ABA/Joint Trades' Letter to FCC re: Revocation of Consent Under TCPA

Dear Ms. Dortch,

ACA International, the American Bankers Association, America's Credit Unions, American Financial Services Association, Edison Electric Institute, Mortgage Bankers Association, American Association of Healthcare Administration Management, and the National Council of Higher Education Resources ("Associations") appreciate the Federal Communications Commission's ("Commission") efforts to clarify rules regarding revocation of consent. As we have previously explained, the members of the Associations make every effort to promptly honor reasonably relayed requests to stop further communications. The Associations appreciate the recognition, however, that prompt action on revocation requests is not always possible and applaud the Draft Revocation Order's proposed adoption of a 10-day time frame for honoring requests to revoke consent. The Associations also appreciate the Draft Revocation Order’s proposal to provide more clarity on what constitutes a reasonable means of revocation by identifying specific mechanisms or key words that definitively constitute revocation. In certain key respects, however, the Draft Revocation Order fails to strike an appropriate balance resulting in potential harms to both consumers and businesses. The Associations recommend several revisions to the Draft Revocation Order to restore this balance.

The Draft Order Overall Does not Reasonably Address the Problem Confronting Businesses

The Associations' members provide important, sometimes critical, information to their customers through voice calls and text messages. These include suspicious activity alerts, utility outages, notices of data breaches, past-due alerts, multifactor authentication texts and notices of payments due. Moreover, consumers may have consented to a receive a number of different categories of information and companies may enable consumers to customize the alerts they receive. Attachment A provides an example of one bank's offering to consumers to customize alerts. Under the Draft Revocation Order, businesses would be required to delete all of these customer-selected methods of communication if the customer revokes consent in response to one type of call or text message alert. Customers face harm if they do not receive these messages as a result of revocation requests that lead the company to opt the customer out of all categories of informational calls and text messages.

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