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Political Campaigns Face $16,000 Fine for Robocalling Cellphones

By Admin on September 20, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Political campaigns were warned that they face a $16,000 fine from the FCC if they make robocalls to cell phones and other mobile devices.

The FCC says that no one may deliver prerecorded voice and autodialed calls (including live calls, prerecorded voice messages, and text messages) to cell phones, pagers, or other mobile devices without the prior express consent of the called party, reports Ars Technica.

And political campaigns are not immune from this restriction. So how will the ban on robocalling affect political campaigns?

For starters, your evening meals are now much less likely to be interrupted by some canned message by a candidate you never heard of. In addition, beyond the annoyance, your cell phone bills and minutes also won't be hit with these unsolicited calls, so you can save some money too.

The robocalling restriction makes sense as most people pay each month or have a prepaid plan for their mobile devices, reports Ars Technica. And as many of us keep close tabs on our minutes, it's only fair that we should not be bombarded by these robocalls.

Due to the FCC regulation, you may see political campaigns abandoning phone calls completely. While the FCC regulation still allows telemarketers to call people's landlines, there is no way for the caller to know whether they are calling a cell phone or landline.

And as many people simply list their cell phones as their home phones, political campaigns (and anyone else) risk substantial penalties for robocalling the wrong number.

If faced with a fine, political campaigns may try a good faith defense that they thought they were calling a landline. But faced with a $16,000 fine for each violation, campaigns may resort to emails to get their message across as they could multi-million dollar liability given the number of calls they make.

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