Mavcomm Communications

California law requires retailers who sell merchandise for later delivery, utility companies, and cable TV companies to specify a four-hour period within which the delivery will be made or service connection commenced if the consumer's presence is required. The law makes the same requirement of companies that service or repair merchandise. The law will not recognize as valid a contract provision that allows the consumer to agree to modify or waive any of these rights.

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) amended Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) puts consumers in charge of the number of telemarketing calls they get at home. The amended Rule created the National Do Not Call Registry, which makes it easier and more efficient for consumers to stop getting telemarketing sales calls they don’t want. If you register by phone, you must call from the number you want to register. If you register online, you must provide an email address for confirmation. You will have to open an email and click on a link in it for your online registration to be complete. The only identifying information that will be kept in the registry will be the phone number you register. You can expect fewer calls within three months of the date you sign up for the registry. Your number will stay in the registry for five years, until it is disconnected, or until you delete it from the registry. After five years, you will have to renew your registration. The law requires telemarketers to search the registry every three months and synchronize their call lists with the phone numbers that are on the registry. If you receive telemarketing calls after you have registered your telephone number and it has been in the registry for three months, you can file a complaint. You will have to know the company’s name or phone number to file a do not call complaint. A telemarketer who disregards the National Do Not Call Registry could be fined up to $11,000 for each call.

Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most telemarketing calls, but not all. Some businesses are exempt and can call you even if you place your number on the national registry. These include banks, long-distance phone companies and airlines. But most telemarketing calls are placed by professional telemarketing companies, which are not exempt, even if they’re calling on behalf of an exempt company. The bottom line: Most professional telemarketers cannot call you if you are on the registry. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has begun a rulemaking proceeding that would extend the National Do Not Call Registry to many of the businesses that are exempt from FTC coverage.

Other businesses are not required to "go by the list" either. Political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors, and the business of insurance to the extent that it is regulated by state law are permitted to call you. Also, organizations with which you have an established business relationship can call you for up to 18 months after your last purchase, payment or delivery—even if your name is on the National Do Not Call Registry. And companies to which you’ve made an inquiry or submitted an application can call you for three months. However, your request to a company not to call you trumps an existing business relationship. That is, if you ask a company not to call you, it must honor your request, regardless of an established business relationship.

If you place your number on the national registry, you may give written permission to particular companies that you want to hear from. And if you don’t put your number on the national registry you can still prohibit individual telemarketers from calling, one by one, by asking them to put you on their company’s do not call list. Although callers soliciting charitable contributions do not have to search the national registry, a for-profit telemarketer calling on behalf of a charitable organization must honor your request to be on its do not call list.