BY LORE CROGHAN
and ALISON GENDAR
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BILL COLLECTORS and telemarketers would be able to robocall cell phones under legislation seeking to end 20 years of consumer protection, New York’s senior senator said Sunday.
The innocent-sounding “Mobile Information Call Act” would allow all sorts of nuisance calls to cell phones, eating into customers’ costly minutes, Sen. Chuck Schumer warned.
“The floodgates would be open to telemarketers, who could call you on your cell phone during breakfast, lunch, dinner, no matter if you’re at home, at school, at the office,” said Schumer, who vowed to fight the legislation proposed by House Republicans.
Schumer didn’t mention that the GOP bill’s sole Democratic co-sponsor was a fellow New Yorker — Rep. Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn).
Towns and the entire House Energy and Commerce Committee already got an earful at a recent hearing when consumer groups blasted the bill.
Brooklyn residents interviewed Sunday said the legislation was a bad idea.
“What politician in his right mind would support this?” asked John Berigan, 44, of Park Slope, who uses his cell phone for his real estate business.
“There’s no one in the general public who would want this. “It would seem that some lobbyist in Washington has gotten to [Towns\\],” he said.
Current law bars telemarketing calls to cell phones unless the customer has given approval. The proposed change would allow prerecorded “informational” calls to be made to cell phones without consent.
With 83% of Americans owning a cell phone, and a growing segment ditching their landlines, businesses want to reach these customers, advocates said.
“Cell phones have been treated differently from landlines because they are much more personal. People don’t give out their mobile numbers regularly. They tend to answer them right away. They don’t screen,” said Susan Grant of the Consumer Federation of America.
“We don’t think it is good legislation, the way it’s written now,” she said.
Towns and his staff did not return requests for comment Sunday, but staffers have said the bill’s language was only a starting point.
agendar@nydailynews.com
