Sept FTC Ban on Voice Broadcasting Includes Any Telephone #

Markingriffin · 09-08-2009, 11:30 AM

I think Obama needs an autodialer to call our school kids and us to talk us into this Health Plan of his that I bet he has never even read.

stormtracker · 09-08-2009, 12:12 PM

I believe. My first stimulus check is in the mail. He promised...

Sydney · 09-09-2009, 09:55 AM

Craig Tregillus, (202) 326–2970,
[COLOR=Red]Division of Marketing Practices, Room
286, Bureau of Consumer Protection,
Federal Trade Commission, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington[/COLOR]

I just got off the phone with the above guy from the FTC. None of the "consumer" protection laws apply to B2B.

It is perfectly legal to "robocall" B2B!!!!!!

MedicarePlanSolutions · 09-09-2009, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Sydney

Craig Tregillus, (202) 326–2970,
[COLOR=Red]Division of Marketing Practices, Room
286, Bureau of Consumer Protection,
Federal Trade Commission, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington[/COLOR]

I just got off the phone with the above guy from the FTC. None of the "consumer" protection laws apply to B2B.

It is perfectly legal to "robocall" B2B!!!!!!

That's weird, the FTC doesn't have any jurisdiction over B2B marketing and that's not what they mean by consumers? I think someone was saying something about that earlier. Thanks for verifying that for us!

healthagent · 09-09-2009, 10:06 AM

Noted. That's not the issue per my attorney. The issue is calling a residence that happens to be on the BtoB list, especially if that person is no longer in business and decides to make a federal case out of it.

More serious is a resident number that's on your BtB list where the person never owed a business.

They're going to sue, you're going to blame it on the list vendor and you can all have fun in court arguing who's liable.

GreenSky · 09-09-2009, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by healthagent

Noted. That's not the issue per my attorney. The issue is calling a residence that happens to be on the BtoB list, especially if that person is no longer in business and decides to make a federal case out of it.

More serious is a resident number that's on your BtB list where the person never owed a business.

They're going to sue, you're going to blame it on the list vendor and you can all have fun in court arguing who's liable.

No, they MIGHT sue, but it's as unlikely as Obama admitting he's a socialist.

Going through life worrying about something that has almost no chance of happening is absurd.

It's one thing to know there is a chance you might do something wrong. It's another to not even try.

Sounds a lot like fear of failure. Since there can be a negative response (get yelled at, threatened with being sued, etc), let's not even get started.

I can't go through like being afraid of a one in a million chance. Paranoia is not healthy.

Rick

Sydney · 09-09-2009, 10:19 AM

As much as I respect HEALTHAGENT, I agree with Rick.

I have done quite well with ROBO Calling over the last few months. I plan to continue with B2B campaigns. Worrying about a lawsuit is like worrying that one of my kids might get abducted at the bus stop. It can happen ....... but I cannot go thru life and function as a normal human being if I am constantly worried about it.

MedicarePlanSolutions · 09-09-2009, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by healthagent

Noted. That's not the issue per my attorney. The issue is calling a residence that happens to be on the BtoB list, especially if that person is no longer in business and decides to make a federal case out of it.

More serious is a resident number that's on your BtB list where the person never owed a business.

They're going to sue, you're going to blame it on the list vendor and you can all have fun in court arguing who's liable.

With whatever respect is due, you're attorney doesn't seem to understand the situation for what it is. Under your example, the person called has no grounds for suing, this isn't a personal injury case or anything like it. If you catch a guy littering and the fine is $500, you tell the police and they assess the fine, the concerned citizen doesn't get the fine, it goes to the government. It's the exact same thing with the $16k fine on the robocalls.

The worst thing that would happen if you called someone under that scenario is they'd file a complaint with the FTC who will investigate it and look at the details surrounding the situation in a slow and bureaucratic way trying to meet their burden of proof. While they're doing their investigation, whoever had the complaint filed against them will provide the FTC with a copy of the recording that was used, which should be clearly directed towards a business, and that's the end of it. They'd have prove that you telemarketed residential consumers to try to sell them with a prerecorded message. They wouldn't be able to do as long as you used the right script and made a good faith effort to make sure the list was of businesses. Eventually the FTC would just close the file and the whole thing will be a nonevent.

Some agents rely on that method of lead generation to help their business grow. I think it's a little ridiculous to promote the idea that their method of lead generation is dangerous because you want to prove that you understand the situation better than anyone else. I don't understand why you to insist that you're right, when it's clear that neither you nor your attorney have done enough research to be qualified to make such statements. If you paid your attorney his/her hourly rate to do the research and look at codes and case law they'd give you basically the same answer I just did. If you ran a campaign and accidentally called a few residential numbers odds are they wont care and even if they did, it'd never make it to court.

