The American Teleservices Association, wasted no time in slamming the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed revisions to the Telemarketing Sales Rule, saying that the changes would cost 2 million Americans their jobs.
In a statement, chairman Tom Rocca said that the FCC’s decision, which came well in advance of the original Sept. 8 deadline set by Congress, gave only a perfunctory nod to concerns beyond those of consumers.
“The FCC has, for more than a decade, had a clear statutory duty to consider a broad array of business, consumer and potential constitutional issues in establishing telemarketing policy and its rush to judgment today amounted to an effective abandonment of that critically important regulatory duty,” Rocca said in the statement.
He continued, “The FCC, in today’s meeting, publicly touted the Commission’s claimed credit for the projected creation of 150,000 wireless communications jobs over a 10 year period and then immediately and, with profound and far-reaching inconsistency, took this action that will directly cost two million valued current and hard-to-replace consumer goods and services jobs.”
Stuart Discount, president of Tele-Response Center Inc., said that in 2003 he had laid off 100 workers to date, and wondered about the fate of the 400 he currently employs. Given the Federal Trade Commission’s own estimate that 50 million people would sign up for the national service, he wondered if he could support the number of calling hours he currently supplies.
Discount noted that much of his work is in the non-profit arena, which will not be affected as strongly by the proposed regulations. While non-profits are not subject to the do-not-call list, the changes pertinent to predictive dialers, for instance, apply to them.
Some telemarketers expressed concerns regarding the nuts and bolts of administering the do-not-call list. Steve Brubaker, senior vice president, corporate affairs for InfoCision Management Corp. said that the “one size fits all approach” of the national list would have more of an impact on some industries than others.
“Eighteen months [as a maximum time for calling customers after they make a purchase] doesn’t work for many industries,” Brubaker said. “People don’t buy a car every 18 months. You can’t contact customers and tell them there’s a great new lease rate. People don’t go to the dentist every 18 months – [dentists] won’t be able to call patients to schedule an appointment.”
Brubaker continued, “We don’t want to call people that don’t want to be called, but we believe most customers would welcome calls from organizations they support, or businesses they deal with, but not groups they have no interest in.”
Brubaker also observed that the DMA’s position seemed to be in conflict with a lawsuit the DMA filed on Jan. 29. In it, the DMA argued that the government-run do-not-call list would violate First Amendment rights regarding advertising, and that the FTC exceeded its statutory authority.
The suit was filed in the 10th District Court in Oklahoma City.
“The constitutional arguments are very similar,” Brubaker said.
In fact, the DMA’s support of the FCC’s recommendation was cautious. “We hope that the national do-not-call program announced today by the FCC will live up to the high expectations that consumers have for the well-publicized FTC list. Certainly, today’s move will eliminate many headaches in the marketing community by making compliance with do-not-call laws a much simpler process,” said H. Robert Wientzen, the organization’s president and CEO, in a statement.
The DMA did note that the FCC’s proposal was not without flaws. The organization cited the high cost of the FTC’s service, which at an annual rate of $7,000 is ten times the cost of the DMA’s own telephone suppression file.
It also expressed concern about the FTC’s requirement that teleservice bureaus purchase the list separately for each of their customers, and will lobby the FCC and FTC for a “more reasonable” payment system. Additionally, the DMA hopes that an authentication process that would ensure that consumers are registering their own numbers will be put into place.
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