Outbound Robo-Calling Laws, what you can, and can NOT do!

One of the useful things you can do with this website is robo-call people. All you have to do is put one or more phone numbers into your calendar or contact list (or import a file) and adjust a few settings. Then, all of those people get called immediately, or on a scheduled plan, and there are several ways you can have the website interact with them over the phone automatically.

A simplest example is to call everyone on your team and announce that the practice time has changed. A more complex example is to call your patients 24 hours before their scheduled appointment to remind them, and on that call they can automatically cancel or reschedule their appointment.

Obviously you can't robo-call just anyone for any reason. Telemarketing is expensive so you would think that, like spam emails, the industry would use more automated robots to do their telemarketing but they don't for a reason: It's illegal! Well, mostly.

There are laws governing who you can robo-call and what you can say in that call. There are plenty of details but you can boil most of them down to just a few simple rules of thumb. There will be more details posted in a dedicated user forum but for now just consider these few caveats:

1) If you have an existing personal or business relationship with the party you are calling, then anything goes (within the bounds of decency, of course!). For instance, if I am a baker and you buy my cookies, I can call you whenever I want and there isn't are not any restrictions (within the bounds of decency) on what I can say to you over the phone.

The idea behind this rule of thumb is that you are already my customer, we have a relationship, and I'm not going to do anything dumb to drive you away. I'm not going to call you at 4 AM and try to get you to order girl scout cookies.

2) If you do NOT have an existing personal or business relationship with the party you are calling, you must be VERY careful what you say and do. You can not sell anything. You can't ask them to buy something. You cannot advertise a product for sale. You can't even hint that a product exists that they might buy resulting in profit for you.

You can't even bend this. Do you think the telemarketing industry would have found a way if it was even remotely possible to bend this rule?

You might be wondering about that. You may have been called by a robot telling you about a special offer on a cruise or travel package, or an extended warranty for you car. What about that? How can they get away with that, if the law is so strict? Answer: They don't. Those people are in jail.

Seriously, it's no joking matter. You can't cold-call people with an automated system (like this one) and try to sell them anything. It's a criminal act and there is potential jail time and tens of thousands of dollars (per incident!) in fines.

3. There is a national do-not-call list. You may have heard of it. The national do-not-call list is for telemarketers. It costs thousands of dollars and you are not allowed to copy it. You have to renew it at least four times a year. If you call anyone on this list you are fined $11,000 (each time). Don't worry about it. It's not for you. As I described in rule #2, your do-not-call list is easier to get and remember. It's one word: "Everybody". In other words, you can't call anyone regarding product or service you have to offer, unless they are already your customer as described in rule #1.

4. On the other hand, if you are not selling anything, then knock yourself out. Call whoever you want. Just don't do anything that is obviously illegal like trying to overthrow the government. If you want to remind people of the upcoming Velociraptor Awareness Day, go ahead and dial the whole phone book.

5. Regarding the scary parts of rules 2 and 3, everyone knows that accidents happen. If you sell make up, and you send out a call announcing your new lipstick, and a couple of those phone numbers were fat-fingered or turned around, and they just happened to match numbers on the do-not-call list, and being the victim-centric goofballs that half of those people are, they call the cops on you, the E.D. 209 robot from RoboCop is not going to show up at your door giving you 20 seconds to "comply". I've done it, my friends have done it, we've all made mistakes with the whole do-not-call issue. Obvious, deliberate, and repeated violations are targeted by the authorities. Getting in trouble for accidentally dialing someone on the list would be like getting a reckless driving ticket for going 1 mile an hour over the speed limit for half of a second. And again, the do-not-call list isn't going to apply to you because it is for cold-calling telemarketers selling a product to strangers. You can't "cold call" and try to sell anything to ANYONE with this website. If you do, you are breaking the law.

6. IF you ignore the last sentence of #5, you will be found because using this site to break the law leaves a huge footprint and a detailed trail.

7. Don't be evil.