| Comment Number: | OL-105350 |
| Received: | 12/1/2004 9:56:23 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Tom Pattison |
| State: | MA |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
The ability of an organization to hire an entity or to program telemarketing computers in which any delay after a consumer answers his private telephone is so anti-personal privacy and common decency that an iron clad “Do NOT call list” should be federally mandated without exception to protect the consumer from organizations with resources and business practices that are unimaginable. If a business relationship is to exist, then, as a party to that relationship, I should have been offered at the start of said relationship the ability to decline any telemarketing that company may subject upon me, as a consequence of forming the relationship. Further, if the product or service that I purchased initiating the business relationship has a warranty period, then any “business relationship” should expire with the warranty of the product or service. Or in the case of computer software, until repairs of discovered “bugs” in the purchased versions are no longer offered. Creating “safe harbors” for business should only occur after the consuming public is fully and actively educated in the limits of the “National Do Not Call List”. Including what this law actually does regulate as opposed to what the name implies. A business relationship with a local merchant who calls my house inquiring about a product or service I purchased from him is entirely acceptable. However, answering my telephone, having to wait for “up to 2 seconds” for a person hired by a marketing firm whose company the marketing firm is paid to represent is what I believed the “Do Not Call List” was to prevent regardless of the purpose of the call. I find it difficult to believe that there is a need to weaken or create loopholes in the “Do Not Call” rules. I am sure that a significant number of citizens have not registered their number with do not call, and the telemarketers can call those people all they want. If, however, a significant number of people have registered, then it seems to me that America is telling the government that they really don’t want to be called by telemarketers regardless of the technology used and the government should protect those seeking protection via this law, not creating exceptions to circumvent it. In conclusion, if the actual manufacturer of a product or a local company of a service I purchased calls me because a business relationship exists, and I understood he was going to call me, as well as, given the option to opt out of that call, I can speak with them. However, if they hire an agency or program computers to call in their behalf, then I do not believe that the caller and I have a business relationship, and they therefore should not have any legal protection by violating my request to not be called.