Balch recently authored an article for Law 360 regarding the conundrum the Telephone Consumer Protection Act poses for electric utilities. While their article does not involve the financial industry, it does shed insight on the many problems created by the TCPA. For example, electric utilities are often required by state law to call customers before turning off their electrical service. However, if the utility calls the customer’s cell phone using an autodialer, then the utility could be subject to statutory damages under the TCPA. An industry group has requested further guidance from the Federal Communications Commission about the proper course of action when faced with this scenario. Hopefully, the FCC will exempt such calls from the TCPA’s scope, but that is not guaranteed. As the above example shows, the TCPA can be a difficult statute to navigate, especially as businesses increasingly communicate with their customers exclusively through mobile phones.
The bottom line is this: “Every company in every industry needs to have strong TCPA compliance procedures in place for communicating with customers.” Balch has advised numerous clients both inside and outside the utility industry on how to develop TCPA compliance procedures. If you believe our expertise could benefit your company, please do not hesitate to contact us.
The full text of the article is available here.