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Re: [telecom] FTC tightening up rules against "robocalls". But..

***** Moderator's Note *****

> > The new rule has an exception for calls where the victim gave > written consent. I can't help but wonder if charitable organizations > will include "permission" clauses in their donation literature, and > then sell their donor lists to commercial marketers. > > Come to think of it, I wonder if the "charitable organizations" > exception would allow marketers to rent phone lists from charities > in return for some percentage of receipts. Does a call made by a > commercial firm that benefits a charity count as a "charitable > organizations" exception?

Oh, yes. It's a thriving business. When the Fraternal Order of Police or the Firefighters [called], did you ever ask the caller if he or she (usually a he) was a cop or firefighter? The commercial callers have some pretty creative answers.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

***** Moderator's Note *****

I understand that charitable organizations hire professional fund raisers to raise money for them, but that's not what I was wondering about.

I'm curious if XYZ Life Insurance could legally call me and pitch me a whole life policy, based on their having gotten my number from the Appalachin Mountain Club and assuming that they kick back a percentage of the premiums. Any lawyers out there?

Bill Horne

Reply to
Wesrock
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In article ,

Yup. Legal under the law.

Not a lawyer, but the answer is a resounding "No." The calls that are exempt, by statute, are "Charitable solicitations". *NOT* "any call from, on behalf of, or in some remote way connected with, a charity". If the Charity _itself_ is calling to sell something (easter seals, raffle tickets, christmas/channukah cards, "indulgences", whatever) _they_ have to follow the DNC list.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

In my experience, if you question those two particular groups, they will get nasty. They are rarely if ever associated with any real group (the best class of scum may donate 5% of their take to a real police charity), and some of them are out of their freaking minds. I have done ridiculous things to telemarketers over the years (I once read one an entire Edgar Alan Poe story), and they either hang up or just take it, but not "police benevolent association" scammers - they're all nutbars. These days, in the rare situation where I'm tricked into answering before the machine, I just hang up without saying anything at all.

If you want to give to police or firemen, go to your local station and ask someone on duty who to donate to. *

Reply to
PV

Though the subject is FTC rules, I'm more familiar with the FCC rules. The rules on telemarketing are at -

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They are fairly long and can be difficult to interpret. Here's an attempt at a summary:

(a)(1) - No autodialing or prerecorded voice calls to emergency lines, hospital patient rooms (and similar), paging or cellular (and similar where person receiving the call is charged with exemption for recently ported numbers).

(a)(2) - No prerecorded voice calls to residential phones without prior permission or emergency ("reverse 911"), is non-commercial, is from business with established business relationship, is from tax- exempt organization.

(a)(3) - No unsolicited faxes unless there is an established business relationship and the fax number was given voluntarily or is published, and the first page has a free way to discontinue the faxes.

(a)(4) - Autodialing systems cannot consume more than one line of a multi-line receiver.

(a)(5) - Cannot disconnect prior to four rings.

(a)(6) - Cannot abandon more than 3% of the answered calls (no one ready to handle the call).

(a)(7) - No "war dialing" to discover fax machines.

(b)(1) and (2) - Recorded calls, when allowed, must identify the caller and number.

(c) - No telephone solicitations as defined in (f)(12)... (c)(1) - before 8am or after 9pm. (c)(2) - a number on the national do not call list unless the telemarketer has written permission from the receiver or has a personal relationship with receiver. (d) - Caller must maintain caller-specific do not call list and have a training program on its use.

(d)(4) - Caller must identify him/herself plus company/organization and phone number.

(d)(5) - Generally, no sharing of permission to call among affiliated companies.

(d)(6) - Company specific do not call requests are valid for 5 years.

(d)(7) - Tax exempt organizations do not need to comply with subsection (d).

(f) has a bunch of definitions. (f)(12) defines a telemarkeing call.

There are a LOT of details!

Harold

***** Moderator's Note *****

Harold, thanks for taking time to explain the rules. I appreciate the help!

Bill Horne

Reply to
harold

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