Top Ten Telemarketing Compliance Stories of 2021
2021 was an eventful year in the world of telemarketing regulations. Here are the most important events and stories from the past year.
Reassigned Numbers
Wrong Numbers Are a TCPA Risk
Wrong numbers sometimes take a backseat to reassigned numbers when discussing Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) risks. But they represent a similar sort of risk without counterbalancing features like the Reassigned Numbers Database (RND) and its associated safe harbor. Understanding why wrong numbers serve as a source of TCPA risk and implementing measures to mitigate that risk are essential parts of TCPA compliance.
Summer Compliance News Roundup
2021 has already been an eventful year for compliance.
One Year Later: Tracking the Implementation of the TRACED Act
December 30, 2020 marks the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump signing the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act into law. The law, whose name is an acronym for Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence, is the first major federal telemarketing legislation in more than a decade.
FCC Names Administrator for Reassigned Numbers Database
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) reassigned number database was supposed to be available sometime this year, after delays in 2019. With only 3 weeks left in the year, it appears unlikely that they will meet that deadline.
CFPB Releases Final Debt Collection Rule
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the final version of a debt collection rule that was last seen in proposed form back in May 2019.
TCPA vs. DNC
Telemarketing compliance is made difficult by the byzantine nature of telemarketing regulations. Any marketer can be forgiven for struggling to keep track of the varying levels of laws, regulatory agencies, and other enforcement mechanisms. However, there are two acronyms that loom large enough in the regulatory landscape that everybody knows them, even if they don’t really understand what they mean: TCPA and DNC.
Court Rules In Favor of TCPA Defendant Claiming Previous Subscriber’s Consent
A district court ruled that a caller could reasonably rely on the consent of a previous subscriber when calling a number that had since been recycled to another user.
FCC Delays Implementation of Recycled Number Database Until 2020
In December 2018, the FCC announced a plan to create a reassigned number database. Callers would be able to scrub their number lists against this database in order to remove any numbers that have been reassigned to new users, thus decreasing the possibility of incurring Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations by calling these new users.
FCC's Reassigned Number Database Becomes Final Rule
The FCC's long awaited reassigned number database has officially become a final rule. In December of last year, the FCC announced its intention to create this database, which will, "contain the most recent permanent disconnection date for toll free numbers and for each number allocated to or ported to each provider that receives North American Numbering Plan U.S.