KEEPING IT LEGAL

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We mainly do outbound cold calling. We keep ourselves out of trouble by scrubbing all of the leads we call against the Federal Do Not Registry and avoid using those numbers in any kind of marketing. We also rescrub our entire lead list every month and have written policies on how to handle DNC leads and those leads who ask to be put on the Do Not Call list. This keeps us compliant with regulations outlined. 

A violation of the Do Not Call (DNC) provision of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) can be up to $43,792 per call. The fines for a violation of state Do Not Call rules can vary from $100 up to $25,000 per call.

If you’re making calls, you need to. subscribe to the DNC list and register as a telemarketer. You can do so here: https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/. 

This is a great resource for an overview of the rules: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=36104f23-095e-488d-baff-55c14dd07716

There’s also a Texas Do Not Call list, but we don’t worry about that one as much, firstly because it is prohibitively expensive to get the lists for every area code in Texas, and second, there’s a clause here that makes this a little easier to get around: 

You are free to make telemarketing calls if:

• The telemarketer is a state licensee and; 
• The call is not made by an automated telephone dialing system; 
• and The solicitation requires a face-to-face presentation to complete the sales transaction and make payment; 
• and The consumer has not informed the telemarketer that the consumer does not wish to receive telemarketing calls from the telemarketer.

You still need to license yourself with the state though and you can do that here: https://www.texasnocall.com/telemarketer.asp

Reference: 

https://www.texasnocall.com/consumerFAQTX.asp

Simple… don’t send mass texts or emails out unless folks on your list have explicitly opted in to receive these communications from you. It’s hard to keep legal. It will get your email domain flagged as spam, and the phone number your texting from could be blocked from sending texts, possibly even without you knowing it. It’s tough to keep legal so just don’t do it. You want to build a personal relationship with leads over the phone anyway, so spammy mass communications like this may backfire on you. Sending one off texts from your personal cell is ok and likely won’t get you in trouble, but don’t do it too often and make sure you check the DNC list first. 

Good references:

https://www.mirabelsmarketingmanager.com/blog/how-to-comply-with-the-can-spam-act/

TCPA Laws

The TCPA requires that companies obtain consent – written or express – prior to autodialing, sending prerecorded messages, or blast texting. These requirements are separate and distinct from, and in addition to, DNC requirements.

TCPA Compliance

This is a great resource on TCPA compliance and potential fines:

https://www.dnc.com/what-is-tcpa

AutoDialers

We at Deal Doer Machine avoid the use of auto dialers. All of our dialing requires manual click to call initiation. We also do not allow text blasting. 

This ruling from a few years ago muddies the water as to what exactly an auto dialer is: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-supreme-court-narrowly-construes-definition-atds-or-autodialer-under-telephone

This is a pretty good article on auto dialers and talks about call abandon rates: https://nebula.wsimg.com/d20f4856e1a5b3ad341562b7dbcb3f76?AccessKeyId=D042A81B07E8B1D8A534&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

This may make things a little clearer: https://www.dnc.com/guides/7-riskiest-dialing-methods-under-tcpa-autodialer-live-agent. We can see from this list though that Click to Dial systems are the safest to use, so that’s what we do on the Deal Doer Machine platform. https://www.dnc.com/guides/7-riskiest-dialing-methods-under-tcpa-click-dial

Ringless Voicemail

Illegal unless you get prior express written consent. 

See https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/tcpa/retailer-spam-voicemail-class-action-lawsuit-investigation/

TCPA Penalties:

The penalties for not following the TCPA are on a per-violation basis. The standard penalty is up to $500 per violation, which can rise up to $1,500 per violation for knowing or willful violations. These fines can add up extremely quickly because the TCPA allows for uncapped statutory damages. Not to mention, TCPA penalties can be assessed multiple times per phone call if a call violates more than one regulation.

https://www.tcn.com/tcpa-penalties-that-will-make-you-triple-check-your-call-center-compliance/

Other References:

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/tcpa-best-practices-top-five-do-not-48261/