Can a charity call my cell phone?

Factual Questions
1

Let’s say I was trying to get people out to donate blood by making phone calls from my handy-dandy state of the art call center, complete with automatic dialer.
Would it be legal for me to call their cell phones?
It appears the appropriate law is here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000227----000-.html

And I can’t decide if charitable activities would be exempted from these sections:

US Code TITLE 47 > CHAPTER 5 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part I > § 227
Reads in part:
(b) Restrictions on use of automated telephone equipment
(1) Prohibitions
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States—
(A) to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice—
(i) to any emergency telephone line (including any “911” line and any emergency line of a hospital, medical physician or service office, health care facility, poison control center, or fire protection or law enforcement agency);
(ii) to the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
(iii) to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call; [Emphasis Added]

(2) [Omitted	]

(3) Private right of action
A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of that State—
(A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin such violation,
(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such violation, whichever is greater, or
© both such actions.
If the court finds that the defendant willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.

2

Nothing you quote suggests that there is any kind of exemption which might cover charitable activities.

3

It’s a blanket ban with no exemptions. It’s also wildly unethical. Can you imagine the backlash once a TV program ran the story?

4

Actually, it does the FCC to create exemptions. You’d have to check the FCC regulations to see if they created one.

But why, exactly, would it be unethical to prohibit businesses from forcing me to pay for their unsolicited sales call or fax? Sure, they may have a right to free speech, even commercial speech, but that doesn’t mean they have the right to make me pay for it.

5

The ban on calls to cellular numbers is in paragraph (1)(A)(iii). On a careful reading, the power to create exemptions from the ban only applies to “calls to a telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service that are not charged to the called party”. Hence, the FCC regulations can’t allow charities (or anyone else) to use an automatic dialler to make calls to your cellphone if you are going to bear the cost.

The “charities” exemption allows the FCC to exempt “non-commercial” calls from the ban in paragraph (1)(B). But that ban relates to the use of artificial or prerecorded messages to residential telephone lines, which presumably does not include cellular lines. (I assume there’s a definition somewhere).

So the FCC can allow a charity to call your home phone, using an automatic voice message. But they can’t allow a charity (or anyone else) to use an automatic dialler to call your cellphone if you are going to be charged for the call.

6

Thank you for your insight on this, UDS. I find the SD endlessly amusing… here I have an Australian interpreting US Federal law for a guy in Ohio.
One thing puzzles me… if you go to the URL I put in my first post, NOWHERE does it indicate the penalty imposed if the government goes after you for breaking this law. It says what will happen to you if an individual citizen exercises their right of private action, but it doesn’t say “$5,000 per incident” or “$5 per incident” or anything like that due to government action.
How should I interpret that? I’m sure the government CAN hurt you if you break this law, but I’ve got no idea how the fine or other penalties would be determined.