Another South Florida telemarketer stated in an affidavit that she used an auto dialer to make on average at least 100 calls per day to homeowners behind on their mortgages.
NAC's first offering, however, was a low-end auto-dialer targeted to the many startups that were reselling long-distance services from carriers like MCI. "We thought it would be appropriate to get a cash generator to make us known as a new entrant," Patel explained.
NAC stopped work on the auto-dialer and rapidly developed and shipped a billing system.
(Buy only the fastest and most current models, which carry the ratings "9600 Baud" and "Group 3"). If you do a lot of faxing, the Toshiba 3750 (about $1,000) is worth the price for extras like its automatic document feeder, auto-dialer, paper cutter and extra-long paper rolls.
Those who use auto-dialers had to obtain a customer's explicit permission to contact them, too.
For the better part of a year, debt collection agencies and student loan servicers have lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to exempt federal student loans from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a law that bars the use of auto-dialers to call and text people on their cell phones without permission.
Greisman blamed it on technological advances that make such calls easier and cheaper, including auto-dialers that can generate thousands of calls a minute.
In 2010, the Education Department told the FCC that taxpayers and colleges would benefit from a change because loan servicers can place many more calls using auto-dialers than when their employees manually dial, increasing their ability to prevent defaults, according to a written summary of the meeting.
Don't unleash auto-dialers to solicit responses for unappealing offers and digital surveys.
(Technically, manually dialed telemarketing calls to cellphones are still legal, but nearly all telemarketers rely on auto-dialers).
"Our volunteers have made 125,646,479 personal phone calls or door knocks that resulted in conversations with voters – not counting robo calls on auto-dialers, mail, literature drops or any other non-volunteer, non-personal contacts," the memo says.
