| Comment Number: | OL-113466 |
| Received: | 1/10/2005 11:49:15 AM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | James Houston |
| 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:
I am opposed to this rule in it's entirety. Pre-recorded messages should be limited or banned. I have had the experience multiple times of pre-recorded messages filling my voice mailbox on my home and home busiiness phone lines while I am on away on vacation. This has prevented callers from leaving messages. In one case, this turned out to have been a major problem as the caller was trying to contact me about the death of a close friend. Marketers are interpreting the established business relationship clause in the loosest possible way. It should be limited to only those exact divisions of a conglomerate to which you have an on-going relationship, and further should be limited to only that information which a customer might find necessary or important about conducting business with that company as provided by a live person who can determine that an automated voice mail response answered the phone. The do-not-call list should apply to all telemarketer calls including pre-recorded messages from companies with a business relationship. I would even go further to suggest that a rule should be emplaced so that phone customers can charge calling companies a portion of their phone service charges for the month. (say $0.50-$1.00 per call)