No Call Registry Turns 7
|
01/14/2007
|
Chattanooga Times Free Press
|
Soon after Tennessee launched its Do-Not-Call initiative seven years ago, Ella Burrell signed up for the free service as a way to cut down on unwanted telemarketing calls. The consumer-protection program made it illegal to phone registered residential or cell numbers for many kinds of solicitation.
"It worked for a while, but then we started getting calls again," said the Ridgeside woman, 70.
Without caller ID to help screen unwelcome requests, she said she fields those calls.
"It's not as much as before, and a lot are surveys," she said.
Her phone number is among some 2.8 million in the state that are off-limits for all but a few types of telemarketing calls, according to Richard Collier, 53, general legal counsel for the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, which administers the Do-Not-Call program.
Exempt solicitations include those that come from members of nonprofit organizations, political campaigns and companies with whom the telephone subscriber has done business within the previous 12 months, he said.
"Sometimes, people on the Do-Not-Call list get a call because they filled out a piece of paper, such as at a home show," said Mr. Collier. "That could be construed as an invitation, which also is exempt."
Before the law was implemented, Geneva Crane recruited business for her son's cleaning company by phoning potential customers. The Ooltewah woman, now 79, wasn't in favor of the Do-Not-Call program because "people have to make a living, and it put some telemarketers out of work," she said.
"My son couldn't afford to pay thousand-dollar fines, so I stopped being a telemarketer."
She said her objections to the program kept her from putting her number on the Do-Not-Call list.
"Now I'm in Hospice, and I'm getting calls as late as 10 p.m. at night from people wanting me to change credit cards," she said. "I'm getting the kind of calls I was earlier prevented from making. It's distressing."
Since the register started, the TRA agency has investigated 3,524 covmplaints and collected $330,200 in punitive fines from commercial violators, Mr. Collier said. Individual penalties have ranged as high as a $325,000 fee imposed in 2002 on Talk America Inc., now Talk.com.
Despite such deterrents, some consumers say that dialers periodically slip through with their uninvited sales pitches for goods or services.
"We still get a dribbling of calls from people trying to sell us something," said Carey Crouch, 83, of Stuart Heights. "A lot of them are from toll-free numbers that don't show up on the caller ID."
He said in recent months he has been contacted several times by out-of-state callers, seeking donations for American Indians -- pleas that may fall under the law's protected-speech provisions.
"But we don't get anywhere like what we used to get (calls volume) from people selling guttering or siding," said Mr. Crouch.
Tennessee law requires businesses to register with the state before placing sales calls to private residences and also to obtain monthly lists of numbers on the no-calls roster, Mr. Collier said.
Companies pay an annual participation charge of $500, he said. Businesses with private contractors, such as agents at real estate or insurance companies, pay $1,000 plus $50 per contractor, he said.
Not every lodged complaint leads to a fine because the statute makes allowances for businesses that "have established and implemented reasonable practices to prevent violations," said Mr. Collier.
"If a single complaint is made against a company that has complied, it's perhaps because an employee has made a call by mistake," he said. "That probably wouldn't result in a fine."
The regulatory authority has been ringing up fewer fines since Do-Not-Call's debut, according to Mr. Collier.
"Violations have come down quite a bit as more companies learn about the program," he said.
|
|
Print
Send