Charity or Nonprofit calls

Amendments to the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule Presented by: Joseph Sanscrainte Director of Regulatory Affairs Call Compliance, Inc. Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice DO-NOT-CALL REGISTRY Time Frame: Enforcement set for October 1, 2003 (consumer sign-up begins July 1; seller access to list set for Sept. 1) Cost to “Sellers”: Est. $18.1 million for first year; $29/area code; cap of $7,250 Cost to Consumers: None “Transition” period & “Harmonization” necessary to work with state lists No pre-emption of state lists FCC to “maximize consistency” with FTC DNC rules Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice DO NOT CALL REGISTRY (cont’d) Registration Period: 5 years Exemptions: o Jurisdictional (insurance, common carriers, banking, intrastate calls) o Political Calls o Survey Calls o Existing Business Relationship (18 months for “transactions”; 3 months for “inquiries”) Cell Phone #’s accepted Same fines ($11,000 per violation) Safe Harbor offered Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice PREDICTIVE DIALING RULES “Abandoned call” = abusive telemarketing practice Safe harbor protection IF: abandonment rate of no more than 3% ring phone for 15 seconds or 4 rings recorded message if call “abandoned”  record keeping Enforcement delayed until October 1, 2003 Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice CALLER ID “It is an abusive telemarketing act or practice . . . [to fail] to transmit or cause to be transmitted the telephone number, and, when made available by the telemarketer’s carrier, the name of the telemarketer, to any caller identification service . . . .” TSR, as amended, Section 310.4(a)(7) Provision set to take effect January 29, 2004 FTC recognizes that some switches lack caller ID functionality, and that malfunctions sometimes occur – no liability if telemarketer has taken all steps to transmit or cause the transmission of Caller ID info Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice BILLING INFORMATION RULES Generally, must have “express informed consent” to submit billing information for payment Non-credit/debit card transactions require “express verifiable authorization” o o o in writing (with signature) oral authorization rules toughened written confirmation rules toughened “Express informed consent” and pre-acquired account transactions o General rules (account must be identified with specificity) Pre-acquired + “free to pay conversion” (consumer must give last 4 digits of account; no follow-up written verification allowed) No sharing of unencrypted billing information Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice PAYMENT DISCLOSURE RULES Generally, the same Credit card protection offers: caller must now disclose legal limits on cardholder liability ($50) Offers including “negative option feature”: caller must disclose nature of the offer and how consumer can avoid being charged; no misrepresentations of feature allowed. Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice “UPSELLS” “soliciting the purchase of goods or services following an initial transaction during a single telephone call.” “external” v. “internal” Inbound call upsell = outbound call TSR rules, except do-not-call and time restrictions, apply to upsells No need to repeat up-front disclosures for internal upsell Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice RECORD-KEEPING RULES advertising materials & scripts prize award info customer info names of employees & contact info EVA & EIC info abandoned call safe harbor compliance records Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice CHARITY/NON-PROFIT CALLS Calls by for-profit call center on behalf of non-profit covered by TSR Covered non-profit calls must follow “in-house” list rules Covered non-profit calls must make certain identification disclosures Covered non-profit calls must avoid certain misrepresentations re: material information Covered non-profit calls do not have to comply with FTC do-not-call list Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice Thanks For Further Information, contact: Joseph Sanscrainte 90 Pratt Oval Glen Cove, NY 11542 516-656-5125 Copyright © 2002 Call Compliance, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For informational purposes only; not to be construed as legal advice