| Comment Number: | 516736-00043 |
| Received: | 6/6/2005 10:01:59 PM |
| Organization: | THE TELEMARKETING CONNECTION |
| Commenter: | MIKE SLACHETKA |
| State: | IL |
| Agency: | Federal Trade Commission |
| Rule: | Definitions, Implementation, and Reporting Requirements Under the CAN-SPAM Act |
| Docket ID: | 3084-AA96 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
I am Mike Slachetka, President and Creator of The Telemarketing Connection; speaking on behalf of professional telemarketers across America. With the creation of the various do-not-call legislation and the CAN-SPAM Act, I, on behalf of the telemarketing labor force, feel that these laws are very unfair to us, as a group of hard working people. With regards to the various pieces of do-not-call legislation, as a member of the telemarketing labor force, I feel that the do-not-call list created by the Federal Trade Commission and all the individual state versions are trying to create a conflict of interest here. I also look at this issue from the standpoint of business people that give us the opportunity to work for them. The question I have is this. Do our elected officials realize how much cost and confusion there is in the efforts to coordinate a potential total of 52 different versions of the list? I come up with this total based on the original nationwide list, potentially a seperate list for each of the 50 states, and then we throw in another one for the District of Columbia. Based on extreme levels of cost to comply with 52 versions of the do-not-call list, I feel the only way to be fair to the telemarketing industry and the hard working telemarketers of America is to have the version of the list created by the Federal Trade Commission supercede that version of any and all states. Another thing that has to be considered in this legislation is the outrageous fine of $11,000 for each violation of the list that is currently in force. Do you recognize that not all telemarketers are direct employees of the companies they are working for at any given time? There are quite a few of us that work as independent contractors. Do you mean to say, in effect, that an independent contractor makes a call to an individual on any list is subject to the same fines that a company would be expected to pay? This is simply outrageous because there are a majority of telemarketers that barely make $20,000 per year. Two bad calls during a tax year would put the person out of business, and on to the welfare rolls. Is that what the people of the United States really want?