Robocall
Encyclopedia
Robocall is a term for an automated phone call that uses both a computerized autodialer and a computer-delivered pre-recorded message. The implication is that a "robocall" resembles a telephone call from a robot
. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing
phone campaigns, but can also be used for public-service or emergency announcements.
. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. However, political groups are excluded from the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) definition of telemarketer, thus robocalls from or on behalf of political organizations are permitted under the FTC rules however they are prohibited by FCC rules that prohibit all robocalls (including charity and political calls) when made to cell phones and certain other numbers, without express consent or an emergency purpose.
The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
(TCPA) regulates automated calls. While political calls are exempt from FTC regulations, all calls, irrespective of whether they are political in nature, must do two things to be considered legal. The federal law requires all telephone calls using pre-recorded messages to identify who is initiating the calls and include a telephone number or address whereby the initiator can be reached. The TCPA prohibits all prerecorded calls to cell phones, except those made with express consent or emergency purposes.
Some states (23 according to DMNews) have laws that regulate or prohibit political robocalls. Indiana and North Dakota
prohibit automated political calls. In New Hampshire
, political robocalls are allowed—except when the recipient is in the National Do Not Call Registry
. Many states require the disclosure of who paid for the call, often requiring such notice be recorded in the candidate's own voice. The patch-work of state laws regulating political robocalls has created problems for national campaigns.
prohibits any robocall unless there is an existing relationship. The California Public Utilities Code §§ 2871 et seq. holds political campaigns to the same rules as other organizations or businesses using robocalls (i.e., calls made by an automatic dialing–announcing device or ADAD). The guidelines are:
Jay Nixon
alerted political campaigns in Missouri that this office would aggressively enforce federal rules (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
) requiring calls to include identifying and contact information.
, targeting African-American voters in the days leading up to the primary in late April 2008, which essentially told registered voters that they were not registered.
According to NPR
and Facing South, these calls were made by the organization "Women's Voices Women Vote
." Voters and watchdog groups complained that it was a turnout-suppression effort, and the state Attorney General Roy Cooper
ordered them to stop making the calls. The group stopped the calls and no further legal action was taken.
Shaun Dakin, CEO of Citizens for Civil Discourse
, testified at the hearing and described how robo calls impact the lives of voters across the nation. He also wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post calling for a Voter Privacy Bill of Rights in which all voters would have the right to opt-out of political robocalls if they did not wish to receive them.
Dakin, a former John Kerry
campaign worker, set up a website called Stoppoliticalcalls.org and claimed to allow citizens to opt-out of receiving robocalls. However, there is no guarantee that the registry will stop the calls and since there is no law that supports the database it is essentially an Internet petition
. As mentioned above, the Robocall Privacy Act failed to become law and neither bill had provisions for a 'do not call registry' for stopping robocalls.
Despite heavy media publicity of the database, only seven politicians in the United States voluntarily pledged to respect the list during the 2008 general election cycle. Of those seven, only three made it to the general election and only Virginia Foxx
(R) was successfully reelected in November 2008.
On September 1, 2009, a new regulation of the Federal Trade Commission
went into effect, banning most robocalls without written opt-in from the receiver. Political campaigns, surveys, charities, debt collectors, and health care providers are exempt, as are calls to businesses. Calls from banks, insurers, and phone companies are out of the jurisdiction of the FTC. In situations under federal jurisdiction, the federal law will supersede a slightly less restrictive law in the state of California.
asked a federal court to shut down a telemarketing campaign that has been bombarding U.S. consumers with hundreds of millions of allegedly deceptive robocalls in an effort to sell them vehicle service contracts under the guise that they are extensions of original vehicle warranties
. The FTC took action against both the promoter of the phony extended auto warranties, as well as the telemarketing company that it hired to carry out its illegal, deceptive campaign. The FTC contends that the companies are operating a massive telemarketing scheme that uses random, pre-recorded phone calls to deceive consumers into thinking that their vehicle’s warranty is about to expire. Consumers who respond to the robocalls are pressured to purchase extended service contracts for their vehicles, which the telemarketers falsely portray as an extension of the manufacturer’s original warranty. According to papers the FTC filed with the court, however, the robocalls have prompted tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the United States National Do Not Call Registry
or asked not to be called. Five telephone numbers associated with the defendants have generated a total of 30,000 Do Not Call complaints. Consumers received the robocalls at home, work, and on their cell phones, sometimes several times in one day. Businesses, government offices and even 911 dispatchers have been subjected to the calls.
