The South Carolina legislature has approved a bill that became law last month which places restrictions on companies attempting to contact individuals in the state via phone calls or text messages.
The South Carolina Telephone Privacy Protection Act mostly applies to telephone solicitations but does include some language and definitions that could be applied more broadly.
For example, a solicitation in which the calling party has an established business relationship is exempt from the law, but how the law defines established business relationship could pose some problems. An established business relationship is one where the call is being made based on the consumer’s:
- purchase from, or transaction with, the person on whose behalf the telephone solicitation is being made within the eighteen months immediately preceding the solicitation date; or
- inquiry or application regarding a property, good, or service offered by the person on whose behalf the telephone solicitation is being made within the three months immediately preceding the solicitation date.
The law also places restrictions on when calls can be made, requires callers to make disclosures at the outset of a call, requires callers displaying a South Carolina phone number on a caller ID to have a physical presence in the state, and, in the event a live person is not available to speak with a called party within two seconds of the completed greeting, the calling party must:
- play a prerecorded identification and opt-out message that is limited to disclosing that the call was for telephone solicitation purposes and states the name and telephone number of the person on whose behalf the telephone solicitation call is being made, and a telephone number for such person that permits the consumer to make a do-not-call request during regular business hours; provided that, such telephone number may not be a 900 number or any other number for which charges exceed local or long distance transmission charges; and
- an automated, interactive voice- and/or key press-activated opt-out mechanism that enables the consumer to make a do-not-call request prior to terminating the call, including brief explanatory instructions on how to use such mechanism. When the consumer elects to opt-out using such mechanism, the mechanism must automatically record the consumer’s number to the telephone solicitor’s in-house do-not-call list and immediately terminate the call.
