The laws governing telemarketing calls have been toughened due to the outrage of people who have been constantly harassed by telemarketers calling them at all hours of the day and night. One of the most complicated and convoluted of the telemarketing laws are the laws that pertain to telemarketers who make calls on behalf of fundraising organizations. In order to better understand these laws so that you, as the consumer, know whether or not your rights have been violated, what follows is a brief summary of telemarketing fundraising laws. Please be advised that these laws may be slightly different based on where you live. These are general FTC guidelines.

First of all, it is important to know just who is and who isn't covered by these laws. If you are a telemarketing company making calls on behalf of a fundraising organization and you are doing this for profit on behalf of a non-profit organization then you are covered by these laws. If you are a non-profit agency then you are not.

If you are covered then you must honor what are called in-house suppress requests. This means that you must eliminate numbers of prospects and customers to call who specifically request not to be contacted by your company. This is according to Article # 31, DMA Guidelines For Ethical Business Practices.

After that has been done then the next restriction is that you can only call people between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM. This is according to Section 310. Each individual state may have different additional restrictions as far as legal calling hours.

When making the call you must transmit your caller ID and cannot block this transmission. You must include, in the transmission, the phone number of the seller, service bureau or customer service number that would be answered if somebody wanted to call during normal business hours. The name of the seller or service bureau must also be included if the technology allows for it.

The call, if put through by an automatic dialing system, must be connected to a live caller within 2 seconds of the completed greeting by the system. The greeting itself can be any length of time but after it is completed a live person must speak within 2 seconds. If this doesn't happen it is considered an abandoned call.

Once the call is transferred to a live representative, the identity of the caller must be given immediately. After that, the purpose of the call must be given to the customer. Finally, the goods trying to be sold, in this case solicitation for fundraising, must be disclosed. Any attempt to misrepresent the purpose of the charity, tax deductibility, percentage going to the program itself, any aspect of prize promotion, or affiliation with government agency, is in violation of Article 8 of the DMA Guidelines For Ethical Business Practice and Section 310.

These are only the most basic of the regulations regarding calls made by companies for charitable organizations. There are also additional laws based on the type of campaign, such as negative option and continuity programs, or free to pay conversion programs, but the main rules apply to all of these.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Telemarketing