STATE OF CALIFORNIA GRAY DAVIS, Governor
PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
505 VAN NESS AVENUE
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102-3298
February 11, 2003 Agenda ID #1782
TO: PARTIES OF RECORD IN RULEMAKING 02-02-020
This is the draft decision of Administrative Law Judge Walker. It will not appear on the Commission's agenda for at least 30 days after the date it is mailed. The Commission may act then, or it may postpone action until later.
When the Commission acts on the draft decision, it may adopt all or part of it as written, amend or modify it, or set it aside and prepare its own decision. Only when the Commission acts does the decision become binding on the parties.
Parties to the proceeding may file comments on the draft decision as provided in Article 19 of the Commission's "Rules of Practice and Procedure." These rules are accessible on the Commission's website at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov. Pursuant to Rule 77.3 opening comments shall not exceed 15 pages. Finally, comments must be served separately on the ALJ and the assigned Commissioner, and for that purpose I suggest hand delivery, overnight mail, or other expeditious method of service.
/s/ Angela K. Minkin
Angela K. Minkin, Chief
Administrative Law Judge
CAB: avs for tcg
ALJ/GEW/tcg DRAFT Agenda ID #1782
Quasi-Legislative
Decision DRAFT DECISION OF ALJ WALKER (Mailed 2/11/2003)
BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Order Instituting Rulemaking on the Commission's Own Motion to Establish an Appropriate Error Rate for Connections Made by an Automatic Dialing Device Pursuant to Section 2875.5 of the Public Utilities Code. |
Rulemaking 02-02-020 (Filed February 21, 2002) |
O P I N I O N
1. Summary
In this decision, the Commission takes further steps to reduce telemarketing calls in which Californians, upon answering the phone, are greeted either with prolonged silence or an unexplained disconnection. We require telemarketers using predictive dialing equipment to ensure that (1) the predictive dialer does not disconnect a call answered by a live person, and (2) an agent responds to a called party within 2 seconds of the called party's greeting. As required by statute, we define an "acceptable error rate" for this standard and establish the rate at 3% of all predictive dialer calls answered by a live person. We require telemarketers using predictive dialing equipment to maintain records showing their compliance. We do not at this time reduce the acceptable error rate below 3% because our investigation shows that to do so would either eliminate jobs or move them out of California without verifiable benefit, and because impending federal and state do-not-call registers will provide consumers with an effective way to reduce the number of unwanted telephone marketing calls.
