FTC FCC Regulations Auto Dialers Press-1 Robocalls

[thephaseusa]

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Hi,

I was just reading the vicidial managers manual tutorial on survey or press-1 campaigns, and the disclosure that says in the United States to run a press-1 campaign you need written permission from everyone you call. Then I looked at the FTC regulation section in the vicidial manual. I know that often these telemarketing laws govern calls to consumers, hence b2b calls do not apply. I saw the language “calls to consumers” in the first part of the FTC section, but the robocall auto dialer section didn’t specify calls to consumers. Here is the paragraph I am referring to:


Included in the August 2008 TSR revisions were also provisions that went into effect in September of 2009 that outlawed the use of automated dialing without calls going to an agent (including broadcast dialing, robo-calling and press-1 dialing) unless you have the expressed written permission from the person that you are calling. Also, in February of 2012 the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) also came out with similar rules for non-agent auto-dialing.

Can anyone tell me, does the 2008 revision, the 2012 FCC law, as well as that updated directive that came down in 2016 regarding robocalls, apply to telephone calls to consumers? Or is the language in them such that it includes all calls, whether to consumers or businesses?

I am in the Fundraising businesses and we usually have exemptions to dnc laws and other telemarketing laws because we call for charities, but I understand the 2016 change of policy the FTC made about robocalls applies to charity calls as well. I know that one of the big avatar soundboard telemarketer in the Philippines stopped doing residential campaigns because of this 2016 change in interpretation by the FTC, but they still do b2b campaigns. They don’t do press-1 though they do avatar soundboard campaigns with live agents handling all calls, just not speaking themselves.

Thanks for your time gentlemen!
John M

[thephaseusa]

In the campaign section about survey or press-1 campaigns it does add this:

The campaign survey section is used to configure Survey or Press-1 type campaigns. It should be noted that if you are calling consumers in the USA with this type of calling, that it will be illegal as of September 1, 2009 if you do not get expressed written consent from the consumers that you are calling in this way. For more information on this see the Regulations section of this manual.

Consumers. So is it fair to say press-1 to business phones does not require written permission?

John

[mflorell]

This is exactly why we recommend consulting a lawyer who specializes in this

There are a lot of grey areas in all of this, especially if you are doing calling related to charities or politics in the USA.

And none of that even touches on the TCPA, which makes it illegal to call any cellphone through an automated dialer without written permission, and that applies to ALL CALLS placed by anyone for any purpose with the only exception being calls from government during a state of emergency.