This is a letter that we are sending to the members of the Florida Legislature in the hopes of having them close the loopholes in the Florida Telemarketers Act. You are invited to copy this letter and send it to your Florida legislator.
I applaud the efforts of the Florida Legislature to enact laws that protect the citizens of Florida from the onslaught of illegal marketing calls. Many Floridians get a dozen or more of those calls each day. The Florida Telemarketing Act, F.S. 501.501-626 is intended to prevent those calls. Not only does the Florida Telemarketing Act not prevent the unwanted intrusions by offshore telemarketers, in authorizes and encourages them!
There are two reasons for the almost total ineffectiveness of the act. First, most of the offenders are exempted from the act. Section 604 of the act lists 28 paragraphs of exemptions from the provisions of the act. Among those exempt are the industries that cause the huge volume of unwanted calls. Senior citizens in particular are deluged with calls to push final expense plans and medicare supplement plans, both are insurance related. Insurance agents and brokers are specifically exempted from the protections afforded by the Florida Telemarketing Act. Exempted industries are free to call citizens who have specifically expressed their desire not to be called by placing their names on the Federal and State Do Not Call list. The Florida Telemarketing Act authorizes telemarketers to ignore that list.
The second reason that the Act lacks true protection for consumers is the ease in which it is circumvented. The method commonly used is for a merchant, such as an insurance agent, to hire a marketing firm to solicit business for the merchant. The marketing firm causes millions of automatic calls to be made from an offshore phone bank, usually in India, Pakistan or the Philippines. Those calls are made with total disregard of the Florida Telemarketing Act or the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. When the automatic call is answered, a telemarketer will make a pitch for his product and if the person called agrees, will forward the call to the merchant, often a licensed insurance agent, in Florida. The insurance agent will claim that he or she had no knowledge that the calls were made illegally. The person called will have the legal burden of establishing a common law agency relationship between the call center in India, and the insurance agent. The insurance agent will point to a contract with he offshore marketing company wherein the marketing company, with a wink and a nod, promised that none of the calls will be made in violation of the law.
The Florida legislature has the power to end illegal and unwanted calls from telemarketers. The enforcement provisions, particularly attorney’s fees and punitive damage provisions are powerful tools that are not included in the federal system. There is no reason for exemptions listed in the act.
I urge you to remove the exemptions and make merchants liable for the conduct of the telemarketers they hire.
