Judging (pun not intended) from what has happened with the National No Call List, you would think there was no alternative. But, a presidential election year is coming and No Call is the call of the Congress.
Here is a brief history of the last few days. Wednesday a Federal judge struck down the National No Call List. Thursday, the House voted 412-8 and the Senate 95-0 to legislate the National No Call List back into existence. Thursday night a Federal judge ruled the Congressional action unconstitutional. Friday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) vowed to appeal the latest judge's ruling. Late Friday afternoon a U.S. appeals court said it would likely approve an anti-telemarketing measure that two lower courts had blocked.
The National No Call List was to go into effect October 1, 2003. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and several telemarketing firms are working to block any national legislation. Their position is this: "The two recent court rulings validate our belief that a private-sector alternative strikes a better balance between the rights of constitutionally protected commercial speech and consumers' desires for privacy."
Fifty million phone numbers had been registered under the National No Call List. Of those numbers, 8.6 million came from 27 State-sponsored No Call Lists. Do consumers have an option that would meet the DMA challenges the courts have accepted?
The DMA already offers a national no call list. This is from the DMA Web site: "The DMA continues to support and believe in the efficacy of a national list for consumers to express their preference not to receive telephone solicitations. In fact, the DMA has offered American consumers a free, national no-call system -- the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) -- since 1985."
If you want to join a State-sponsored no call list, here are the DMA links to the 27 State-only lists. If your State does not have a program, the DMA TPS Service is free and provides the same types of protection.
With all these options, why did the National No Call List get started? One guess is good politics. A presidential election is coming and, with 50 million phone numbers registered, a lot of politicians will take credit for doing something "the people wanted."
With all the press about the No Call list, are telemarketing stocks underwater? No! Most have at least doubled in price since January. Sykes (NASDAQ:SYKE) has no debt and $75 million in cash. Sitel (NYSE:SWW) and West Corp (NASDAQ:WSTC) have rising sales. None appear to be compelling values at today's prices.
AT&T (NYSE:T), InterActive (NASDAQ:IACI), and Sprint (NYSE:FON) own large telemarketing operations. Their impact on operations is not significant. None have issued dire earnings predictions based on the National No Call List and they are not buys because of the inability of Congress and the FTC to get results.
On a humorous note, if telemarketing is so bad, someone forgot to tell IDT (NYSE:IDT). On September 18 they formed a call center services group and purchased two existing telemarketers to add to their existing call centers. Unfortunately for interested telemarketing investors, the telemarketing group revenue will be insignificant there, too.
W.D. Crotty welcomes your feedback at [email protected] . He does not own any of the companies mentioned in this article.
