Don’t Use an Auto Dialer Without Regulatory Backup, from Dealer Marketing.
Quick question: What, exactly, is an auto dialer?
If you’re able to answer, you’re lying. At least in the eyes of the law. In courts across America, lawyers are debating what, exactly, can be termed an auto dialer.
I won’t bore you with the difference between the narrowly and broadly construed definitions but offer this: Using an auto dialer may seem like an efficient and cost-effective way to route automotive sales calls, but the net effect can be pennywise and pound-foolish.
That’s because the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), updated in October 2013, has caused a huge spike in legal actions from consumers who are fed up with telemarketing. TCPA regulations forbid companies from using any “automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice” to make a call or send a text message to a cellular telephone without the “prior express consent of the called party.”
