March,
2004
FCC
AT&T has sued the Federal Communications Commission requesting its
records regarding company specific no-call complaints against the company.
AT&T has alleged the FCC has refused to disclose more than 1,000
pages of relevant records.
FTC
The FTC has released a report regarding do-not-call
list registration and complaint figures for 2003 indicating that fewer
than 45 companies have received more than 100 consumer complaints. As
I have often discussed with my clients, this number may be the threshold
after which an investigation is initiated.
The FTC
has charged two debt negotiation companies with violating federal law
after they claim they could drastically reduce the consumers
debt by negotiating directly with creditors. The FTC charged that the
defendants radio advertisements and internet web sites were false
and misleading.
The FTC
has sought public comment regarding the rule to require businesses to
scrub against the national do-not-call list every 30 days
rather than quarterly.
The FTC
has filed a suit in Federal District Court against an Arizona company
alleging violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule. The FTC alleges
that the company charged $400 to protect consumers personal information,
but provided little or no services in response.
The FTC
has begun an inquiry into a large magazine companys telemarketing
practices regarding compliance with the national no-call registry and
the Telemarketing Sales Rule governing negative option transactions.
TELEMARKETING
CLASS ACTION
A federal jury in Chicago has found plaintiffs attorneys liable
for $36,000,000 for abuse of their clients with regard to a class action
filed in Squirrel, IL. This decision may or may not have some effect
on the numerous class actions currently being filed under the TCPA and
settlement thereof.
UNITED
STATES SUPREME COURT
The United States Supreme Court will hear argument this month in
a case regarding discretionary licensing by a state regulator. Existing
cases hold that the regulator is required to promptly issue a license
without discretion to delay beyond a reasonable time. Hopefully the
Supreme Court will reaffirm this line of cases.
ALABAMA
A bill is being considered by the Alabama House which would delete
several of the exemptions from registration under the Alabama law, including
calls for the sale of magazines, calls to set later face-to-face meetings,
calls from banks, calls from insurance companies, business-to-business
sales, calls from telephone companies and calls from publicly-traded
companies. A similar law was adopted by Kentucky making Kentuckys
registration applicable to almost every business.
ALASKA
A bill has been proposed in the Alaska House which would apply the
federal list to intrastate telephone calls. If this bill ends the state
lists maintained by each Alaska telephone company, it will benefit the
industry as obtaining the Alaska state lists has traditionally been
nearly impossible.
CALIFORNIA
A bill has been proposed in the California General Assembly which
would ban the state from contracting with companies which employ nonresidents
in the United States to perform telecommunications services on behalf
of any state or local agency.
CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Senate is considering a bill which would require
call center employees to identify their name, and the city, state and
country in which the employee is located, as well as apply restrictions
to transfer of personal identifier or financial information to offshore
companies.
FLORIDA
The Florida House is considering a bill which would amend its criminal
law to include violations of the state telemarketing law as racketeering
activity and thus punishable under criminal statutes.
ILLINOIS
The Illinois House is considering a bill which would amend the state
do-not-call list definition of established business relationship
to bring it in line with the federal definition.
KENTUCKY
The Kentucky House is considering a bill which would make it illegal
to make a telephone solicitation to any wireless or cellular telephone
number. This law would have questionable applicability to interstate
telephone calls if passed.
NEW
YORK
A bill has been proposed in the New York General Assembly to make
the state do-not-call list applicable to facsimile transmissions.
As you know, unsolicited faxes are generally banned by the Telephone
Consumer Protection Act and can subject a business to potentially devastating
liability under federal law.
The General
Assembly is also considering another bill which would ban Caller ID
fraud or any method to cause a consumer Caller ID device to indicate
a different telephone number than the number of the telephone being
used by the caller.
OREGON
The Oregon Attorney General has entered into a fourth consent agreement
with MCI regarding allegations of unlawful trade practices, including
failure to provide clear directions to consumers regarding cancellation
of telecommunications services.
UTAH
March 8, 2004, Utah passed a law adopting the Utah numbers on the
federal do-not-call list as the state do-not-call
list. The State of Utah has appealed a trial judges ruling that
state laws, regarding delivery of recordings, did not apply to interstate
telephone calls due to preemption by the federal TCPA. We will vigorously
oppose this appeal.
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