[ql06] PUBLIC: US "Do-Not Call" list -- Part VI
- From: "Ken Campbell -- LAW'06" <2kc16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 17:01:42 -0400
HOO-BOY!
What A MESS.
So now we have the FCC in-taking complaints... and the FCC boss saying
it will be the "number one enforcement priority" to go after scofflaw
telemarketers... but the FCC can't obtain access to the actual
Do-Not-Call List...
We have courts that rule the List is wrong, but won't directly stop
it... a legislature that holds emergence votes and wins them hands down,
but can't do anything... and the executive (administration, the FCC)
that vows to do act with priority, but can't even get its hands on the
List... and then has to go begging to the telemarketers themselves for a
copy of it!
Baaaahahaahaha.
God bless constitutional democracy.
Ken.
--
Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush
administration's positions on civil liberties in
the original German.
-- Bill Maher
RE: Schwarzenegger for Gov
--- cut here ---
FCC Begins To Receive Complaints About Calls
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page E01
Government regulators began processing complaints about unwanted
telemarketing calls yesterday, though their authority to enforce the ban
remained in legal limbo.
The Federal Communications Commission said it received 250 complaints in
the first eight hours in which consumers could submit them. FCC Chairman
Michael K. Powell said the agency's "number one enforcement priority
right now" is to go after telemarketing companies that are calling phone
numbers that have been placed on the do-not-call registry.
Powell has vowed to enforce the registry even though a federal judge has
ruled that it is unconstitutional and that the FCC can't obtain access
to it. That makes it hard for the agency to know which 50 million phone
numbers -- about a third of all U.S. residential phone lines -- are on
it.
Meanwhile, H. Robert Wientzen, president of the Direct Marketing
Association, which represents about 80 percent of the companies that
make sales calls, estimated that the normal 100 million calls a day were
off 20 to 30 percent yesterday because of the legal confusion. "I can
tell you that the big companies that make a lot of the phone calls are
respecting the do-not-call list," he added.
The DMA said yesterday that it has set up its own system that allows
consumers to complain if they signed up on the list but still receive
telemarketing calls. Although the trade group will not impose fines,
Wientzen said, it will use peer pressure to gain compliance from member
firms.
Wientzen said the DMA received 11 complaints yesterday.
Roanoke resident John Cochener, who put his two phone lines on the
do-not-call list the first day consumers could sign up, filed a
complaint with the government just minutes after he received a call at
1:06 p.m. from a company that identified itself as a travel center from
Florida.
"I feel that this outfit has deliberately violated the national do not
call list and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,"
Cochener wrote in an e-mail.
The agency that was supposed to enforce the list was the Federal Trade
Commission, which developed it. Under the rule, scheduled to take effect
yesterday, the FTC was to impose fines of up to $11,000 on telemarketers
that called a number on the list.
But a ruling last week by U.S. District Judge Edward W. Nottingham in
Denver blocked the FTC role. The agency has appealed that ruling, and a
decision is expected soon.
Because the FCC has nearly identical telemarketing rules, it is trying
to pick up what the FTC has been barred from doing. But to do so, Powell
has had to seek the help of the industry, which has been fighting the
list from the start.
Yesterday, Powell sent a letter to the DMA asking for a copy of the
computerized list. Powell also asked the group to provide "a list of
each DMA member that, to DMA's knowledge, has downloaded the do-not-call
database."
Powell has said that the court decisions mean he can go after only
telemarketers that have the list. Only about half of the 13,000 firms
that have indicated an interest in getting the do-not-call registry have
it, and those that don't cannot gain access to it because the FTC shut
it down after Nottingham's ruling.
Wientzen said his association is studying Powell's request to see if it
is legally possible, since the FTC rules forbid sharing the list. FTC
officials have said that rule was imposed to keep the list from falling
into the hands of unscrupulous telemarketers.
"We're in a difficult position here because we want to advance the
interests of consumers, but at the same time we hold the government
shouldn't be in this role," Wientzen said. His group was polling its
4,700 member firms to see which ones have the list and whether they mind
having their names forwarded to the FCC.
Tim Searcy, head of the American Teleservices Association, said, "We
think it's probably illegal based on the FTC's own rules that companies
can't share a list, but if the DMA decides to, it's certainly their own
choice."
The ATA is a trade group representing call-center firms that make
solicitations on behalf of other companies, and its court challenge led
to Nottingham's ruling.
During the past week, three courts have weighed in on the government's
anti-telemarketing plan, as has U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G.
Breyer, who on Monday rejected an industry request to stop the FCC from
enforcing the list. Congress and President Bush have also gotten into
the fray, as legislation was swiftly enacted to overturn one judge's
ruling that questioned the authority of the FTC to develop the
do-not-call list. That legislative action was overtaken by Nottingham's
ruling.
K. Dane Snowden, chief of the FCC's bureau of consumer and governmental
affairs, said telemarketing complaints "definitely increased" yesterday.
Recent FCC figures show about 37 telemarketing complaints a day for the
three months that ended June 30. But FCC officials said they couldn't
estimate how many of yesterday's 250 complaints would ultimately be
recorded as valid under the list rules after they are investigated.
Snowden said the agency also received 1,200 requests from consumers who
want to get on the list.
FCC Chairman Powell said the agency is ready to handle all complaints.
He said the agency will process the complaints "as fast as possible,"
adding: "If we get 100 calls about the same company, that tells how to
prioritize."
Staff writer Christopher Stern contributed to this report.
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