Should debt collectors call your cell phone?
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The company also believes the commission should indicate that the consumer didn't give prior consent if a creditor or collection agency obtains a customer's cell phone number through caller ID, a wireless directory service or other means. This, it says, could alleviate concerns raised by opponents about accessibility to a customer's cell number.

A disruption of service
Consumer advocates argue that missed payments often occur because of unforeseen events, such as loss of a job, serious illness or divorce. They also say creditors and collectors ignore some facts in their petition, such as the increase in consumer complaints.

These advocates say consumers have complained of abuse and deception from some collectors' call methods. Consumers had also protested the types of automatic dialers used.

In 2003, the FCC's Report and Order, In the Matter of Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, commissioners noted some consumers were fearful of "dead air" and "hang-up calls" created by predictive dialers and thought they were being stalked.

Advocates say that the industry doesn't need any more access to consumers because of privacy, identity theft risks and the potential for other groups to utilize automatic dialers.

In written comments to the FCC, the National Consumer Law Center gave four reasons that the ACA's program should be denied.

Reasons that the ACA's program should be denied:

• Cell phone companies haven't offered directories of cell phone numbers. • Consumers wouldn't want to be called at inconvenient places, such as restaurants or in their cars. • Consumers wouldn't see a benefit when automatic dialers use up their high-cost daytime minutes in areas where they can't receive calls. • Caller identification information can be faked.

The law center also says that the change in the rule would violate provisions in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The act was designed to ban abusive practices by debt collectors.

The law center argues that cell phones aren't able to show that the call is from a debt collector and the call could use up the consumer’s daytime minutes. This coincides with the collection law that says that causing charges to be made to any person for communications by hiding the real reason of the communication would violate a rule that says a debt collector may not use unfair or dishonest methods to collect or attempt to collect any debt.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse fears that allowing debt collectors to use an automatic dialer may cause other groups to claim that they should be able to use it, too. In its written statement, it says unwanted calls wouldn't necessarily be from telemarketers but could come from surveys from charities and political parties during election seasons

ACA's request for clarification is under review. The FCC hasn't set a timetable for a decision, but when it does reach a conclusion the information will be publicly available on its Web site.

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