Why do large companies cast their agents into the sea of Do Not Call compliance with nothing but a wish and a prayer? No National Registration. No expertise. And make them promise to protect themselves against the Do Not Call Laws?
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So your company has assigned you to research Do Not Call and TCPA compliance Scrubbing. What? Your first thought is: How the heck am I going to keep the technical people happy? But your IT guy or girl may not even know the right questions to ask. Worse, they may have been handling DNC in-house all along and think they know what they are doing. (But you know the company isn’t prepared actually for a CFPB/TCPA audit or class action suit. You’re clear your job would be one of the first to go in such a scenario.)
If you’re a debt collector struggling with reaching out to cell phones, a financial institution wondering how to reach folks about their credit card debt, a medical collector, or student loan servicer, you know how problematic it can be to safely call cell phones. Ringless Voicemail allows you to directly deliver a message to a cell voicemail platform without charging or interrupting the wireless owner. In fact, it never touches the wireless network at all!
As you know, small businesses and “grey area” business-consumers are becoming more educated and sensitive to incoming cell communications, solicitations, and updates—especially when generated through Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems. Many times, it’s not worth the risk or hassle of potential litigation in defending these potential class action cell phone suits.
So you have a robust Do Not Call Compliance solution in place, but you’re tired of doing all the heavy lifting: separately downloading the various required lists daily, or as they are released throughout the year; staying on top of the National, State, Wireless, Company Specific and in house requirements; keeping up with all the changing State and National algorithms these lists must be run through to ensure Compliance—and downloading each to a central data repository; and, hoping key data employees haven’t missed anything. That is a lot of heavy lifting, not to mention the 100% liability exposure.
Unfortunately, if you use the phone, the FTC, FCC, and State AGs, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Telephone Consumer Protection Act, consider you a telemarketer. And hey, you may feel safe with your calling and follow-up procedures now. But how unfortunate if you’re selling, say, deregulated electricity to several states and a cell phone owner decides to bring you to court with his or her predatory attorney.
The first question asked will be “do you scrub for cell phones?”—as of October 16 when the law changed to require written permission on auto assisted and automatic telephone dialing system/voice broadcast calls.
And that means you Mr. Real Estate, Life Insurance and Mortgage Broker that keeps telling me you don't use the phone. That you're not telemarketers. That you're exempt. That you don't understand! Your IT and technology directors are pretty good at creating number-checking tools that won't hold up in court. They're relatively easy to put together. You download all the DNC and TCPA related lists, and you’re off and running. Easy, right?
But not so fast. When the State AG, FTC, FCC, or CFPB shows up, that’s when you find out Do Not Call & TCPA Legislations are a Legal Issue: Are your number checking records available in the timeframe and format required; do they include cells, state lists, and company specific internal lists. If not, you're just fooling yourself.
If you're like a lot of tech-savvy entrepreneurs, social network sites like LinkedIn, Twtitter, and Facebook are natural sources of Business to Business (B2B) leads. It's never been easier to make a personal connection with business prospects. Everyone's putting their contact information online; it's ripe for the taking! Unfortunately, many of the numbers listed on these sites—even for businesses—are wireless mobile phone numbers, and, according to the new rules of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, you can't call them with any kind of auto-assisted dialing. "Business cells" are no longer exempt from Do-Not-Call laws.
Overwhelmed by the choices in Do Not Call law compliance companies on the internet? Everything from “Free Do Not Call Compliance” to “Download our software for a free trial and you can access the National Registry.” Maybe your listing supplier has offered to protect you from the DNC laws with an unregistered scrub. (Don’t fall for this one, as this is called a “courtesy scrub” and won’t hold up in a thorough safe harbor assessment inquiry from State and Federal Agencies.)
If somebody tells you they’ll protect you without any registrations, walk away. The basis of compliance is always registration with the National List. It costs $59 per year, per area code and the first 5 codes are free. You must renew every year. Registration for the whole Country is $17,000. B2B and Established Business Relationship companies may qualify for an exemption to the fees. State registrations are separate. Note: state telemarketer licensing and exemptions, state DNC registrations, wireless portability lists, and other nuances are beyond the scope of this discussion. Make sure to consult your attorney before making any DNC / TCPA decisions.
