|
|
 |
Reducing Unsolicited Telephone Marketing Calls
The 1991 federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act and FCC rules adopted to implement the law give consumers a way to reduce unsolicited telephone marketing calls. The federal rules require a person or entity placing live telephone solicitations to your home to maintain a record of your request not to receive future telephone solicitations from that caller. The caller must keep the record of your do-not-call request for ten years from the time of your request and may not make further telephone solicitations to your home. The rules do not apply to calls placed to business telephone numbers or by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are now sharing responsibility for enforcing the National Do-Not-Call list. The FCC now requires all telecommunications carriers that provide Local Exchange Service to notify their subscribers of their rights as they relate to the Do-Not-Call rules. You have the right to give or revoke an objection to receiving telephone solicitations. To register or revoke your registration, please call 1-888-382-1222 (TTY 1-866-290-4236) or via the Internet at www.donotcall.gov.
The national registry prevents telephone solicitations made for commercial purposes only, and will not prevent telephone solicitations made by a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, for example, for charitable or political purposes. Also, the registry will not prevent calls from companies with whom you may have an established business relationship.
The FCC has defined an established business relationship as one in which the consumer has "a prior or existing relationship" with a company that is formed voluntarily through communciations between the company and the consumer on the basis of a purchase or transaction regarding products or services within eighteen (18) months immediately preceding a telephone solicitation, and which has not been previously terminated by either the consumer or the company. Such an established business relationship also exists on the basis of a consumer inquery regarding a company's products or services within three (3) months immediately preceding the date of a telephone solicitation and which has not been previously terminated by either the consumer or the company.
Law approved by the state legislature in 2000 directs the Attorney General to establish a Missouri No-Call List of residential telephone numbers of Missourians who do not want to be called by telemarketers. The law prohibits telemarketers from calling households that have been added to the list, with some exceptions that have been written into the law.
For more information about the state law or to register your residential telephone number on the state no-call list (a free service), visit Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon's website at www.ago.state.mo.us/nocalllaw/nocallstatutes.htm.
You may also register your residential telephone number with the Telephone Preference Service maintained by the Direct Marketing Association. This is a national Do Not Call list established by this private, voluntary organization. The Do Not Call list will be used by DMA member telemarketing companies to remove your telephone number from their calling lists. Registration is good for five years.
Register for the DMA list for free by sending your full name, address, signature and up to two residential telephone numbers to DMA Telephone Preference Service, P.O. Box 9014, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9014. You may register on-line for a $5 fee at www.the-dma.org/cgi/offtelephonedave
|
|
