The safe harbor at 16 CFR 310.4(b)(4) shields a seller from liability for abandoned calls if it keeps abandonment at or below three percent of calls answered by a person, rings each call for at least fifteen seconds or four rings, and plays a recorded identification message when no representative is available.
How it is measured
Three percent of calls ANSWERED BY A PERSON, measured over a single calling campaign of under 30 days, or separately over each successive 30-day period the campaign continues.
The denominator is the part that catches people. Three percent of answered calls, on a list with a 10% connect rate, is three tenths of one percent of dials — a tenth of the allowance a team assumes if it measures against dials. Measuring the wrong way produces a number that looks comfortably compliant and is not.
The other two conditions are as binding as the percentage and get far less attention. A dialer that hangs up after two rings fails the safe harbour however low its abandonment rate is, and one that abandons silently rather than playing the identification message fails it too.
This is a plain-English summary of a published rule, not legal advice.
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