Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission has issued new rules banning most pre-recorded calls from telemarketers.
It all started in 2004 when the telemarketing industry asked FTC to allow them to play a prerecorded message if a live sales agent was not available. In response FTC proposed a change in the TSR to allow calls that deliver prerecorded messages to consumers with whom a seller had an established business relationship.
The nearly 14,000 comments from the public elicited by that proposal overwhelmingly opposed such a change. Based on that record, in October 2006 the Commission altered its position and instead proposed a broad prohibition on the use of prerecorded messages whenever the consumer called had not previously given express written permission to the seller to place such calls to his or her number. This goes into effect on September 1, 2009.
Also the new rule requires telemarketers with prerecorded calls to give consumers a way to opt out, the same way that they can now ask live sales agents to refrain from calling again. This goes into effect on December 1 2008.
The amendments will not affect consumers' ability to continue to receive calls that deliver purely "informational" prerecorded messages - notifying recipients, for example, that their flight has been cancelled, that they have a service appointment, or similar messages. Such purely "informational" calls are not covered by the TSR because they do not attempt to sell the called party any goods or services.
All charitable solicitation calls placed by for-profit telemarketers that deliver prerecorded messages on behalf of non-profits to members of, or previous donors to, the nonprofit, are exempt from the written agreement requirement but such calls are now required to include a prompt keypress or voice-activated opt-out mechanism.
Offical FTC Rule Amendments
