Six State Attorneys General Oppose Banking Industry TCPA Petitions

seeking TCPA exemptions from the FCC that would allow automated calls to alert consumers to fraudulent activity on their accounts and would limit liability for automated calls directed at cellphones unless the company intended to call a consumer who hadn’t given prior consent. The attorneys general, led by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, and Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, a Republican, told the FCC in a letter posted Friday that they’re concerned the proposed exemptions could make prosecuting violations of the law more difficult because proving intent creates a new hurdle in proving liability. A state attorney general is empowered under TCPA to enforce violations against a state’s consumers, they said. The other attorneys general were Illinois Democrat Lisa Madigan, New York Democrat Eric Schneiderman, Tennessee Republican Herbert Slatery and Utah Republican Sean Reyes. “We are concerned with the slippery-slope that will inevitably occur if one trade association is permitted to start chipping away at the TCPA's protections,” the attorneys general said. CBA’s proposal to limit liability for automated calls to cellphones is a “much more serious attack on consumers’ rights” that would expand the definition of a called party to include any “intended recipient of the call,” the attorneys general said. That “opens the door to abuse by debt collectors and other callers,” the attorneys general said. The proposed change also would allow telemarketers to attempt to avoid prosecution by “claiming that the calls were to the wrong numbers,” the attorneys general said. The proposed changes to TCPA are “not acceptable to Missouri,” Koster said Monday in a news release. “Raising the threshold to prove intent makes it even harder for states to protect their consumers from unwanted telemarketing.”