Avoid the FTC Blacklist with Proper Caller ID Management
On August 1, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it would start using consumer complaints to ramp up efforts against illegal robocalls, citing over 1.9 million complaints filed in just the first five months of 2017.
Quality Voice & Data (QVD) offers Local Caller ID numbers and Caller ID management solutions to telemarketers, debt collectors, market researchers, and virtually every type of business placing outbound calls at scale. To stay compliant, QVD works closely with MacMurray & Shuster to track developments from the FTC, FCC, and state regulatory and legislative bodies that could affect Caller ID customers.
Why this matters to telemarketers
According to MacMurray & Shuster, when consumers report a phone number tied to alleged Do Not Call or robocall violations, that number gets released daily to telecommunications carriers and industry affiliates — without a clear process to verify the complaints before release.
What you can actually do about it
One of the biggest drivers of complaints is how often you call a consumer and how much time passes between calls. Dialers set to attempt a number 10, 15, or 20 times over a short window are far more likely to generate complaints, especially with robocalls (most of which are illegal outright). We recommend capping max attempts at no more than 10 within a 30-day window, spaced out as much as possible.
Placing hundreds of thousands of calls on the same Caller ID number is another common driver — consumers can easily look up who owns a number online, and if others have already complained, a fresh complaint is more likely. Savvy outbound teams manage this by rotating many Caller ID numbers across a campaign, reducing the exposure of any single number.
Illegal robocalls hurt legitimate telemarketing organizations because consumers hate them and complain in volume, and the FTC and FCC have a hard time separating illegal robocall activity from legitimate telemarketing calls in response. Use every tool available to check whether your Caller ID numbers are being seen as spam or flagged as blacklisted.
