Money Watch
The call: Hello, who’s there???
The caller: Telemarketers legally can use automatic dialers to deliver vast numbers of recorded commercial messages, provided that the calls go to phones not on the federal Do Not Call registry. If no one picks up the phone, the recorded message can be left on an answering machine. But if a person answers, the rules change.
The rule: According to the Federal Trade Commission’s telemarketing sales rule, recorded calls have to be switched within two seconds to a live sales representative if someone picks up the phone. This allows the person being called the option of demanding that the company not call again.
The charges: The FTC said a Costa Mesa company, Voice-Mail Broadcasting Corp., broke the rule by letting messages play or simply disconnecting if a person answered. No live person, the FTC alleged, came on the line. The company was charged with making 46 million unlawful telemarketing calls since 2003.
The settlement: A proposed consent decree filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last week included a $3-million civil penalty, reduced to $180,000 because of the company’s inability to pay the full amount. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
