FTC Amends Telemarketing Rules Regarding Prerecorded Calls, Call Abandonment
The FTC announced this week two amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR)—one that will bar calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer previously has agreed to accept such calls, and another that modifies the method of calculating the maximum permissible level of call abandonment.
"Just like the provisions of the Do Not Call Registry, these changes will protect consumers' privacy," said FTC Chairman William E. Kovacic in a statement. "The amendments now directly enable consumers to choose whether they want to receive prerecorded telemarketing calls."
The amendments will not affect consumers' ability to continue to receive calls that deliver purely "informational" prerecorded messages— notifying recipients, for example, that their flight has been canceled.
The call abandonment (when a predictive dialer connects a call, but the consumer picks up before the salesperson is ready) amendment will continue to allow 3 percent of a company’s calls to be abandoned, but will permit it to be calculated over a 30-day period, rather than on a daily basis.
The call abandonment amendment will go into effect on Oct. 1 and the amendment that requires consumers’ permission to receive prerecorded calls will go into effect on September 1, 2009.
These amendments are a result of a rulemaking proceeding initiated in 2004 in which the FTC, responding to a petition from the telemarketing industry, proposed a change in the TSR to allow calls that deliver prerecorded messages to consumers with whom a seller had an established business relationship.
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Proposed Changes to Telemarketing Rule
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