Telemarketing/Cold-Calling
- Issue Summary
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| What is the
fundamental issue? |
| Two federal
agencies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), regulate
interstate and intrastate telemarketing. In December 2002,
the FTC issued regulations to create a national
“do-not-call” registry for interstate calls. The rules
were designed to curtail telemarketing abuses. In a
separate but related effort, on June 26, 2003, the FCC
extended the FTC National Do-Not-Call (DNC) rules to
intrastate calls. |
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| I'm a
Realtor®. What does this mean to my business? |
| Calls made by
Realtors to potential home buyers and sellers are subject
to both the FTC and FCC telemarketing regulations. As a
result, Realtors who make cold calls to consumers with
whom they have not done business in the past must comply
with all of the Do-Not-Call (DNC) rules. These rules
include, but are not restricted to, requirements that
those who are making consumer calls register as a
telemarketer, check the DNC Registry before making calls
to consumers and do not make calls to those consumers
listed on the Registry or who have asked not be be called
by the caller in the past. |
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| NAR Policy: |
| NAR opposes
the preemption of state telemarketing laws and strongly
advocated for (1) maintaining the long-standing FTC
exemption to the telemarketing rules for face-to-face
sales transactions, (2) limiting the applicability of the
FCC rules to interstate calls, (3) clarifying that calls
to FSBOs and expired listings fall outside the scope of
the DNC rules, and (4) limitations of fee increases for
access to the DNC Registry. |
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| Legislative/Regulatory
Status/Outlook: |
Despite
increases in telemarketer fees to access the DNC lists in
each of the years since the Registry's implementation, the
FTC has announced that there will be no increase in access
fees for telemarketers in 2008.
It has been proposed that fees for Registry access should
be set by federal statute rather than the FTC. Such an
action would take the fee setting process out of the hands
of the FTC and likely tie any future increases to a
commonly accepted public index of the rate of inflation.
The FTC is supportive of such an action. The need for
Congressional reauthorization of the DNC Registry program
for 2008 and future years may provide an opportunity for
such a change to be made.
On December 11, the House passed legislation to allow
individuals to permanently register their phone numbers on
the do-not-call (DNC) registry-- a program that allows
consumers to opt-out of telemarketing calls. Congress
created the program in 2003 and the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) wrote rules requiring consumers to
re-register their phone numbers every five years. The
newly passed legislation would eliminate that
re-registration requirement.
The House also made permanent the funding system by which
the FTC collects fees from telemarketers. This legislation
sets the fees for fiscal 2009 and ties any future fee
increase to a commonly accepted public index of the rate
of inflation. The FTC has previously announced that there
would be no increase in DNC access fees for telemarketers
in 2008.
In addition, the FTC is required to issue a biennial
report to Congress to evaluate, among other things:
The impact of the established business relationship
exception on businesses and consumers
The impact of the exceptions to the DNC registry on
businesses and consumers, including an analysis of the
effectiveness of the registry.
The Senate must still take action on the measures.
NAR will continue to dialogue with the FTC on the impact
of the DNC rules on small businesses as well as NAR’s
continuing concerns with the rules. |
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