No Call Law pressures small-business owners

Missouri's No Call Law has hit some businesses where it hurts the bottom line. And it's not just those large telemarketing companies.

Companies like Culligan of Springfield and Eagle Exteriors have felt the squeeze from the law that went into effect July 1, 2001.

"It's about 40 percent of our total sales base that has been eliminated," said Greg Wilhelm, Culligan's sales manager. "We do mass mailing and more advertising, and we had to make price adjustments."

Donald Cole Sr., owner of Eagle Exteriors Inc., said the law has had a huge impact on his business, too.

"I was doing $6 million dollars in business," Cole said. "But since the No Call List came out, my business has been cut in half, or more."

Eagle Exteriors uses its seven telemarketers to set up appointments for salespeople. The salespeople then talk with homeowners about home improvement items such as insulation, windows, siding, shutters and gutters.

"We make things happen by calling people," he said. "My business fuels the economy when we go make a sale because it provides jobs for people: the telemarketers, the salesmen and the people who make and install the products I sell."

Businesses that telemarket pay $100 a year for every area code they service to obtain a list of those on the No Call List. As of June 7, there were 974,261 Missouri residential phone numbers on the list.

Telemarketers who violate the law face a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each violation.

Scott Holste, a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon, said Missouri residents have told his office they are pleased with the No Call List.

Business owners "have come to accept (the No Call list)," Holste said. "We provide them with a list of numbers of the people who've strongly indicated that they're not interested in buying goods or services over the phone. Having this list doesn't waste their time and resources."

Wilhelm believes that the law wasn't originally designed for small-business owners.

"It was for the people out there really hammering people with massive dialing machines, and we're not that way. We're a Ma and Pa store that has been around here for 30 years " Wilhelm said. "We just got thrown in the mix and weren't given the ability to conform with the law by (the state) supplying us with software that was already able to filter the numbers out if we would enter them.

"We had to have that designed, and I imagine that every little small business that telemarkets had that designed. If the Attorney General would have done it and charged everybody $5 for it, they would have made a profit on it. Instead, we ended up spending hundreds of dollars to do the same thing."

Culligan continues to telemarket within the rules of the No Call Law.

"We still telemarket the people not on the No Call List," Wilhelm said. "We basically telemarket to the people we mass mail with their permission, of course."

Eagle Exteriors purchased a copy of the No Call List, but found it useless because there are only phone numbers and no names, and the phone numbers aren't divided by area code.

Eagle Exterior has discontinued telemarketing in Missouri but makes calls in surrounding states.

Nixon's office has collected $580,000 in judgments against telemarketers who have violated the law. Holste said the office gets the most complaints from consumers about phone companies, which are exempt from the No Call Law.

(SBJ staff contributed information to this story.)