever legislative action is necessary to ensure consumers can stop intrusive calls from unwanted telemarketers,'' they said in a joint statement.
Direct Marketing Association, one of the plaintiffs, said it was happy with the ruling, even though it ``acknowledges the wishes of millions of U.S. consumers who have expressed their preferences not to receive telephone-marketing solicitations - as evidenced by the millions of phone numbers registered on the FTC list.''
The DMA, a nonprofit trade organization representing 5,000 U.S. companies, said it will work with its attorneys, the FTC and the FCC during the next few days to evaluate what the ruling will mean for consumers and businesses.
The telemarketing industry estimates the do-not-call list could cut its business in half, costing it up to $50 billion in sales each year. Telemarketers would have to check the list every three months to see who doesn't want to be called. Those who call listed people could be fined up to $11,000 for each violation.
The lawsuit was filed by U.S. Security, Chartered Benefit Services Inc., Global Contact Services Inc., InfoCision Management Corp. and Direct Marketing Association Inc.
A similar lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Denver, where the trade group American Teleservices Association and two telemarketing companies sued in January to keep the FTC from starting the do-not-call program.
In the Denver case, the plaintiffs said the list would violate telemarketers' constitutional rights and exceed the FTC's authority. The FTC argued that the list presented no serious constitutional problems and was created under congressional authority in response to concerns about intrusions into consumers' privacy.
Plaintiffs in the Denver case are Mainstream Marketing Services Inc. of Boulder, Colo., and TMG Marketing Inc., a Nebraska company that operates from Denver.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.netscape.cnn.com ...
I work as a Realtor and Sales Manager for a firm operating in one of the most popular vacation/retirement home destinations in the US -- the Asheville/WNC area. There are lots of people from all over the US that are interested in buying property here, and they constitute an important part of our business.
We don't do cold calls. However, if client John Doe mentions to us that his brother Joe Doe in Podunk, Iowa would like to buy a place here in the mountains, then we do want to contact Joe. This type of scenario actually happens quite a bit in our business, and it is an important part of what we've got to do to generate customers. Under the FTC rules, if they are allowed to stand, we would either have to pay the $7,735 per year to get nationwide DNC registry look-up, or else risk the $11,000 fine, or else simply not make initial contact by phone with people like John. Maybe if we are lucky we could find a mailing address and mail something to him (at $0.37 per contact, or more likely more than that as we would need to enclose some promotional literature), and maybe if we are really lucky John would send back a postage-paid return postcard (more expense) giving us permission to talk to him by telephone. Or, we could just give up on making any efforts to prospect out of our own immediate area, ceding a large chunk of our potential market to the few really big firms who can afford to pay the $7,735 per year.
That $7,735 per year may not sound like very much to you, but for our firm (which is actually mid-sized, we are about the 5th or 6th largest in our market), that figure represents somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of our total annual marketing budget. For smaller firms, that could be as much as half, 3/4, or even ALL of their annual marketing budget. Hyperbole? These are real numbers, and they have a real impact on real businesses and real careers. Your claim that "anyone marketing to the entire US can afford ~$7K" is simply not true, unless you are comfortable with the notion that only the select few corporate giants with the right political connections should have the opportunity to market nationwide, and the rest of we small fry should be shut out. Where's the "consumer protection" in that?
See my other reply. The Realtors in the firm that I manage don't do cold calls, but we do cultivate personal contacts and rely on word-of-mouth referrals. If we are told of somebody that one of our contacts knows that might be interested in buying or selling, then we would want to call them, introduce ourselves to them, and explore with them if there is any possibility of our being of help to them. If you essentially outlaw even that type of calling, then what you are leaving businesses like mine with is no alternative but to bombard your mailboxes with junk mail and blanket the airwaves, newspapers, and signboards with advertising. And that will assure that instead of a highly competitive marketplace, you will drive out all except one or two corporate giants, and the cost of selling a home will increase substantially. Again, where is the "consumer protection" in all of this?
Even if it is something that you are in the market for, and the call is a follow-up from one of your friends passing your name and number along to someone in the business of meeting your need? In that case, do you also put your friends on your list? Or do you still even have any friends?
So, complain to someone who cares. I don't. As far as I'm concerned, the world would be better off without telemarketing, anyway.
This is a relic from long ago.
When directory assistance was free, an unlisted number cost extra because the phone company could claim it would generate more (futile) calls to directory assistance.
Now, it's a revenue generator: calls to directory assistance result in a charge on my phone bill.
If that's the case in your state, you should complain to the public utilities commission. The fee is probably still codified in some regulation enacted decades ago.
I fail to see what is unreasonable about such an expectation.
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