Telemarketing Calls to New York State during state of emergency

Hi Michele,

I've reached out to our supplier on this as well. I'll share what I find out.

Curious, if as a non profit, we are excluded from this?

Hi there,

Here is a resource to assist with understanding our role in the current state of affairs.

www.ftc.gov/.../complying-telemarketing-sales-rule

https://www.dnc.com/

www.governor.ny.gov/.../governor-cuomo-signs-legislation-prohibiting-telemarketers-knowingly-making-unsolicited-sales

There are 12 states that are currently in a state of emergency:

NY, CA, WA, FL, OR, UT, MD, KY, NJ, NC, CO, MA

We are non-for-profits and I want to confirm if this applies to calling existing customers. I am reaching out to legal and will be happy to share.

Susan 

Please do! Thanks so much.

Hi Susan - This would be great if you could provide more info. The last link that you posted is one that I read today regarding the prohibition during a state of emergency.

We're concerned about unknowingly contacting a patron that we aren't allowed to contact. If NY has this prohibition in place during a state of emergency - are there other states with the same law in place? We do business with patrons in most of those states you've listed so need to know what the rules are.

Thank you so much for helping out!

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay. You have been on my mind all day! 

New York & Louisiana are the only 2 states that have this legislation. LA as of this moment (I have to check again) has not invoked a SOE so that is a safe state. You have to determine who are you calling, are you calling consumers or businesses? We are calling our customers. 

It was explained that if you are trying to sell them something, then you are likely in violation of the legislation – but if you are chatting with them about tickets or an event, or their information (finding out updated credit card information for instance), it could be fine since you aren’t trying to sell them something.

The question about whether we are all exempt from this law is an inquiry of how closely you want to read the legislation and its intention. It seems safest and most sound to determine that not-for-profits are not exempt from the law. The law prohibits unsolicited telemarketing sales calls and there is a chance that all of us fall into a conservative interpretation of telemarketer.

I defined the different reasons for our calls and am awaiting another response. We suspended calls today for a few days and will resume on Monday. It seems that too much information is being absorbed and people may not be in the mindset for a call. We will test calling starting on Monday. We all have to find the delicate balance that must be done during these times. There are people who are also working on an "all is normal" basis and we cannot forget that. 

Now this is not meant to be legal advice in anyway. It is just a bit of a guideline regarding this particular legislation. I am awaiting another update and will share.

Susan