“I already know I’m out of compliance, so why bother?” Judges hate that. Most TCPA trials have one thing in common: The magistrate asking, “Can you show me any intent at all to comply with the call prohibitions.” A good start? Archiving and saving those cell records. Even if you're messing up on the critical method of calling. “My broker said he had this stuff handled,” is also not going to go well with zero intention to comply. You never even looked into registering with any National or State DNC lists. And we’re not even talking about the more advanced, “You’re responsible for reassigned numbers” on your permission based calls!"
The 3 TCPA Compliance Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
The Past:
I remember making a presentation to a major for-profit college 7 years ago when the compliance officer stopped me and said, “Wait a minute, are you saying we have liability exposure in calling porential students.” As the ink was drying on the State AG’s complaint form they’d just received.
Or debt collectors burying up cell phones, not even bothering to scrub or identify them, with different auto-assisted technologies.
These mature industries were heading for trouble early on, but chose to not even look at compliance, or have big compliance pages on their websites that were just fluff.
Collectors have either consolidated or gone out of business at this point. And for-profits have antied up big time on their outreach safety initiatives. Why? Compliance.
The Present:
Finally, Business to Business callers are starting to wake up. The FTC fired another warning shot across the bow at the most recent Washington PACE summit by saying, “B2B’s, you need to comply..”
Predatory Attorneys have led the way here causing this traditionally exempt section of the DNC and TCPA growing pains. And now the class actions can actually put you out of business. This is good news for the particularly vulnerable sector. B2B's are the least expensive, easiest to protect, with the smallest amount of number fallout. See our blog.
Reassigned Numbers are finally front and center. It’s tough for permission callers to get they are responsible for calling the right party at the time of the call. See our blog
And even wireless scrubbing and archiving, the beginning of compliance, is taking hold. Whether you call cells or not. Even if you call them or not. .
The future:
I get flashbacks when talking with nitch markets that haven’t been seriously touched by the TCPA yet – but are about to be. Like Consumer Factoring companies paying cash for settled annuities payouts, say, a settlement that pays in monthly increments for years. A lot of these folks re lead poisoning victims that have serious congnative imparement. Certainly not capable of resisting a cash buyout for $60,000 on a settlement worth 1 million over the years. But the first class action case has hit Novation in West Palm Beach last August. And Morgan and Morgan is now advertising for these orphans to call em’ – along with every other Attorney looking for consumer compliance issues. Yes nobody has registered for the National or State Lists, is scrubbing cells or getting rid of previous litigators before calling…
Even Business Factoring companies can be at risk. Are you archiving your cells? Have you registered for the National and State DNC lists. Are you working with a compliance partner? Nope, nope and nope.
Unfortunately, past compliance mistakes are alive and well.
From: “I didn’t know” to “Are you sure about that” to “what’s this letter from this Attorney requesting class actions status? Only you can change your compliance future. But unlike the “Christmas Carol” it’s a pro-active gig. And it's best to make protection decisions on breezing through a CFPB audit, or private right of actions suit, or FTC Certificate of Demand today! (Not tomorrow.)
To learn more about protecting your B2C or B2C outreach efforts, just call me at 561-317-3001 - Bob
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