FTC Proposes Stopping Unwanted Telemarketers
HOUSTON, Jan. 22, 2002 — -- Everyone knows how annoying it is to get a phone call from a telemarketer in the middle of dinner.
The family dinner hour has become prime time for telemarketers from more than 79,000 call centers nationwide.
Americans don't merely dislike these telemarketers. They despise them.
Jeanette Otis, a 70-year-old widow from Houston, says she gets about five unwanted calls a day. For her, the irritation begins "when they start out their conversations with, 'How are you today?'"
Because they spend more time at home, senior citizens are three times more likely to be solicited by telemarketers.
Rex Sebastian, 72, was so frustrated that he installed a device that can block at least some of the calls. "When a computer-originated call comes in, it zaps it out," he says.
The Federal Trade Commission announced a plan today that would allow anyone to join a national "do not call" list by dialing a toll-free number. Telemarketers would then be prohibited from calling phones on the list.
"The penalty for violating an FTC rule is $11,000," says J. Howard Beales, the director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, "and we would regard each call as a violation."
Before any of this becomes law, the FTC will hear objections from the $660 billion-a-year telemarketing industry, which vows to fight for its life.
"Businesses trying to reach people and get promotions is clearly part of free speech," says Jerry Cerasale, the senior vice president of the Direct Marketing Association. "It's commercial free speech."
As it stands now, if you ask a telemarketer to remove your name from their calling lists, he or she must comply. The proposal for a national registry maintained by the FTC would let a consumer stop calls from all — or specified — companies with just one request.
Twenty states already have statewide "do not call" lists, including Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Oregon and Texas. Some states charge consumers a few dollars per year to stay on the list. Florida was the first state to pass a no-call measure, primarily intended to protect senior citizens.
But consumer activists like Robert Bulmash feel telemarketers days' are numbered.
"We have a fundamental right to be left alone some place, and if that right doesn't exist in our homes then it will only exist in our graves," says Bulmash, the president and founder of Private Citizen Inc., an Illinois-based group dedicated to fighting intrusive marketing techniques.
If he is right, fewer Americans will have to resort to hanging up the phone on a telemarketer in the middle of dinner.
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