Fair Trade Commission Poises to Stipulate Behavior Regulation Governing Telephone Marketing to Ensure Consumer Rights and Maintain Trading Order.

Telephone marketing in Taiwan has a fast turnover about 100 billion per year, and the amount of fraud exceeds 10 billion. In this case, Fair Trade Commission (FTC) poises to stipulate “behavior regulation” so as to ensure trading order and consumer rights.

 

According to FTC, the “Do-Not-Call-Implementation Act” was passed in the U.S. in March 2003 and the “National Do-Not-Call Registry” was established accordingly. In such mechanism, consumers who refuse telephone marketing can register their phone numbers in the “registry”, and the tele-marketing enterprise must pay for using this “registry” to confirm whose numbers are registered to refuse such marketing.

 

Illegal telephone marketing in Taiwan mostly violates Article 19 and Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law, which specifies the acts that are deceptive and lessen competition. Since telephone marketing prevails over all trades, FTC stipulates behavior regulation that demands relevant actors of tele-marketing in all trades to observe the said regulation.

 

FTC will discuss the context of such regulation in the near future. The context includes the following issues: 1. whether or not to demand the tele-marketing sellers to identify themselves, to name themselves, and to provide the name and contact address of the tele-marketing enterprise, and main trading terms and limits, and also prohibit the tele-marketing sellers from falsely stating the product’s nature, value, and utility, or period of preferential sale; 2. whether marketing agreement can be cancelled unconditionally within 7 days; and further 3. whether or not to specify interval time of marketing and keep records so as to prevent illegal or abusive tele-marketing acts. (2004.7)

CYJ/CCS