In 1991, Congress amended the Communications Act of 1934 with the creation of 47 U.S.C. § 227, a.k.a. Telephone Consumer Protection Act or “TCPA”. The TCPA, among other things, contained a provision that allowed the FCC to “require the establishment and operation of a single national database to compile a list of telephone numbers of residential subscribers who object to receiving telephone solicitations.” Initially, the FCC declined to exercise this option, and instead, in 1992, established a requirement for sellers to maintain their own internal DNC list. While the thought here was that consumers could easily opt out of specific sellers they did not want to hear from, consumers continued to complain that they were being called far too often. The individual states began taking matters into their own hands, creating state-level DNC lists (much like we see today with privacy law). According to the National Association of Attorneys General, “By the end of 2002, 27 states had established some form of a Do Not Call list.” A year later, Congress passed the Do Not Call Implementation Act which empowered the FTC to create and enforce the usage of a national DNC registry.
Under present regulations, most consumers can opt out of ALL unsolicited marketing calls with a single registration on the Federal DNC Registry. 16 CFR § 310, a.k.a. the Telemarketing Sales Rule or “TSR”, prohibits virtually all Sellers from calling anyone registered on that list. Since a “Seller” is defined in the TSR as practically any caller offering a good or service, virtually every business that reaches out to a potential consumer is required to follow this requirement. And, as we all know – nothing in this world is free, and this includes a business’s ability to check against this list.
While Congress allowed the FTC to charge an access fee, this allowance was based on a cost recovery model. The FTC determines the cost of hosting the list (website access, storage, staffing, etc.) as well as potential enforcement needs. This cost is then divided by the theoretical number of subscribers, and a cost is presented to businesses that represents the result. While this is perhaps the fairest cost recovery model that could be created, fewer Sellers in the industry means higher costs for those who remain. The cost structure is seemingly straightforward; a business purchases access to each area code to which they wish to call. While this made a ton of sense in the early 2000’s, that may not be as practical today. Keeping in mind the registry and its scrubbing was designed purely with the consumer phone in mind, in 2003, how many people did you know that had a personal phone number that was NOT local to where they lived? Of the handful you MIGHT be able to think of, how many had such a drastically different number that the area code was also different? That said, it was relatively easy for Bob’s Bait Shack of Northwest Indiana to know that they really only needed access to the 219, 708, and maybe 773 area codes. Today, consumers commonly move from one town to another and keep the phone number they have had since 2007. It is not uncommon for people, such as the author of this blog, to have an area code in the Chicagoland area while living just outside of Phoenix. A modern business typically needs access to a wide range of area codes, most often nationally.
To receive access, a user must register with the FTC for a Subscription Account Number or “SAN”. As of the date this blog was written, the pricing structure for a SAN is as follows:
- Up to five (5) area codes are free
- $78 per additional area code (per year)
- $21,402 for access to all area codes (per year)
This cost is per unique Seller, which is very important because many outsourced telemarketing companies – commonly known as Business Process Outsourcers or “BPO” – require a SAN for each individual Seller on whose behalf they are conducting business. Fortunately, the BPO does not - and cannot – carry that cost; Sellers MUST purchase access on their own behalf. Additionally, Sellers are strictly prohibited from sharing or reselling access.
As a business that was created specifically because of the creation of the Do Not Call list, Contact Center Compliance (often better known as DNC.com), considers themselves experts in the regulations. While we do not provide legal advice, we are happy to present our understanding of federal regulations, and perhaps more importantly, we do everything we can to require that every customer follow these regulations in the same fashion. While a company who purchases a SAN can scrub the National DNC on their own, the complexity of integrations is often quite cumbersome. What’s more, there are at least 11 state specific lists ( Mississippi’s DNC list may or may not be still required to scrub), so managing the various API/download/etc. can require an extraordinary development effort. Companies such as DNC.com simplify that task, integrating with dozens of dialers, CRMs, and proprietary systems to virtually automate this aspect of compliance. That, combined with numerous additional compliance and list hygiene solutions make them one of the leading providers of scrubbing services. I personally was a customer at every BPO for which I worked, and an integration partner at every dialer organization. We aren’t the only ones in the space, but we’re okay with that; it’s our job to do it better than our competitors. As we near our 140th billion (yes, that’s “billion” with a “b”), I’d say we’re doing a pretty good job of it.