Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: FTC extends comment period on proposed amendments to telemarketing sales rule, (Jul 12, 2013)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

The FTC announced today that it has extended the deadline through August 8 for public comments regarding proposed amendments to the Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). The proposed changes would ban certain payment methods favored in fraudulent telemarketing transactions. The comment period had been set to close July 29.

The amendments had not been published in the Federal Register until July 9. According to the FTC, the Federal Register notice is a slightly modified version of the original notice of proposed rulemaking released by the agency on May 21. It contains “non-substantive changes that remove quoted excerpts of current and proposed TSR provisions, which were included in the original version of the notice to provide readers with a better understanding of the proposed changes.” The August 8 deadline now provides a 30-day comment period.

The proposed amendments would restrict telemarketers’ use of certain payment methods that the FTC regards as particularly prevalent in fraudulent transactions and would increase the scope of the TSR’s ban on advance fee recovery services for telemarketing fraud to cover recovery services for losses suffered in any prior transaction. In addition, the amendments clarify other TSR provisions, according to the agency.

The proposed amendments would prohibit telemarketers from accepting remotely created checks, remotely created payment orders, cash-to-cash money transfers, and cash reload mechanisms as payment in in-bound or out-bound telemarketing transactions. Another proposed amendment to the TSR would expand the current ban on providing recovery services for losses sustained in fraudulent telemarketing transactions in exchange for an advance fee to cover losses sustained in any transaction. The TSR currently bars requesting or receiving payment for telemarketing recovery services “until seven (7) business days after such money or other item is delivered to that person.”

Interested parties may file a comment online here. Comments may also be delivered to the following address: Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Secretary, Room H-113 (Annex B), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580.

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