The laws governing telemarketing calls have been toughened due to the outrage of people who have been constantly harassed by telemarketers calling them at all hours of the day and night. One of the most complicated and convoluted of the telemarketing laws are the laws that pertain to telemarketers who make calls on behalf of fundraising organizations. In order to better understand these laws so that you, as the consumer, know whether or not your rights have been violated, what follows is a brief summary of telemarketing fundraising laws. Please be advised that these laws may be slightly different based on where you live. These are general FTC guidelines.
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First of all, it is important to know just who is and who isn't covered by these laws. If you are a telemarketing company making calls on behalf of a fundraising organization and you are doing this for profit on behalf of a non-profit organization then you are covered by these laws. If you are a non-profit agency then you are not.
If you are covered then you must honor what are called in-house suppress requests. This means that you must eliminate numbers of prospects and customers to call who specifically request not to be contacted by your company. This is according to Article # 31, DMA Guidelines For Ethical Business Practices.
After that has been done then the next restriction is that you can only call people between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM. This is according to Section 310. Each individual state may have different telemarketing agency additional restrictions as far as legal calling hours.
When making the call you must transmit your caller ID and cannot block this transmission. You must include, in the transmission, the phone number of the seller, service bureau or customer service number that would be answered if somebody wanted to call during normal business hours. The name of the seller or service bureau must also be included if the technology allows for it.
The call, if put through by an automatic dialing system, must be connected to a live caller within 2 seconds of the completed greeting by the system. The greeting itself can be any length of time but after it is completed a live person must speak within 2 seconds. If this doesn't happen it is considered an abandoned call.
Once the call is transferred to a live representative, the identity of the caller must be given immediately. After that, the purpose of the call must be given to the customer. Finally, the goods trying to be sold, in this case solicitation for fundraising, must be disclosed. Any attempt to misrepresent the purpose of the charity, tax deductibility, percentage going to the program itself, any aspect of prize promotion, or affiliation with government agency, is in violation of Article 8 of the DMA Guidelines For Ethical Business Practice and Section 310.
These are only the most basic of the regulations regarding calls made by companies for charitable organizations. There are also additional laws based on the type of campaign, such as negative option and continuity programs, or free to pay conversion programs, but the main rules apply to all of these.
If you are like most people, you struggle to remember a time before telemarketers constantly hassled you at suppertime and throughout your favorite prime time television shows. Just like microwaves and cell phones, telemarketing has become a part of life - albeit an annoying one - that most people have come to accept as a part of life. However, unlike the victims of telemarketing in the past, these days, there are things that you can do to protect yourself from this regular nuisance.
Telemarketing became popular back in the 1970's, and with its surprising ability to bring in sales, spread a message, and encourage people to vote the way you want them to, it has continued with abundance. However, not everybody likes to receive these unsolicited calls, even if the people calling believe that they have a truly valuable message or deal to share.
Therefore, the FTC created the National Do Not Call Registry, allowing people to escape from the seemingly never-ending list of telephone calls that come in all evening long. However, even though the majority of telemarketing companies do respect the laws regarding the Do Not Call list, there are the few scams and unethical businesses that fail to keep up with the list that they're not to call.
Fortunately, with the invention of the Caller ID service, you can record the number of these scams and rule-breakers and find out who they are. First, you can use a reverse phone search to see if you can identify the company that is breaking the rules. Then, you can go to the FTC website and report their illegal phoning activities so that they can investigate it further.
One of the best things that you can do for others, though, to help to stop telemarketers and annoying calls is to head to a caller complaints website and record the number that called you, the name of the company if you found it, and tell about the situation. Let others know that they break the rules of the Do Not Call registry, that they call at all hours of the night, or that they are a scam altogether. By spreading the word, you take the power away from the company to sell, because people will know that they aren't legitimate.