Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Firms not sweating over list

Local companies say do-not-call laws shouldn't hurt them

Even as federal judges, regulators and lawmakers continue wrangling over whether or not a federal do-not-call list is legal, many local companies agree complying with the on-again, off-again law should cause few layoffs or problems in the Las Vegas Valley.

Local and national officials expect most consumers will see a slowdown in the number of calls they receive from telemarketers beginning today, the list's anticipated start-up date, even though its legal standing is cloudy.

Local business executives expect no significant loss in employment in the valley because of the law, which would require most telemarketers to stop calling people who have registered their phone numbers on the federal list. Some local companies, in fact, said they already have stopped making unsolicited sales calls despite the legal confusion.

"We're going to go ahead as if it was in effect," said Gayle Brown Fox, president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors.

"Whether or not the new law goes into effect Oct. 1, we will honor the do-not-call list," said Edwin Parker, circulation director for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun. He said the newspaper circulation department has been using its own do-not-call list for several years.

"As a company, we will not call people who do not wish to be called," he said.

Parker obtained the federal listing of 404,000 telephone lines and mobile phones in the Las Vegas area that have been registered with the federal do-not-call list. That total includes 170,000 residential lines. Sprint counts 620,000 residential lines and 280,000 business lines, not counting mobile phones, in the Las Vegas area.

Brown Fox said her firm, Keller Williams Realty The Marketplace, has been unable to obtain a list of do-not-call numbers from the Federal Trade Commission since a federal court ruling forced the agency to not penalize telemarketers who ignore the list and to stop adding names to the registry.

Confusion over the law first arose last week. Since then, the bewildering battle between the government and telemarketers has involved two federal judges, an appeals court, both houses of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and two federal agencies.

After a federal judge blocked the FTC from enforcing the registry, the Federal Communications Commission stepped in to enforce the list, promising to penalize telemarketers who call any numbers on the registry. Telemarketers who call listed numbers could face FCC fines of up to $120,000. The FCC was blocked from operating and enforcing the list last week by a second federal judge who said the list violates the free speech rights of some telemarketers because the law allowed politicians and charities to continue calling people on the list.

Nevada's own do-not-call law is stricter than the federal government's, according to Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee.

Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, however, wanted an even tougher law without exemptions for political campaigns and charitable organizations.

"I don't want anybody calling me, period," he said. Telephone intrusions into the "sanctity of a man's home to me is just un-American," he said. "I wanted it all stopped. My colleagues were a little more conciliatory."

Added Townsend: "Everybody loves the idea of do not call as long as it doesn't involve (his business). Banks, utilities, insurance agencies, all of the multilevel marketing people, they all think do not call is great as long as they're not included."

Many businesses say they do not use telemarketing or stopped making unsolicited cold calls to prospective customers years ago.

Catherine Levy, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, said most of its 7,000 members are small businesses and don't have the financial resources to do telemarketing. "It is not the kind of marketing they would engage in anyway," she said.

John Futrell, president of Futrell Financial Management, remembers cold-calling as a thing of the past in the stock brokerage business. "Back when I started in the business 16 years ago, cold calling was the fastest way to grow your business," Futrell said.

"Times have changed since then. Cold calling doesn't produce the same results as it did in those days," he said.

"It's being replaced by other more personal types of marketing," Futrell said. "Seminars are very popular, networking, getting out in front of the people to be making friends is becoming more effective than smiling and dialing."

The do-not-call laws would affect the 14,000 licensed real estate salesmen and real estate brokers in Clark County.

"I don't think it's going to be a major problem (for real estate salesmen), but I just think it's changing the way we do business," said Gayle Brown Fox of the Realtors association.

"It's going to be a greater impact on those who are just beginning in the real estate business, because they call frequently on a referral basis," she said.

In the future, real estate people who wish to contact a referral may send them an e-mail or letter, rather than telephoning them, she said.

"We've never really viewed the real estate industry as part of the problem," she said. Unlike pure telemarketing operations, real estate salesmen rarely just call people randomly, seeking new customers, she said. They may call people in a given neighborhood "to see if they're buying or want to sell a house," she explained.

The real estate organization recommends that its members keep a list of people they have done business with over the last 18 months, which the proposed federal law would allow them to continue calling.

For new customers, "you have to keep a list of the people you're calling and make sure you have their permission in writing," she said.

For the most part, few layoffs are expected locally if and when a do-not-call list goes into effect since most of the call centers in Las Vegas appear to be in-bound centers, such as credit card operations where customers call to dispute a charge or request information.

Citibank operates a call center locally but does not employ telemarketers in the Las Vegas area, a spokeswoman said.

In the past, Las Vegas had a reputation of being a hub for telemarketers, but then Gov. Richard Bryan cracked down on questionable telemarketing firms in the 1980s, and former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa continued the efforts, said Tim Hay, state consumer advocate and a former top aide to Bryan.

"Many of these (telemarketing) centers have been moving to foreign countries," he said.

Spokesmen for Harrah's Entertainment and Boyd Gaming said they don't make cold calls to potential customers and will be unaffected by the new telemarketing prohibitions.

"Wells Fargo has never done something called cold calls," said Kirk Clausen, regional president of the state's largest commercial bank. The bank only calls its existing customers, Clausen said.

Nevada State Bank doesn't make "cold calls" to people who aren't customers and refrains from calling bank customers who request not to be phoned, said Allyson Chase, a spokeswoman.

Trendwest Resorts of Redmond, Wash., operates two WorldMark time share hotels in Las Vegas among 60 resorts worldwide. But it has not laid off any employees as a result of the do-not-call laws, said Sonia Tolbert, a spokeswoman. It employs about 35 workers in telephone sales jobs and contracts with independent operators who employ another 20 in Las Vegas, she said.

"We have been actively working to diversify sales and marketing channels," such as e-mail, she said. For example, Trendwest may provide sweepstakes entry forms at a local fair where people provide written permission to be contacted about time-shares, she said.

For now, federal officials are directing consumers who registered phone numbers on the list to send complaints to the Federal Communications Commission by visiting www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html or calling 1-888-225-5322.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.