[SusDet Announce] Don't allow prerecorded telemarketing calls

[ecadvocate at aol.com]

 Not sustainability related, but a reaffirmation that your individual voices and actions DO make a difference...
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: editor at consumer-action.org
To: ecadvocate at aol.com
Sent: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 2:26 PM
Subject: Don't allow prerecorded telemarketing calls


WWW.CONSUMER-ACTION.ORG Don't allow prerecorded telemarketing calls
Do not call rights in jeopardyMore Info
Comment by Dec. 18!
 
We know you are busy preparing for the holidays, but Consumer Action wants to alert you to a threat to your "do not call" privacy rights. Please act on this alert by Dec. 18. It's easy to comment online by going to the Federal Trade Commission's special web site. 
Did you put your telephone number on the national Do-Not-Call Registry (DNC), but still get sales calls from companies you've never heard of? Many unwanted sales calls are not made by a live person but by auto-dialers that are programmed to play a recorded message when you answer. But, the calls that probably really get your dander up are the dead air calls, when you run to catch the phone but are met with silence. These are caused when the auto dialing systems abandon calls.
Even if you signed up for DNC list, FTC rules allow companies that claim an "established business relationship" to still call you. The FTC allows you to be called if you purchased something within the previous 18 months from a company—or even if you just asked about a product or service within the previous three months. These companies can call you, but the FTC did not say they can leave a prerecorded message. However, the FTC rules allow a certain percentage of annoying abandoned calls.
In November 2004, the FTC announced that it was considering a telemarketing industry petition to allow prerecorded messages for sales calls based on established business relationship. In October 2006, the FTC announced it had decided not to allow prerecorded messages for established customers, indicating that it had been strongly swayed by comments from over 13,000 consumers and consumer advocates.
Now the FTC is again asking the public to weigh in with opinions on prerecorded messages and abandoned calls. Specifically, the FTC wants opinions and comments, among other things, on whether it should prohibit prerecorded telemarketing calls. The agency also wants to know if a "reasonable" consumer would consider prerecorded telemarketing sales calls abusive to privacy rights. The FTC's latest proposal still allows a percentage of sales calls to be abandoned, resulting in the annoying dead air calls.
Please go to the FTC's special comment page online and let the federal agency know that you do not want to be subject to prerecorded sales calls or annoying abandoned calls. Act fast—the deadline is Dec. 18.
To read the entire proposal, click here.


 

 
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