Rep. Fishbein’s Proposal to End Robocalls Clears Committee Hurdle

A bill initially proposed by State Representative Craig Fishbein (R-90) to investigate and hopefully eventually end unwanted and annoying telemarketer calls passed out of the General Law Committee today and will be heading to the full legislature for consideration.

If passed into law, Committee Bill No. 5303 – AN ACT CONCERNING A STUDY OF PREDATORY TELEMARKETING PRACTICES –  will mandate the Commissioner of Consumer Protection (DCP) “conduct a study concerning potential methods for strengthening prohibitions on predatory and unsolicited telemarketing, including, but not limited to, the feasibility of prohibiting unsolicited telephonic sales calls to a consumer for the purpose of selling an automobile warranty without such consumer’s prior express written consent.”

“We’ve all been interrupted, even harassed, by robocalls about your car’s warranty or to add an alarm system to your home, and sometimes those calls appear to be coming from local numbers. It’s well past time to investigate this issue and provide answers, and possibly a real avenue for redress, to people who are being victimized on a daily basis,” Rep. Fishbein said.

This proposal is currently a bit more tempered than Rep. Fishbein’s original concept to “prohibit telemarketing of automobile warranties, insurance products and utility services.”

“I would have preferred these predatory methods be eliminated entirely as they are an unwanted and unsolicited invasion of one’s right to privacy, however, studying the issue further will allow us to develop a better understanding of current and future telemarketing methods and trends, and to craft better legislation to deal with this issue in the future once and for all,” Rep. Fishbein said.

If the measure becomes law, the DCP commissioner will have to report the study findings to the General Law committee before February 1, 2022.

The full bill can be found here.

The legislative session ends at midnight on June 9, 2021.