| Comment Number: | OL-100930 |
| Received: | 11/27/2004 3:55:18 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Johnson |
| State: | DC |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
These comments concerns my STRONG OPPOSITION to allowing telemarketing callers the use of prerecorded messages to consumers, thereby providing a safe harbor from the Do Not Call registry. First, the term "established business relationship" is an exceptionally broad term and leaves such a provision open to abuse by companies claiming such a "business relationship" based on very slight or intermittent contacts. Second, and most centrally, the original rule establishing the Do Not Call registry was based on protecting consumers from having to deal with unwanted, unsolicited phone calls from companies. The element at the heart of this Registry is not the protection of consumers from having to deal with sales pitches from live human voices as opposed to recorded human messages. It is, rather, the protection of consumers from having to deal with with UNSOLICITED telemarketing calls from sellers, whether the sales pitches are made by live human voices or prerecorded messages. Please do not create any loopholes for companies currently subject to the Do Not Call Registry. Consumers, continually bombarded with advertising and other pressures in society, finally were given something of great benefit when the Registry was created. It has provided a noticeable improvement. When one turns on the television or radio, one is in effect voluntarily making oneself subject to advertising because of one's knowledge of the nature of those mediums. Telemarketing calls on behalf of sellers, however, invading the privacy of one's home in an unsolicited manner is not something a consumer should have to involuntarily endure. Thank you for your consideration.