New Corporate TPS law could cost you even more
Howard Lake | 15 July 2004 | News
The cost of adhering to the new Corporate Telephone Preference Service (TPS) legislation could now reach £11,250 a year, according to MarketingFile.com. Which makes a £5,000 fine for failing to comply look almost attractive.
The Corporate TPS legislation came into force in June 2004 and gives businesses the right to opt-out from unsolicited telephone calls. Since most charities call businesses at some point during the year to ask for their support in some way, the legislation directly affects them because they must not called a company that is registered with the service. If they do, then they face a fine of £5,000.
How do you comply with the legislation? You need to screen every company telephone number you plan to call against the TPS list. To do this you have to subscribe to the Corporate TPS file at a cost of £3,750 per year.
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If you thought that was bad enough, it gets worse. According to data agency MarketingFile.com, TPS Ltd, the company who administer the scheme, have announced that the Corporate TPS file will not contain sole traders or partnerships. These will continue to be held in the “individual” or consumer TPS file. As a result, unless you know the legal status of the business you want to call, you will have to check the number against both TPS files. Total cost for subscribing to both corporate and consumer TPS files? £11,250 per year.
Looks like 200,000 or so charities and community groups are going to have to boost their fundraising simply to ensure that they can continue to use the telephone to call businesses legally.
So, what can you do to make sure you don’t break the law? MarketingFile.com of course does have some commercial solutions on offer. These include automated TPS call-barring which will simply prevent a call from your staff to a TPS-barred number from being connected.
It also offers a free service, numbercheck.co.uk, which enables you to check a limited number of numbers one-at-a-time against the TPS files.
For larger volumes of hundreds or even
a few thousand numbers MarketingFile.com suggests you download and install its plug-in for Microsoft Excel. This lets you check numbers at a cost of 1p per number.
One other solution is if NCVO lobbies successfully to secure exemption for charities from the new regulations. VolResource Newsletter No. 164 reported this week that lobbying is undeway.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.