What is the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR)?
The Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) is an FTC regulation that bans deceptive and abusive telemarketing practices and sets do-not-call rules.
What it covers
The TSR is at 16 CFR Part 310, and it implements the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act. Among other things, it:
- Prohibits deceptive practices, including misrepresentations and false or misleading statements made to get people to pay.
- Makes it an abusive practice to call numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, with exceptions, or to call people who asked that seller not to call.
- Limits calls to a person's residence to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time, unless the person consented.
- Treats abandoned calls as abusive, with a safe harbor, under the call abandonment rule.
Business-to-business calls
The rule lists calls between a telemarketer and a business, made to get that business to buy goods or services, among its exemptions. That exemption does not cover the TSR's bans on certain misrepresentations and false or misleading statements, and it does not apply to calls selling nondurable office or cleaning supplies at retail. The FTC's compliance guide says the registry ban does not apply to business-to-business calls. The TCPA is a separate law with its own rules.
This is a general definition, not legal advice.