Will telephone cold calling become illegal in the USA?

The Do Not Call laws made some telephone cold calling illegal. Do you think in the future all telephone cold calling will become illegal?

Can you imagine the enforcement costs if that became law?

There have been efforts in Congress to outlaw all cold calling--some European countries have already instituted such laws.

I suspect it will happen--at least outlawing any residential cold call. The possibility of outlawing business calls is there also, but the likelihood is much less for those calls.

Legislators are getting hammered by both sides--consumers who want it to stop and don't think the burden should be on them to join a no call list every time they change numbers or add one, and companies desperate to keep it going.

Although I suspect the laws will happen, they probably won't happen until many years down the road.

From an enforcement standpoint, it would be easier than it is today. Currently, we have do not call lists and litigation gets hung up around that issue. With a flat no call law, you either called and broke the law or you didn't. Much easier enforcement.

Originally Posted by pmccord There have been efforts in Congress to outlaw all cold calling--some European countries have already instituted such laws.

Which countries Paul and do you know if there were any unseen ramifications?

Originally Posted by Calvin Which countries Paul and do you know if there were any unseen ramifications?

I have two international direct marketing clients who both market in Europe and they are having to totally redesign their marketing campaigns.

The most restrictive country right now is Denmark. They are not allowed to cold call unless they have a letter on file from the consumer explicitly allowing the company to call them. That means no phone contact period prior to getting the letter. This is also affecting the referrals they get because they cannot call the referred prospect unless they have the letter on file--meaning the customer who made the referral must get the letter signed by the prospect and give it to the company before the company can contact the prospect.

Other countries have very restrictive cold calling hours making it very difficult to contact consumers--Germany, Belgium, and Holland in particular--and these countries have strong movements to move to the Denmark model.

In addition, many parts of England, Ireland and Scotland have outlawed door-to-door solicitation in any form and are also seriously considering the Denmark cold calling model.

Neither of these companies expect any of these countries will be adopting the Denmark model in the next few years, but the sentiment is growing to adopt it.

Will this eventually creep into the US? We follow the European lead in many areas of business and social interaction and many legislators are getting an earful from people thinking it shouldn't be their responsibility to actively seek to get on a No Call List but instead should be the company's responsibility to actively get the consumer's permission prior to calling--just as in Denmark.

The two companies I work with work around this as best they can by significantly increasing direct mail and by setting up Kiosks in Malls to get the permission letters signed. Needless to say, this increases their marketing expenses significantly.

As I said before, I don't expect this to happen here any time in the near future, but it can be expected to eventually happen here in some form.