VacantHomeIns · 09-09-2009, 11:12 AM

Heres an idea - ditch the voice broadcasting for real marketing methods like adwords or offering a quality website to consumers looking for information. Or, ditch the machine & make cold calls.

healthagent · 09-09-2009, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by GreenSky

No, they MIGHT sue, but it's as unlikely as Obama admitting he's a socialist.

Going through life worrying about something that has almost no chance of happening is absurd.

It's one thing to know there is a chance you might do something wrong. It's another to not even try.

Sounds a lot like fear of failure. Since there can be a negative response (get yelled at, threatened with being sued, etc), let's not even get started.

I can't go through like being afraid of a one in a million chance. Paranoia is not healthy.

Rick

True. You need to have a pretty big burr up you a** to sue if you're robocalled. I have a feeling lawsuits stem from being called over and over by the same company after many requests have been made to be removed.

I got robocalled this morning, some agency trying to recruit me for the senior market. I could have cared less and in fact if it would have responded if it was something worth looking into.

However, where the fear stems from is not that one person with a burr up their a** who chooses to sue. It's during the discovery process where you need to cough up every number dialed. So it's not just one 16K fine. If they find you violated the law and dialed 10,000 numbers then do the math.

Sydney · 09-09-2009, 01:25 PM

The bottom line to me is that anyone (TOM who started this post) actually going out of the robo-call business because of this is..... crazy.

B2B robo-calling (despite anyone's opinion of it it's value)is still a viable lead generating tool if one chooses to incorporate it into their daily business model.

In my state, thru my lead vendor and auto-dialing system, it happens to be a home run. I plan to continue and I am very happy that it is not illegal.

WIN · 09-09-2009, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by Sydney

In my state, thru my lead vendor and auto-dialing system, it happens to be a home run. I plan to continue and I am very happy that it is not illegal.

I would agree in NC. In most other states it's an entirely different issue. Not saying this source is the be all end all of DNC compliance but they're usually on the money.

DNC - Federal and State telemarketing requirements applicable to business-to-business calls

djs · 09-09-2009, 03:33 PM

Originally Posted by MedicarePlanSolutions

That's weird, the FTC doesn't have any jurisdiction over B2B marketing and that's not what they mean by consumers? I think someone was saying something about that earlier. Thanks for verifying that for us!

When did the FTC lose jursidiction over B2B? This is something they have historically regulated significantly, just not on the phone so much....

I would be very careful about thinking the FTC doesn't have jursidiction here. How they exercise it may be different.

Dan

MedicarePlanSolutions · 09-09-2009, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by djs

When did the FTC lose jursidiction over B2B? This is something they have historically regulated significantly, just not on the phone so much....
Dan

The FTC absolutely has jurisdiction over businesses and how they market, just not so much when it comes to how they market to each other. Even that being said, this thread is about phone calls.

blancapeak · 09-09-2009, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by myinsurebiz

Ut Oh . . .

My attorney and I just finished a conference call (yes - on friggin Labor Day) about voice broadcasting laws.

Houston we have a problem . . .

The ruling found here:

. . . specifies "consumers" not being contacted - not just "residential consumers" . . .

The interpretation we've concluded to be law is that ALL calls to "consumers" without prior permission will be illegal with voice broadcasting - whether that consumer answers a residential phone or a business phone.

This is HUGE . . .

We have run this all the way up the flag pole over the last week and it's clearly stated many times "consumer" - not once does it mention a "residential" phone line - ut oh . . .

As of today - we are out of the voice broadcasting business - too much risk to bend the rules . . .

Good luck to everyone.

Tom

I had been successfully doing live transfer leads for my clients for over 4 years now, and have many that have stopped using "press ones", prerecorded messages, to generate leads. Many are freaking out...and please keep in mind I have clients that are use to doing 100k, plus dials per day, with this being their "primary" source of new business. One of my associates that did over $500,000 per month in just autodialer services per month, spent over $3million and the last year building a 300 seat call center to make live calls with predictive dialers and hot transfer them in preparation for the new rulings.

This is pretty serious stuff, and there is a lot of debate regarding the term "consumer". There are always going to be renegades and goofballs who are going to shake their fingers at the ruling and ride the line. But hopefully they have a bunch of "extra cash" to pay off the FTC fines and court costs.

I can say that it provided a large portion of my revenue...but those of us in the know over the last year, have prepared and offer even more effective lead generation techniques.

Also, there are many new web based "predictive dialer" programs out there that are proven to improve your "smiling and dialing" old school" prospecting by up to 300%, or out source your TMK per your parameters and have hot transfers sent to you real time.

Good luck to all the sales professionals out there. Get 'er done!