Those who answer the pre-recorded calls hear a message telling them that their vehicle warranty is about to expire and that they should “extend coverage before it is too late.” They are told to “press one” to speak to a “warranty specialist.” The “specialists” then mislead consumers into believing that their company is affiliated with the dealer or manufacturer of the consumer’s vehicle. They try to sell consumers a service contract for between $2,000 and $3,000, which they falsely portray as an extension of the vehicle’s original warranty. The seller of extended auto warranties sued by the FTC allegedly took in more than $10 million on the sale of these deceptively marketed service contracts. In their robocalls, the companies dialed every phone number within a particular area code and prefix sequentially, without knowing whether the consumers called were motorists or owned motor vehicles, or whether those consumers’ numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry. Consumers who asked that the calls be stopped often were met with “abusive behavior” or were simply hung up on, according to the papers filed with the court. Some of the defendants used offshore shell corporations to try to avoid scrutiny, and a top officer in the telemarketing company bragged to prospective clients that he could operate outside the law without any chance of being caught by the FTC, the papers stated. This defendant also claimed that he makes 1.8 million dials per day and that he had done more than $40 million worth of dialing for extended warranty companies, including one billion dials on behalf of his largest client, according to the court papers filed by the FTC. In addition to the robocalls, the FTC charged that the company selling the warranties mails out deceptive postcards to consumers, warning them about the imminent expiration of their auto warranties. The postcards are designed to mislead consumers into believing that they are being contacted by their dealer or manufacturer, and the postcards offer consumers the chance to “renew” their original warranties. On May 15, 2009 U.S. District Judge John F. Grady
issued the temporary restraining order against the defendants Transcontinental Warranty Inc. and Voice Touch Inc. Grady's orders also applied to Transcontinental CEO and President Christopher Cowart, Voice Touch executives James and Maureen Dunne, Voice Touch business partner Network Foundations LLC and Network Foundations executive Damian Kohlfeld. Besides ordering a halt to the automatic telephone sales calls, Grady's order froze the assets of the two companies. The FTC alleged in its complaints that the calls were part of a deceptive scheme and asked the court to assure the assets will not be lost in case they might be needed to repay consumers who have been victimized. The FTC isn't immediately seeking civil fines against the companies but may do so later, agency officials said. Attorneys general in Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri have taken similar actions over calls offering extended warranties on automobiles.
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...
phone campaigns, but can also be used for public-service or emergency announcements.
Political calls
Robocalls are made by all political parties in the United States, including but not limited to both the Republican and Democratic parties as well as unaffiliated campaigns, 527 organizations, unions, and individual citizens. Political robocalls are exempt from the United States National Do Not Call RegistryUnited States National Do Not Call Registry
The National Do Not Call Registry is intended to give U.S. consumers an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls they receive. To register by telephone , consumers may call 1-888-382-1222. The registry was set to begin in 2003, but a court challenge delayed its implementation until 2004. The...
. Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. However, political groups are excluded from the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
(FTC) definition of telemarketer, thus robocalls from or on behalf of political organizations are permitted under the FTC rules however they are prohibited by FCC rules that prohibit all robocalls (including charity and political calls) when made to cell phones and certain other numbers, without express consent or an emergency purpose.
The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was passed by the United States Congress in 1991 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush as Public Law 102-243, amending the Communications Act of 1934. The current version of the statute is found principally at...
(TCPA) regulates automated calls. While political calls are exempt from FTC regulations, all calls, irrespective of whether they are political in nature, must do two things to be considered legal. The federal law requires all telephone calls using pre-recorded messages to identify who is initiating the calls and include a telephone number or address whereby the initiator can be reached. The TCPA prohibits all prerecorded calls to cell phones, except those made with express consent or emergency purposes.
Some states (23 according to DMNews) have laws that regulate or prohibit political robocalls. Indiana and North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
prohibit automated political calls. In New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, political robocalls are allowed—except when the recipient is in the National Do Not Call Registry
United States National Do Not Call Registry
The National Do Not Call Registry is intended to give U.S. consumers an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls they receive. To register by telephone , consumers may call 1-888-382-1222. The registry was set to begin in 2003, but a court challenge delayed its implementation until 2004. The...
. Many states require the disclosure of who paid for the call, often requiring such notice be recorded in the candidate's own voice. The patch-work of state laws regulating political robocalls has created problems for national campaigns.
