Valesky: New law protects consumers from scams

A local lawmaker wants more transparency from telemarketers and is pushing a bill to help consumers better differentiate between a scam and a sales call.

Sen. David J. Valesky, D-53, sponsored legislation that protects consumers from telemarketers who use voice recordings to fraudulently sign them up for goods and services.

“Telemarketers are already required to provide certain information at the start of every telemarketing call,” Valesky said. “This bill adds another key piece of information that will help a consumer to determine the legitimacy of the caller andwhether or not to continue the call.”

The bill (S.4361) adds the requirement that a consumer be notified at the beginning of a sales call that the call is being re-

corded.

Recently, there have been a number of phone scams in which callers record a person’s voice and then later use that recording to deceive the consumer into paying for goods and services he or she did not agree to buy.

If a scammer tries to use a voice recording to deceive a consumer into paying for unwanted goods and services, the consumer may be alerted to the scam by the fact they cannot recall being informed that a call was being recorded.

Under current law, telemarketers are required to inform consumers of the following at the beginning of each telemarketing sales call:

•the purpose of the call is to offer goods and services for which a fee will be charged;

• the telemarketer’s name and the person on whose behalf the solicitation is being made if other than the telemarketer;

•and the nature of the goods or services for which a person will be charged.

Telemarketing calls can only be made between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.

After the bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, it was referred to the Consumer Affairs and Protection committee.