2001 SESSION

01-0163

05/09

HOUSE BILL 470

COMMITTEE: Commerce

ANALYSIS

This bill requires telephone solicitors to provide recipients of their calls with caller identification information, including a telephone number at which the solicitor may receive calls. The bill expands the definition of solicitation to include calls to non-residential telephone subscribers. The bill also clarifies that blocking caller identification information when conducting any type of telephone solicitation is prohibited.

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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.

Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

01-0163

05/09

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand One

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1 Use of Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems and Caller Identification Services; Definition of Solicitation. Amend RSA 359-E:1, II to read as follows::

II. "Solicitation" means the unrequested initiation of a telephone call to a [residential] telephone subscriber for the purposes of giving, selling, or leasing services or goods, whether real or personal, tangible or intangible; or to gain a pledge, promise or contribution in circumstances where there is no pre-existing relationship between the caller and the person called; or to obtain information, data or opinions.

2 Use of Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems and Caller Identification Services; Blocking Prohibited. Amend RSA 359-E:5-a to read as follows:

359-E:5-a Blocking Prohibited. No person using [an automated] a telephone [dialing] system [or any other method] for solicitation in this state shall use any method, including per-call blocking or per-line blocking, that prevents caller identification information for the telephone solicitor's lines used to make telephone calls to a [residential] telephone subscriber from being shown by a device capable of displaying caller identification information. The caller identification information displayed shall contain a telephone number at which the telephone solicitor may receive telephone calls [if the telephone solicitor leaves a message on a telephone answering device or uses an automatic telephone dialing system that plays a recorded message when a connection is completed to a telephone number].

3 New Section; Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems and Caller Identification Services; Telephone Number of Solicitor Required. Amend RSA 359-E by inserting after section 359-E:5-a the following new section:

359-E:5-b Telephone Number of Solicitor Required. Any person engaged in telephone solicitation shall make telephone calls to telephone subscribers only from a device capable of transmitting caller identification information. The caller identification information transmitted shall contain a telephone number at which the telephone solicitor may receive telephone calls.

4 Effective Date. This act shall take effect January 1, 2002.