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Do they know where I am when I call?

There are certain requirements that need to be followed if you are making a call classified as ‘telephone solicitation’. This is any telephone call that acts as an advertisement.

Telephone solicitation calls can only be made between the hours of 8 am and 9 pm of the called party. Those calls or messages placed with the consumer’s prior business relation are not considered as solicitation calls. The established business relation is put to an end if the person being called asks not to get any additional calls or after 18 months after the last transaction or 3 months after the last inquiry.

Those placing telephone solicitation calls are require to deliver their telephone number and name, or the telephone number and name of the company for which they are selling products. The telephone number displayed on a called party Caller-ID system must be one that when called during normal business hours to ask to be removed from the list. It is against federal law to transmit a number and name that is different then the company for which product the call is placed. This also applies to those you have established business relations.

But who else needs to know who and where you are when you call. Is the emergency workers that are answering 911 calls know where you are? Many businesses operate behind Multi-Line telephone systems. These systems could be PBX’s, Electronic Key Systems or even carrier services known as Centrex.

Many times it may not be all that important that the 911 center receives a correct callback number and location, but there are times that having this information has saved lives, and not having it, prevented life savings services from arriving in a timely matter. If a call is received by a 911 center and the caller is unable to communicate, such as having a heart attack and not able to breath or talk, the procedure is to have an emergency responder report to the location that is given to them. At a small location, where all of the workers work near one another, a search for an incapacitated person may be easy. But if there are multiple locations being filtered by a mail location, the emergency response team may be dispatched miles away from the actual emergency.

Another problem that may occur is the actual means for a person using a phone to be able to dial 911. Many Multi-Line systems require an access code to be able to dial an off-site number. When dialing 911, is that code needed? If it is, is the telephone labeled as such, so a person not familiar with the system be able to dial 911. With Multi-Line systems, it’s possible to prohibit a telephone set from dialing outside numbers. It could be an accident waiting to happen if that set is forbidden from even dialing 911. These are things that are sometimes overlooked when putting in a telephone.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – tt4sb.com

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