California
CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
prohibits any robocall unless there is an existing relationship. The California Public Utilities Code §§ 2871 et seq. holds political campaigns to the same rules as other organizations or businesses using robocalls (i.e., calls made by an automatic dialing–announcing device or ADAD). The guidelines are:
- A "live" person must come on the line before the recording to identify the nature of the call and the organization behind it.
- The recipient of the call must consent to allowing the recording to be played.
- The call must be disconnected from the telephone line as soon as the message is over or the recipient hangs up, whichever comes first.
Indiana
Indiana requires introduction of any prerecorded message by a live operator; the message may not be played unless the called party grants permission.Missouri
In September 2008, Missouri Attorney GeneralMissouri Attorney General
The Office of the Missouri Attorney General was created in 1806 when Missouri was part of the Louisiana Territory. Missouri's first Constitution in 1820 provided for an appointed Attorney General, but since the 1865 Constitution, the Attorney General has been elected...
Jay Nixon
Jay Nixon
Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon, Sr. is the 55th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Missouri's Attorney General before his election in 2008.-Political career:...
alerted political campaigns in Missouri that this office would aggressively enforce federal rules (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was passed by the United States Congress in 1991 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush as Public Law 102-243, amending the Communications Act of 1934. The current version of the statute is found principally at...
) requiring calls to include identifying and contact information.
North Carolina
Robocalls were made during the 2008 North Carolina Democratic primaryNorth Carolina Democratic primary, 2008
The 2008 Democratic presidential primary in North Carolina took place on May 6, 2008, one of the last primary elections in the long race for nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama won the primary....
, targeting African-American voters in the days leading up to the primary in late April 2008, which essentially told registered voters that they were not registered.
According to NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
and Facing South, these calls were made by the organization "Women's Voices Women Vote
Women's Voices Women Vote
The Voter Participation Center is a non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States dedicated to increasing voter registration, voting and civic activity among unmarried women, people of color and 18-29 year olds. The organization is based in Washington, D.C. and was formerly named...
." Voters and watchdog groups complained that it was a turnout-suppression effort, and the state Attorney General Roy Cooper
Roy A. Cooper
Roy Asberry Cooper, III is the current North Carolina Attorney General. He is a member of the North Carolina Democratic Party.-Personal life and education:...
ordered them to stop making the calls. The group stopped the calls and no further legal action was taken.
Proposed additional regulations
California Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) introduced the Federal Robocall Privacy Act in February 2008 at Senate Committee on Rules and Administration hearing. The Act proposed to: 1) Limit robo calls to no more than 2 a day by any one candidate, 2) mandate that candidates have accurate caller ID numbers displayed, 3) mandate that the disclosure of who is paying for the call occur at the start of the call, rather than at the end of the call, 4) mandate that the time of the call occur not before 8 AM or after 9 PM. The bill was read twice, and since it received no further action during the session, it did not become law. It was introduced again on May 19, 2009 as S.1077.Shaun Dakin, CEO of Citizens for Civil Discourse
Citizens for Civil Discourse
Citizens for Civil Discourse, also known as CCD, is an American non-profit, non-partisan organization that accepts Robocall block requests from citizens via their website...
, testified at the hearing and described how robo calls impact the lives of voters across the nation. He also wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post calling for a Voter Privacy Bill of Rights in which all voters would have the right to opt-out of political robocalls if they did not wish to receive them.
Dakin, a former John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
campaign worker, set up a website called Stoppoliticalcalls.org and claimed to allow citizens to opt-out of receiving robocalls. However, there is no guarantee that the registry will stop the calls and since there is no law that supports the database it is essentially an Internet petition
Internet petition
An Internet petition is a form of petition posted on a website. Visitors to the website in question can add their email addresses or names, and after enough "signatures" have been collected, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail.-Pros and cons:The...
. As mentioned above, the Robocall Privacy Act failed to become law and neither bill had provisions for a 'do not call registry' for stopping robocalls.
Despite heavy media publicity of the database, only seven politicians in the United States voluntarily pledged to respect the list during the 2008 general election cycle. Of those seven, only three made it to the general election and only Virginia Foxx
Virginia Foxx
Virginia Foxx is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. She is a member of the Republican Party. The district takes in much of the northwestern portion of the state and a portion of Winston-Salem....
(R) was successfully reelected in November 2008.
On September 1, 2009, a new regulation of the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
went into effect, banning most robocalls without written opt-in from the receiver. Political campaigns, surveys, charities, debt collectors, and health care providers are exempt, as are calls to businesses. Calls from banks, insurers, and phone companies are out of the jurisdiction of the FTC. In situations under federal jurisdiction, the federal law will supersede a slightly less restrictive law in the state of California.
