| Comment Number: | OL-102466 |
| Received: | 11/27/2004 10:37:07 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | John Bashinski |
| State: | CA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
Most people don't want telemarketing calls, let alone prerecorded telemarketing calls, from any business, whether there's a preexisting relationship or not. Since recipients are very unlikely to want these calls, there's no rational reason to exempt them. Buying something from a business once, or even repeatedly, does not create a meaningful relationship in the eyes of anybody but a marketing executive. Dealing with a business is not a license for that business to hound a consumer, and in any case the concept of existing business relationships is ripe for abuse. The whole concept should be removed from the regulations. It's particularly ridiculous to require an opt-out from somebody who has already taken a positive step to opt out of receiving all telemarketing calls, by joining the do not call list. Existing and proposed loopholes aside, the obvious and usual citizen expectation is that joining the list indicates unwillingness to receive telemarketing calls, period, business relationship or no... and the regulations ought to be tightened up to reflect that, by requiring explicit, advance opt in for ALL telemarketing calls to people on the do not call list. If a change needs to be made to harmonize FTC regulations with FCC regulations, then the FCC regulations should be made more restrictive, not the other way around. As for call abandonment, allowing three percent of calls to be abandoned is already excessive regardless of the averaging time. The right number would be more like .03 percent... and an hour is a more reasonable averaging time than a day, let alone a month. I don't hang up on anything close to three percent of the calls I make, and I expect the same courtesy from businesses calling me. In fact, an organization that makes mass calls should arguably be expected to be more careful and courteous than an average citizen, not less.