By Peter Feltman, CCH Washington Staff Writer

Does this sound familiar? You're working with a customer or client, and another is waiting, when a third comes in needing some help. You're understaffed (which is not all that unusual), but especially in this situation. Then the phone rings.

You have to answer it. An opportunity can't be missed, because that customer may not call back and business could be lost.

So you put everyone and everything on hold, pick up the ringing phone, and greet the caller in your business-friendly speaking voice. But on the other end of the line is not someone who could help build your business, but someone looking to generate business for someone else: a telemarketer.

Trying to maintain your composure, because you have an audience, you calmly end the call, then thinking to yourself, "Now where were we?"

This scene repeats itself everyday, over and over, at work or dinner or just during your favorite TV show. And while it's annoying enough during private time, it's even worse when you lose valuable business time and, therefore, money.

To that end, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing a rulemaking proposal to set up a national "Do Not Call" database of individuals who do not wish to be contacted by telemarketers, the FTC announced on January 22, 2002.

The proposal, which the FTC will publish as an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, seeks comments on how the FTC should modify the Telemarketing Sales Rule to give consumers a chance to call a toll-free number at the FTC and enter their number into a registry of those people who do not wish to be contacted by telemarketers. The FTC plans to require telemarketers to update their list with the FTC's list monthly.

The penalty for telemarketers not following these rules potentially could be severe. There is an $11,000 fine for violating an FTC rule, and the agency could interpret each phone call as a separate violation, FTC officials said.

The FTC's proposal also will likely prohibit telemarketers from using technology to defeat caller identification devices.

While this advanced notice is the first step in a longer process, the FTC's Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Howard Beales hopes the registry is up and running by early next year.

The FTC notes that their rule has a number of exemptions, due to limits on the agency's authority:

• The FTC's reach does not extend to intrastate calls, so telemarketers would not have to adhere to the FTC's database when making calls within states.
• The FTC also does not have authority over charities, although they do have authority over for-profit companies that do fundraising for charities.
• Banks are not subject to FTC jurisdiction, according to Beales, although most bank subsidiaries are, and Beales notes that the Federal Communications Commission is considering a similar telemarketing rule, and banks are covered by FCC regulation of phone usage.

About 20 states have similar no-call registries of their own, Beales said, and he added that the FTC's advance notice will take no position on whether the FTC should preempt any state laws, but will elicit comments on the issue. He said that the participation varies greatly state by state, so the FTC does not anticipate the numbers of consumers who might take advantage of the FTC's database.

The Direct Marketing Association blasted the FTC's proposal: "The government may be overstepping its boundaries by spending taxpayer dollars to limit communications--that is protected by the First Amendment--to American consumers who benefit from and shop via telephone solicitations," stated the DMA's President and CEO H. Robert Wientzen.

The DMA notes that it has its own no-call list, which all DMA members must adhere to. The FTC's Beales admitted that he is aware of the DMA list, but has not entered his own number into it. The DMA's database has 4.1 million members, according to DMA, and has been in existence since 1975.

Registration for the current DMA no-call list can be found on the Internet at http://www.the-dma.org/index.php. You can file by e-mail for a fee, or by regular mail for free.

So you may want to sign up for the industry-sponsored list now, and then keep your eyes open for the government-sponsored list down the road.

Moreover, the telephone/telecommunications industry, always on the look out for burgeoning marketplaces, has an array of products and services designed to reduce these interruptions. (How nice of them to play both ends of the market--selling lists to telemarketers, selling anti-telemarketing products to consumers, and charging for the connection in between).

Caller ID and Privacy Manager force incoming callers to identify themselves to you before you pick up the phone or before a call is connected. Also, products like TeleZapper automatically erase your number from automated callers, the latest scourge of the telemarketing industry (nowadays, telemarketers don't even have the courtesy to personally make a call, letting a computer do it instead, so you end up waiting on the line for them to pick up).

Well, got to go--my telephone is ringing. . .