2009 Federal Trade Commission action against an illegal robocall provider
In May 2009, in response to numerous complaints, the Federal Trade CommissionFederal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
asked a federal court to shut down a telemarketing campaign that has been bombarding U.S. consumers with hundreds of millions of allegedly deceptive robocalls in an effort to sell them vehicle service contracts under the guise that they are extensions of original vehicle warranties
Warranty
In business and legal transactions, a warranty is an assurance by one party to the other party that specific facts or conditions are true or will happen; the other party is permitted to rely on that assurance and seek some type of remedy if it is not true or followed.In real estate transactions, a...
. The FTC took action against both the promoter of the phony extended auto warranties, as well as the telemarketing company that it hired to carry out its illegal, deceptive campaign. The FTC contends that the companies are operating a massive telemarketing scheme that uses random, pre-recorded phone calls to deceive consumers into thinking that their vehicle’s warranty is about to expire. Consumers who respond to the robocalls are pressured to purchase extended service contracts for their vehicles, which the telemarketers falsely portray as an extension of the manufacturer’s original warranty. According to papers the FTC filed with the court, however, the robocalls have prompted tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the United States National Do Not Call Registry
United States National Do Not Call Registry
The National Do Not Call Registry is intended to give U.S. consumers an opportunity to limit the telemarketing calls they receive. To register by telephone , consumers may call 1-888-382-1222. The registry was set to begin in 2003, but a court challenge delayed its implementation until 2004. The...
or asked not to be called. Five telephone numbers associated with the defendants have generated a total of 30,000 Do Not Call complaints. Consumers received the robocalls at home, work, and on their cell phones, sometimes several times in one day. Businesses, government offices and even 911 dispatchers have been subjected to the calls.
Those who answer the pre-recorded calls hear a message telling them that their vehicle warranty is about to expire and that they should “extend coverage before it is too late.” They are told to “press one” to speak to a “warranty specialist.” The “specialists” then mislead consumers into believing that their company is affiliated with the dealer or manufacturer of the consumer’s vehicle. They try to sell consumers a service contract for between $2,000 and $3,000, which they falsely portray as an extension of the vehicle’s original warranty. The seller of extended auto warranties sued by the FTC allegedly took in more than $10 million on the sale of these deceptively marketed service contracts. In their robocalls, the companies dialed every phone number within a particular area code and prefix sequentially, without knowing whether the consumers called were motorists or owned motor vehicles, or whether those consumers’ numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry. Consumers who asked that the calls be stopped often were met with “abusive behavior” or were simply hung up on, according to the papers filed with the court. Some of the defendants used offshore shell corporations to try to avoid scrutiny, and a top officer in the telemarketing company bragged to prospective clients that he could operate outside the law without any chance of being caught by the FTC, the papers stated. This defendant also claimed that he makes 1.8 million dials per day and that he had done more than $40 million worth of dialing for extended warranty companies, including one billion dials on behalf of his largest client, according to the court papers filed by the FTC. In addition to the robocalls, the FTC charged that the company selling the warranties mails out deceptive postcards to consumers, warning them about the imminent expiration of their auto warranties. The postcards are designed to mislead consumers into believing that they are being contacted by their dealer or manufacturer, and the postcards offer consumers the chance to “renew” their original warranties. On May 15, 2009 U.S. District Judge John F. Grady
John Francis Grady
John Francis Grady is a United States federal judge.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Grady attended Lake Forest Academy, a nationally known private school for boys, and graduated in 1948. He subsequently received a B.S. from Northwestern University in 1952 and a J.D. from Northwestern University School...
issued the temporary restraining order against the defendants Transcontinental Warranty Inc. and Voice Touch Inc. Grady's orders also applied to Transcontinental CEO and President Christopher Cowart, Voice Touch executives James and Maureen Dunne, Voice Touch business partner Network Foundations LLC and Network Foundations executive Damian Kohlfeld. Besides ordering a halt to the automatic telephone sales calls, Grady's order froze the assets of the two companies. The FTC alleged in its complaints that the calls were part of a deceptive scheme and asked the court to assure the assets will not be lost in case they might be needed to repay consumers who have been victimized. The FTC isn't immediately seeking civil fines against the companies but may do so later, agency officials said. Attorneys general in Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri have taken similar actions over calls offering extended warranties on automobiles.