| Comment Number: | OL-103094 |
| Received: | 11/28/2004 7:15:29 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | donald scott |
| State: | GA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
This is absurd. Telemarketing calls are a nuisance and should be considered a misuse of my private telephone line. Consumers pay for their telephone lines for communication point to point, not for mass solicitations to be brought into their homes, unrequested. Instead of allowing this behavior, there should be a 'National OK to Call List' that any consumer is free to sign up for. Unless these solicitars want to pay for my telephone line, they should have no right to call me singly or using an automated 'SPAM Dialer' system. The FTC should be protecting consumers and their rights and interests, not enacting loopholes in the legislation to benefit profiteers and those causing a public nuisance who are using a method of communication that they: 1. currently have no right to access. 2. ultimately have no interest in compensating the consumer for the use of for the purposes of profiteering for themselves. There are plenty of avenues for marketing agencies to use as a means to mass market to consumers (both those with and without an 'established busineess relationship,' including, but not limited to, USPS maillings both inside of and outside of the 'business correspondance' that these companies should already be mailing with the aforementioned 'established business relationship', TV commercial air time, radio commercial air time, personal home visits (where welcomed and not prohibited), billboard advertisements on public roadways, newspaper advertisements, etc. Telephone Solicitations aren't a demonstration of 'Free Market', they're examples of mass marketing, deception tactics, and a way to capatialize on the public at the expense of the public. Other forms of solicitation should (and are) deemed acceptable, because the consumer either requests them as a package deal (i.e. newspaper, television, etc) and knows that paying for such things involves receiving solicitations as a result of the business model for these businesses, or no cost is incurred or inherited without request (i.e. USPS mailings, flier distribution in neighborhoods or on vehicles). The line is crossed when the consumer pays for a service and a business takes advantage of that subscription by using it as a means of solicitation when that business has no interest in the cost incurred by the consumer and the consumer was not told up front that this purchase would result in unsolicited communications with them, which the service providing company will not profit from because these communications are not part of the inherent business model for the service provider. ds