The Federal Trade Commission has banned telemarketing calls using prerecorded messages unless the customer has provided written consent to receive calls. The new rule is included in the agency’s final Telemarketing Sales Rule amendments regarding prerecorded calls. The amendments were released on August 19.
In addition to the ban on robocalls, the FTC has also amended the method for calculating the maximum permissible level of call abandonment (when a call is placed by a predictive dialer but is picked up before the salesperson is ready). The new rule changes that calculation from 3% of a company's daily call volume to the same percentage over a 30-day period.
In addition, under the amendments, all prerecorded sales calls must offer an opt-out feature to permit consumers to immediately add themselves to the caller's do-not-call list.
Allen Hile, FTC assistant director of the Division of Marketing Practices, said the robocall ban clarifies the definition of “established business relationship” under the TSR. He said the change in how call abandonment is calculated was made to help small businesses as well to assist all telemarketers to better target their calling campaigns.
Automated informational calls, such as flight cancellations or appointment reminders, are exempt from the provisions. Charitable fund-raising calls are also excluded from the ban, but charities will have to give consumers the option to opt out of future calls. Certain types of companies, such as banks, telephone companies, and insurance companies are not subject to FTC jurisdiction, although their outside telemarketers are.
The call abandonment amendment will go into effect on October 1. The amendment requiring an automated interactive opt-out mechanism will go into effect December 1, while the amendment requiring consumer permission to receive such calls will go into effect on September 1, 2009.