A young lady in Florida has requested TCPA class action against an automotive group over a text received about an unfulfilled 2003 recall repair on her Jetta. Meanwhile, a woman was killed by an exploding defective Takata airbag while driving her 2002 Honda having never responded to Honda's recall contact efforts. Phone, email and
Did you hear about the FCC's $2.88 million Dialing Services Inc. fine? It's important because it shows the reach of the FCC’s implementation power concerning platform providers. Dialing Services did not conduct the robocalls. But the FCC determined Dialing Services platform had been so connected in the deployment of the calls, it was like the company had done the deed itself.
"Nothing is wrong with your credit card, but you must press one for critical information..." Sound familiar? "This is your Google ad lady...This is the IRS calling...This is Microsoft repair..." The real Google, IRS, and Microsoft Repair would never call you by the way! In April 2017 there were 2.5 billion robocalls placed in the U.S. The FCC defines them
You're a call center. Your customers depend on you. Which includes identifying the biggest compliance troublemakers before dialing on their behalf. The recipients that'll make life miserable. Your clients may be in energy and utility fulfillment, travel and entertainment, customer acquisition or financial services. They might be in healthcare, retail, or communications. They are experts in their respective fields. But they are not experts at staying out of compliance trouble with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. That's your job.
I can’t think of a faster way to run afoul of the Call Prohibitions: faxing and texting. We still don’t have any idea how judges will react to pre-existing relationship faxing - let alone unsolicited faxing. Other than things probably won't go well. And texting is clearly the quickest way to upset folks for significant fines. Marketers continue to be confused by "informational calling" vs "advertisement calling." Conducting a survey about your recent burger purchase may qualify as informational. But adding a fries promo coupon with the next burger purchase – you've got a clear unrelated advertisement. The whole message becomes a sales call - subject to additional telemarketing restrictions. Easy for legal predators to prosecute in the fax and text game.
Predatory Attorneys are having a compliance field day with dialers. Power dialers, predictive dialers and hosted dialers. For businesses, call centers, and financial institutions. Luckily, there's an easy solution to help eliminate calling these previous TCPA court filers before it's too late.
Some call center managers and phone marketers just aren't going to get compliant with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, ever. No matter what. Calling cells without scrubbing. Unregistered with any State or National Lists. Letting the robodialer spin free. (And in denial about it.) "We have two people that call 30,000 numbers a month completely by hand. We're good." Please, if you have no plans to comply with the TCPA, at least don't call the folks that have sued before under the statute - and will do it again. [Click Video]
Leads changing hands. And changing hands again. Slipping through the system never to be identified. Predatory prosecutors tearing apart supposedly TCPA compliant predictive dialer leads in court. Critical source, date, prospect callback intention information lost or misplaced. Audio recordings erased. It happens alot: "Show me what I filled out, when, where, and prove it." Try handing that needle-in-a-haystack request to your IT director or lead generator. This is what drives Telephone Consumer Protection Act Defense Attorneys nuts.
Many traditional lead procurement solutions don't hold up in court. In fact, most haven’t. Especially when changing hands alot. Too hard to track. Recently, a major solutions provider estimated 85% of web pages were out of TCPA compliance. Almost a third had no express written consent option at all. Lawyers tell us the problem is epidemic.
Call centers will lead you to believe Compliance is front and center. Listing requirements of the Do Not Call and TCPA Laws on their website. Detaining legal links to Government call prohibition entities. And that's great. But what remains unclear is exactly who is going to implement these procedures, and if they fail, who is responsible. It's not their fault - As Council won't let centers imply liability, and will be the first to say: Get a Certified Do Not Call Service Provider to handle compliance chores. That's all they do. And they don't make mistakes. [Click Video]
