| Comment Number: | OL-104134 |
| Received: | 11/28/2004 11:14:25 PM |
| Organization: | |
| Commenter: | Andrew Verner |
| State: | NC |
| Subject: | Trade Regulation Rule on Telemarketing Sales |
| Title: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| CFR Citation: | 16 CFR Part 310 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
In my opinion, the proposed amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule not only are unnecessary, but run contrary to the TSR itself in both function and spirit. The first of the proposed amendments allows the delivery of a prerecorded message to people with whom the company has "an established business relationship". Because of vague wording, nearly any concievable connection between person and company could arguably qualify. (For example, Coca-Cola could send such a message to virtually anyone in the United States, as surely everyone has purchased a Coca-Cola product at SOME point in his/her life.) In addition, the distinction that the amendment applies only to prerecorded messages is, for the most part, irrelevant--there is no reason to think a *prerecorded* unsolicited phone call is any less of an annoyance, or any less of an violation of one's privacy, than a live one. It doesn't completely destroy the effectiveness of the rule, but it comes close. I do not fully understand the second proposed amendment, as I am not familiar with the concept of "call abandonment". However, since the rule in either form seeks to limit the phenomenon, it is probably an undesirable practice. It seems to me that the amendment would simply allow companies to perform call abandonment in greater amounts, although less often--rather than a few times each day, there might be a full day of abandoned calls each month. I fail to see how such a situation would be desirable.