Consumer Protection Act News Snippet 3

getclosure is writing a series of news snippets about the new Consumer Protection Act to provide specific examples to demonstrate how it will affect consumers.  Visit the getclosure blog to read the full series.

Question of the Week
How does the Consumer Protection Act relate to direct marketing?  Great news – the two go hand-in-hand.  Chapter 2, Part B addresses the issue of unwanted direct marketing and what measures have been put in place to protect your privacy.

What you need to know
The Act states that you have the right to refuse to accept direct marketing and that you can require it to be discontinued.  The Act also gives the Commission the go ahead to establish a registry where consumes can register a pre-emptive block against any communication that is primarily for the purpose of direct marketing.

Interesting Fact
The Minister may prescribe specific days, dates, public holidays or times of days when suppliers must not engage in any direct marketing aimed at a consumer at home for any promotional purpose [Chapter 2, Part B]. 

However consumers need to be aware that this may not rule out direct marketing calls to their cell phones, which was pointed out by Neil Kirby of Werksmans in a recent Business Day article: [this section] appears to apply only to the consumer “at home”. This may prove difficult to enforce as marketers contacting consumers on a cell number, for instance, may not know whether the consumer is “at home” or not.

Read more.