"Don't call me again!"
Soon those words will have bite when you speak them to a tele- marketer who has interrupted your dinner to hawk cheaper long-distance rates or a "free" weekend in the Poconos.Under regulations that take effect Dec. 31, if marketers phone you again after you've warned them not to, the Federal Trade Commission can go to court to seek $10,000 in civil penalties per violation. The FTC, along with state attorneys general, can also attempt to block a habitual offender from making calls anywhere in the country.
Since 1991, the law has required telemarketers to leave you alone once you've asked, but the only way to enforce that law was for you to file a lawsuit.
Now, says Allen Hile, assistant director of the FTC's Division of Marketing Practices, "if we get a pattern of complaints about telemarketers from consumers saying, `I asked them not to call and they called, anyway,' that could be the basis for law-enforcement action from us."
To combat telemarketing fraud, which costs consumers as much as $40 billion a year, the new rules will also require telemarketers to promptly disclose that they're making a sales call and to identify the products or services being sold. In the case of prize promotions, they must state that no purchase is necessary to win.
Under the new rules, telemarketers must receive prior written consent or tape-recorded oral consent before debiting your checking account.