GNYADA 2019 Membership Directory & Services Guide

The ads came to the FTC’s attention as a result of FTC staffers searching the Internet and finding the ads on sites such as YouTube. Any dealership that plans to launch a social media presence, or whose employees have access to and use such sites, should adopt a Social Media Policy. The Policy should place reasonable limits on employees’use of social media in a way that can be tied to the dealership.

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IMPORTANT LAWS AND REGULATIONS Laws Regulating Telemarketing, Email, and Faxing Federal and state laws govern contacting consumers by telephone, fax, or email.

Telemarketing. At the federal level, telemarketing is regulated by two agencies and two sets of standards. This regulatory regime is especially complicated because in some cases, the two standards are similar, in other cases, the two standards cover the same subject with different requirements and prohibitions, and in still other cases, one standard may address an issue on which the other is silent. This structure requires careful planning to implement a telemarketing campaign that applies with all applicable standards. The Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (Telemarketing Act) directed the FTC to issue a rule prohibiting deceptive and abusive telemarketing conduct. The FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) addresses this by, among other things, requiring disclosures, prohibiting misrepresentations, regulating how consumers consent to telemarketing transactions, establishing consumer rights to stop telemarketing calls, requiring transmission of caller ID information, prohibiting certain payment mechanisms, and restricting the use of certain technology in telemarketing. The FTC maintains the national “Do-Not-Call” list prohibiting telemarketing calls to the listed numbers, which include both landlines and cell numbers, subject to exceptions for calls based on a business relationship or express permission. (The FCC also enforces compliance with the national list.) Because several states maintain their own “do-not-call” lists independent of the national list, dealers must scrub telemarketing lists against both the FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry and applicable state do-not-call lists. Additionally, dealers are required to keep their own internal company-specific list of customers who indicate that they do not want to be contacted by telephone and their contact informationmust be deleted frommarketing lists as well. If you share customer information with affiliates or third parties, make sure to scrub from the shared lists any customers who have opted out of being contacted in any medium of expression. The TSR expressly prohibits callers from interfering with consumers’ efforts to exercise their company-specific do-not-call rights and lists specific proscribed activities, including hanging up on the consumer and requiring the consumer to listen to a sales pitch before processing the do-not-call request. Beyond do-not-call provisions, the TSR, among other things, requires a certain “prompt” disclosure at the outset of each sales call or sales pitch and certain other disclosures of important information before the consumer agrees to purchase any goods or services in a telemarketing transaction. The prompt disclosures include the seller’s identity and the call’s sales purpose. Among the required material disclosures are the total cost of the products or services; any restrictions, limitations, or conditions to purchase; full details of any “negative option” features whereby the consumer’s failure to act accepts the offer; and any sweepstakes information. These disclosures must be “clear and conspicuous” in a way that a consumer will notice and understand. The TSR separately prohibits any misrepresentations regarding this information.

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