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CNN Live Today

Interview with Sam Simon, Jerry Cerasale

Aired July 11, 2002 - 13:42   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Most of us get annoying calls from sales people. Usually, at the most inconvenient times. You can relate to this, right? Well telemarketers are calling cell phones now. Those calls can come even at worse times. For example, in Hong Kong, a doctor performing surgery got a call on his cell phone from a car salesman. There are efforts to fight this, though.

Joining me from New York is Jerry Cerasale of the Direct Marketing Association, and from Washington, Sam Simon of the Telecommunications Research and Action Center -- gentlemen, hello.

JERRY CERASALE, DIRECT MARKETING ASSOCIATION: Hello.

SAM SIMON, TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH AND ACTION CENTER: Hello.

PHILLIPS: All right. Jerry, do you get those telemarketing calls on your phones?

CERASALE: Actually, I don't. But that doesn't mean it's not happening, and happening more.

PHILLIPS: Why don't you get them?

CERASALE: That I don't know. Well, actually I think I do know. I think that what happens -- what has happened, is that the exchange used to be all wireless or all land line, and marketers knew not to call the wireless phones with telemarketing calls, and it must be that my exchange has remained all wireless. But what we are finding...

PHILLIPS: Sam -- no, go ahead, Jerry.

CERASALE: Go ahead -- what we are finding is that that's not happening as much any more, and marketers do not know whether it is a wireless or a land line phone. Go ahead, Sam.

PHILLIPS: All right. Sam -- yes. Sam, what do you think now? I don't know. You really think Jerry is not getting any telemarketer calls, or he knows all the ins and outs, he needs to tell us how to not get these calls?

SIMON: Unless we do something, he is going to start doing that. And you know what the problem is? This is like forcing consumers to accept a collect call at home from a telemarketer. It is happening, but we are going to have to develop a system that makes it impossible for telemarketers to call consumers on their cell phones, and in effect forcing them to pay the cost of that call.

PHILLIPS: Jerry, when someone does call, from your company, somebody on their cell phone, is that person paying for that telemarketing call?

CERASALE: Yes. In North America, the recipient of the phone call, a wireless call, pays for it, and that's why it shouldn't be done. It is not ethical, it doesn't make any business sense, and in a lot of cases, it is against the law.

PHILLIPS: So Sam, what do we do about this? How do we start figuring out what's a hard line, what is a cell phone? Because -- just like, we even brought the example up of the doctor getting this call from a car salesman while in the middle of surgery. I mean, cell phones are supposed to be very personal, and you don't want telemarketers calling you.

SIMON: There are three possible solutions. First, it may be simply that we require the wireless industry and the telemarketers to get together and create a unique database of cell phone numbers so they will still have them.

Secondly, we could go to a system for all telemarketing calls in which the customer has to choose, or opt in, to receive them.

Or third, we can put in a system called calling party pays, so that the person who calls a cell phone pays for the call. But it's got to be something. We cannot allow the telemarketing industry to force consumers to pay for calls they don't want.

PHILLIPS: Jerry, why does your group oppose the national "do not call" list?

CERASALE: Well, the national "do not call" list that the Federal Trade Commission is putting together, we think, would create another government bureaucracy and it doesn't cover everybody. It doesn't cover banks, airlines, telephone companies, insurance companies, nonprofits, and intrastate calls, and they create an awful lot of the phone calls that people are receiving.

We want to try and get -- we have a list that we have, and I will give you the address how to get on it, that has been in existence since '85, and we are trying to combine that list with all of the state do not call lists so we can create an industry together to have no call.

But the wireless is a different -- that's for land and wireless. But the wireless creates a different problem, and I agree fully -- and we agree fully with Sam, especially on the first one, and we are trying to do this, is get together with the people that hand out the phone numbers, so that we can know what are wireless lines, what are land lines, and we can let all marketers know, this is a wireless telephone call, don't call it.

PHILLIPS: Jerry, isn't there any way you can market without just using the phone? Why not just mail us? CERASALE: Well, you can mail. I mean, we represent people that mail, use e-mails, use the Internet, use the telephone. What is happening, though, is that the telephone is working. It is one of the fastest growing means of marketing, and it is a $661 billion a year industry in just outbound telemarketing.

So, it has worked, and consumers are responding. I think the way to get around it is, there are a couple of things. People have the right now to say, Don't call me anymore, when a telemarketer calls you. That's a federal law. You should do it, and especially on -- especially do it for wireless. And then...

PHILLIPS: Sam... oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jerry.

CERASALE: No -- and then the other is to try and get on DMA list, you can get on that free, as well. The DMA's "do not call" list.

PHILLIPS: Sam, what happens -- yes, I know that we do have -- actually, we have a graphic here, the telephone preference service in care of the DMA. We are going to bring that up so folks can see where they can write to.

Sam, tell us about that, how to protect yourself, quickly. And also, what happened to the '91 Telephone Consumer Protection Act? Doesn't that fall in somewhere?

SIMON: That does, because once you tell somebody to take them off the list, if they don't take you, if you can find them, you can sue them and get some money. It would be great if the DMA would take their $5 charge off of on-line registration. Consumers could get on the "do not call" list for free on-line.

But the problem with wireless, let's go back to that for a second. Wireless calls, people should not have to answer the phone. They should not have to register their phone, even on a national list. It should be illegal to make the telemarketing call to -- knowingly to a wireless phone, and we desperately need for the industry to get together and get that list, or go to the opt in, or have a calling party pays before November, when the rules are going to change.

PHILLIPS: Jerry Cerasale and Sam Simon. Gentlemen, thank you. We will continue to follow this, and see what happens with regard to the DMA and FCC and how you guys, Jerry, are going to handle it too.

CERASALE: OK.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, gentlemen.

CERASALE: Thank you.

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