Law / United States / 
Oklahoma
Commercial telephone seller registration and unlawful telemarketing practices
Okla. Stat. tit. 15, §§ 775A.1 to 775A.5
In force since .
A telephone contact rule binding private bodies.
- Enforcement body
- Oklahoma Attorney General
- Obligation class
- Licensing, Disclosure, Prohibition
As of .
What it requires
- Before making a commercial telephone solicitation call or message to a person in Oklahoma, register as a commercial telephone seller with the Attorney General at least ten days beforehand and file a $10,000.00 surety bond, unless an exemption in Section 775A.2 applies to you.
- Do not use equipment or techniques designed to block or avoid detection of your identity or telephone number by caller identification devices, and do not use automatic dialing equipment that results in more than five percent abandoned calls a day in a calling campaign.
- Allow a purchaser in a telephone sales transaction to cancel the purchase within three business days of receiving the goods, services, or property, disclose that cancellation right to the purchaser during the call, and refund all payments within thirty days of a valid cancellation.
- This registration and unlawful-practices duty does not reach a call to a business purchaser who has previously bought identical or similar goods or services from you, or the other exempted categories of caller and transaction Section 775A.2 lists.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
A violation is also a violation of the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act, under which a first criminal conviction is a misdemeanor punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment of not more than one year, or both, rising to a felony punished by up to ten years' imprisonment or a fine not to exceed $5,000.00 for a second or subsequent conviction or one involving $500.00 or more.
Penalty structure
The $10,000.00 per-violation figure is the civil penalty the Attorney General or a district attorney may recover under the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act. A consumer suing individually may instead recover actual damages, costs, and attorney's fees, plus a civil penalty of up to $2,000.00 per violation found unconscionable.
- Rule
- Per violation only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Per violation unit
- Violation
- Per violation amount
- 10,000
What this law does
A commercial telephone seller, a person who causes or attempts to cause a commercial telephone solicitation to be made, may not conduct business in Oklahoma without registering with the Attorney General at least ten days beforehand and filing a $10,000.00 surety bond.
Section 775A.2 exempts a long list of callers and transactions from that registration duty, including a person soliciting business solely from a business purchaser who has previously bought identical or similar goods or services from the caller, and sellers of securities, insurance, and real estate already regulated by their own licensing bodies.
Section 775A.4 makes it an unlawful telemarketing practice, among other things, to use equipment or techniques meant to block or avoid caller identification, or to use automatic dialing equipment resulting in more than five percent abandoned calls a day in a campaign, and requires a purchaser be allowed to cancel a telephone sales transaction within three business days of receiving the goods or services with a refund within thirty days.
A 2011 amendment, Laws 2011 chapter 369, extended the Act's definitions of a commercial telephone seller and a commercial telephone solicitation to reach a cellular telephone text message, not only a voice call.
Every violation of the registration or unlawful-practices provisions is also a violation of the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act, which gives an aggrieved consumer a private right of action for actual damages, costs, and attorney's fees, an individual civil penalty of up to $2,000.00 per violation found unconscionable, and, for the Attorney General or a district attorney, a civil penalty of up to $10,000.00 per violation.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app sends automated outreach.