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.)
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.
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.
While the federal government prohibits making cell phone calls using automatic dialers, five states do not allow telemarketing calls to cell phone numbers at all - even with manual dialing. And this list of mobile no call states will probably expand as more and more consumers express annoyance with receiving marketing calls on their cell phones.
As an independent agent calling consumers and/or businesses, your challenge is how to identify and avoid calling cell phone numbers in these states. After all, they might not be on any Do Not Call list at all.
The worst nightmare a Call Center Manager has is of a rogue or runaway cold calling associate—a bit short, a bit curt, a bit out of line when calling consumers. Fed-up with rejection all day long. Gone to the rest room to never return. Can’t remember when the last time a consumer actually told them the truth!
As you may know, the Healthcare Financial Management Association and ACA International have released new medical collection guidelines to their members. This has spurred a myriad of credit bureaus, consumer protection agencies, healthcare organizations and others to try to cooperate with each other, build relationships and protect their bottom lines. Their ultimate goal, of course, is to contact consumers with medical debt without causing problems with HIPAA, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) or the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
You’re real excited to bring this new business to your call center. But the whole Do-Not-Call TCPA regulations liability exposure thing is new to you. You’re selling Energy, or Satellite TV, or Granite & Glass table tops and you need to contact consumers. But this company, on whose behalf you’ll be calling, wants you to somehow certify you have complied with the DNC & TCPA Laws - without cell scrubbing, or a subscription authorization number, or express written consents to help protect you from compliance statutes.
You’re right to be concerned. There is generally a good (and expensive) reason companies will insist an outsourced vendor, marketer, or fulfillment house handle the Do Not Call Law registrations and compliance chores for them.
Call Centers everywhere are trying to keep up with the Do Not Call and TCPA Laws. And yet we keep hearing about more fines, more precedent setting class actions, more CFPB record setting audits for financial institutions, and now debt collectors. How often does a phone jockey need to go over this stuff anyway? Here are some hints you may have chinks in the armor that could come back to haunt you - and what to do about it.
