The new Federal Do Not Call law is too restrictive. As it is written, it will cost the nation billions of dollars in lost revenue and taxes through job losses in industries that depend on information gathered by making a "cold" phone call to homes in their local calling area. The overall effect on the nation’s economy will be catastrophic! This, at a time when the nation is already facing a very troubled economy and record high unemployment rates.
My state, Minnesota, makes an allowance for companies to call those on the state’s Do Not Call list that intend to close a sale in person rather than on the phone. This distinction is not recognized by the FTC/FCC Bill that was just passed and signed into law by President Bush on Friday, June 27, 2003. It is the lack of this provision in the new law that will prove to be so devastating to the nation’s economy and that of small business owners after October 1, 2003, because the new FTC/FCC law supersedes all existing state DNC laws and mandates that all states follow the new FDNC law rather than their own less rigid laws. Yet, at the same time President Bush signs this bill into law he also creates a tax cut to stimulate the economy. Are not these two actions contradictory and inconsistent?
The future new loss of employment caused by the current FTC/FCC Bill will have the same adverse effect as the disaster that occurred when the airline industry was hit with billions of dollars in losses due to the 9-11 attacks, when within as little as a month’s time-frame, there were thousands of newly unemployed food and travel service workers whose jobs depended on the airline industry’s business. This unemployment trend has continued to affect major cities whose main source of income depended on the travel industry. But it did not stop there. The loss of jobs has continued to grow until the nation’s economy is in trouble today. Now is not the time to create a law that will ultimately put more workers in the unemployment lines of this nation.
Likewise, the nation’s small businesses, that depend on telephone contact to promote their products, will not be able to afford to stay in business after October when this new law is enforced. The increased cost of buying the DNC list every three months for a grand total of $7, 000 per year will force many small business owners to shut down. Plus, added to that expense, they will face the threat of hefty fines for each call that is made inadvertently to those phone numbers that are on the FDNC list. At $11,000 per call, just the threat alone will cause some of these small business owners to choose to shut down rather then risk financial ruin as a result of placing a few calls to the wrong numbers by accident.
As an employee of a small siding and window company in Minnesota, I face the threat of losing MY job as a "communicator" within this company due to the passage of this new restrictive FDNC law. It is my job as a communicator within the company to generate interest in our company’s products through information-gathering by making cold calls to homeowners. If a homeowner has shown an interest in our line of products, then, later an opportunity is given to schedule an appointment for a face-to-face meeting with one of our representatives who will then demonstrate our line of products at no cost to the homeowner.
Most of the nation’s home improvement industry is operated by small, individually owned businesses that depend on making cold calls to generate interest in their company’s product line. Without the ability to do this, many companies will cease to exist, as about 90% of sales in this industry are generated by making that first cold call to a homeowner. Others will be forced to cut back the number of their employees by as much as 80%. But the layoffs will not stop there. A drop in demand for products such as siding and windows will affect major manufacturing plants that employ thousands of workers. Many of these workers will also lose their jobs as the trickle-down effect proceeds on its way. Those affected will include thousands employed not only in the home improvement industry, but everyone living in this nation by slowing the economy down even further than it is already.
The new FDNC law is also too restrictive in limiting the time-frame in which follow-up calls can be made. Quite commonly in the home improvement industry a potential customer will request that a future call be made to them in a year or two when they are financially able to make improvements to their home. Yet, if in the meantime, that person has placed their number on the FDNC list to limit other unwanted calls to their home, as a company we are prohibited by law from honoring that individual’s request to contact them in the requested time-frame, because they have not as yet purchased any of our products. To comply with the law a company must continue to call that potential buyer every three months instead of waiting the year or two that was requested, which will result in more calls to that individual, rather than fewer.
The FDNC law allows companies to call previous customers up to eighteen months after a purchase is made. However, this provision is of little use to the home improvement industry because most of our products carry a warranty program that far exceeds this time-limit. Many of our customers will purchase the entire package at once, thereby making a future sales call to them unnecessary. The time to call potential customers is before, not after they have made the purchase of our products.
Being prohibited by law from making these types of follow-up calls in a timely manner will be crippling to the home improvement industry nationwide, because it depends on contacting new prospects for business via the phone. Once a homeowner has done a complete remodeling of their home it is highly unlikely that that same customer will repeat the remodeling job within the eighteen-month time-frame that the new FDNC law allows.
The new Federal law, as it is written, will not only limit my personal potential income from lost sales, but that of my employer as well. Multiply this situation by several million lost sales across the nation, and the result will be billions of dollars in lost tax revenue for the government. Tax dollars will also be lost to each state through reduced purchases of builder permits. The home improvement industry also depends on getting sales from referrals. If a company is given a name and phone number by a past customer, and later discovers that the new contact is someone on the FDNC list, that company is prohibited by this new law from calling them, even though the company was assured that there was an interest by this person in the company’s product line. No company will want to risk getting fined $11, 000 for making just ONE phone call.
There are other ways to stop unwanted calls into the home other than passing restrictive laws that must be financed by the small business owners making the calls. Phone companies offer a service for a small monthly fee that will intercept most telemarketing calls with a recorded request that the calling company place them on their DNC list. This service is operative from 9am to 9pm daily. However, it seems that a large percentage of complainers are unwilling to pay this small monthly fee to receive freedom from unwanted callers. They would rather demand that prohibitive laws be passed so that they can "sign up for FREE" and let small business owners be taxed out of existence by extremely high fees and penalties that the government says it needs to operate and enforce these DNC lists.
What has happened to America’s free enterprise system? Signing this bill into law was a major blunder on the part of our lawmakers. Please consider exempting the building industry from the strict adherence to this new FTC/FCC Do Not Call law.
To Contact the Commissioners via E-mail fccinfo@fcc.gov
Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: jadelste@fcc.gov
