The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should take the opportunity suggested by CUNA and others to update the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to treat informational calls to wireless phones the same as calls to landlines, CUNA wrote Thursday. CUNA filed reply comments to the FCC’s petition asking for comments on the TCPA.

The FCC issued a public notice in May requesting comments on several issues CUNA has raised about the TCPA. CUNA filed comments in June, and these recent comments are filed in response to comments received on the petition.

“A number of credit unions and state credit union associations filed comments confirming the importance of communicating with their member-owners and the chilling effect of previous Commission interpretations,” CUNA’s comments read. “These credit unions, and other commenters as well, note the dramatic changes that have occurred in the way enterprises and consumers communicate, particularly the replacement of wireline with wireless telephone services.”

CUNA cited two notable comments from credit union stakeholders:

• Randolph-Brooks FCU, which said its members have a “vested interest in being informed about different aspects of the credit union’s operations, including governance, communications, fraudulent activity and account information such as overdue payments;” and
• The Ohio Credit Union League identified the increased costs and delays incurred by its member credit unions by having to forgo the use of efficient dialing technologies due to fear of litigation.

CUNA’s comments also noted that automatic telephone dialing systems should be defined as “equipment that has the present capability to generate random or sequential numbers and to dial those numbers without human intervention.”

CUNA also believes the “called party” should be defined as the intended recipient and that callers may reasonably rely on the prior consent of the person that provided the number called, absent actual knowledge of reassignment.

“Strong support exists as well for a safe harbor for companies utilizing compliance solutions, including using a comprehensive reassigned number database should one be adopted,” the comments read. “Companies concur that the Commission should identify a set of reasonable, easy-to-use methods of revocation and a high degree of consensus exists on what those methods should entail.”