CT Begins Taking Names for Telemarketing Do-Not-Call List
Although Connecticut’s new telemarketing do-not-call list law doesn’t go into effect until next January, the Department of Consumer Affairs last week began accepting requests from residents to be placed on the list.
As of last Friday, the department had received a total of 4,000 requests to be placed on the list. There were 2,300 requests received by e-mail; 900 by telephone and another 800 by mail.
Legislation authorizing the department to develop the list – at no charge to consumers — was signed into law in June by Gov. John Rowland after it breezed through the State Senate and House of Representatives.
While Kentucky, like Connecticut, does not charge residents to be placed on its state-maintained do-not-call list, five other states with similar programs do.
Georgia and Tennessee each charge $5; Oregon $10 and both Arkansas and Florida charge an initial enrollment fee of $10 with an annual renewal fee of $5.
Besides authorizing the development of a state-maintained telemarketing do-not-call list, Public Act 00-118, co-sponsored by State Senator Tomas Colapietro and Representative John Wayne Fox, requires the annual purchase of that list by telemarketers seeking to do business in the state.
The law, described by its sponsors and Consumer Protection Commissioner James Fleming as one of, if not the toughest in the country, also prohibits telemarketers from re-selling the personal data of Connecticut residents in their files to others and from using equipment to block their telephone numbers on consumer Caller ID equipment.
Although it mirrors the Federal Trade Commission’s telemarketing rules in many ways, such as prohibiting telemarketing calls between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m., it also prohibits telemarketers from using pre-recorded message devices and sending unsolicited commercial e-mail and faxes for advertising purposes.
Fleming, in a statement, said the new law provides consumers more protection than both federal law and FTC regulations because they “put the burden on the consumer to try and identify, and remember, each and every telemarketer.” Connecticut’s law, he added, puts the burden of compliance on the telemarketer.
However, the law exempts calls made by telemarketers where a prior relationship exists or permission has been granted in response to a business location visit. Calls made by charities and nonprofit organizations, telephone companies or their authorized representatives relating to directories and by “newly operating businesses” in the state are also exempt from the law’s provisions.
Violators, he noted, face civil and possible criminal action, under the state’s Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practice Act.
