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Dealing with Do Not Call exceptions: Rules let telemarketers call cell phones
(The Decatur Daily (AL) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 4--MONTGOMERY -- The unwanted calls come repeatedly, urging Decatur cell-phone consumer Ray Crump to take action before the two-year warranty on his car expires.
Sometimes the calls come several times a week, even though four years ago Crump put his cell number on the federal Do Not Call List.
The calls eat up phone minutes he pays for. If he goes over his limit of minutes, he pays more.
"My Honda is 16 years old. Do they think I do not know it is out of warranty?" Crump asked. "At the least, somebody should make them pay for calling me."
He wants to know what recourse consumers in Alabama have to stop such cell-phone calls. He wonders why state laws to protect consumers are not stronger and whom in state government to complain to.
The short answer is that there is little recourse for Alabama consumers trying to stop telemarketing calls on cell phones.
The Alabama Public Service Commission and the consumer protection division of the Alabama attorney general's office field consumer questions. But state law does not give the PSC regulatory authority over cellular telephone service. Without such authority, there is little opportunity to prosecute.
The state does have authority to set "terms and conditions" of acceptable operation for cellular service providers. It is in terms and conditions that consumer advocates say state law need strengthening.
Alabama law allows exceptions to the federal Do Not Call law. There are many exceptions that provide openings for cell phone solicitors.
Exceptions include the companies that cell-phone subscribers do business with and some associated companies.
The state can also require cell-phone solicitors to provide consumers with contact information and set time limits on calls. Other states grappling with the issue set limits as low as 10 to 15 seconds before solicitors must hang up.
The federal government has laws dealing with cell-phone calls that make adopting state regulations more complicated.
Federal law, not state law, governs what is and is not "allowed communications" on cell phones, said David Rountree, a spokesman for the Alabama PSC.
"I doubt that you will find any state that regulates this service because federal law takes precedence over state law," Rountree said. "When people call here, we try to help them, but we have no authority to stop the calls."
Go through steps
He tells consumers to go through the steps that the Federal Trade Commission set up to help people with problems like Crump's.
"A lot of people think individual complaints will get lost on a federal level, but they have a pretty good track record of response. It just may take a little time," Rountree said.
He also had a question that he said presents a quandary for his office.
"How do you preclude the bad guys from coming to your state?" Rountree asked. "They do not have to come to us for certification to operate here. Their message travels through the airwaves."
Crump said he's tried the federal route, but the calls still come.
Alabama Assistant Attorney General Olivia Martin, section chief for utilities, tells consumers not to answer cell-phone calls if they do not recognize the caller number. She also tells them not to give out their cell numbers too freely.
For consumers like Ray Crump and his wife of 48 years, Martha, Martin's recommendation may not provide a solution.
Their cell phone provides their only telephone service, so they give out the number to doctors' offices and places they do business with. In Alabama, that opens them to solicitation calls that some other states might restrict.
"Those consumers need to make sure they buy enough minutes each month to take care of calls they would get on a regular phone line," Martin said.
"It is a consumer protection issue that most states are grappling with."
Breaking the law
FTC spokesman Mitch Katz said telemarketers are breaking the law when they repeat calls to consumers who tell them not to call again.
Some calls are pre-recorded and auto-dialed, pitching such things as car warranties, cheap credit cards and lower-interest mortgages without a human contact for the consumer.
Telemarketers that used pre-recorded and auto-dial calls are most active in states with lots of exceptions to Do Not Call restrictions, he said.
"Those are the worst types of calls," Katz said. "We know this is a problem, and we are working on it. We may need approval from Congress to do anything about it."
Cellular telephones came into popularity just as utility company deregulation took hold in Congress and in state governments.
Katz said his agency began working on limiting auto-dial solicitors on Oct. 3, 2006, but has no solution yet.
Meanwhile, Crump has questions for state and federal officials.
"Why does the state spend money on 800 numbers for consumers to call if they aren't going to do anything about it?" he said. "It is a waste of my time and taxpayer money."
He also asked, "Why does it take so long to do something?"
To see more of The Decatur Daily, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.decaturdaily.com
Copyright (c) 2008, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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