A federal district court judge has ruled that ringless voicemails and voicemail drops are in fact “calls” and fall within the purview of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) allowing the lawsuit of Saunders v. Dyck O’Neal, 17-cv-335, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121076 in the Western District of Michigan to proceed. The Court’s Opinion Defendant Dyck O’Neal argued that “direct drop” voicemails are not “calls” under the TCPA. His argument was based on the contention that: 1) it did … [Read more...]
Database Searches in the BellesLink App
Who was it that said, ‘everything will be mobile’? I don’t know. But if nobody has said it yet, they should, and ‘everything’ includes skip tracing. BellesLink has just added database searches to its mobile app. Never before have you been able to search databases so easily while working in the field. Now when you’re away from your computer you can still skip trace to find people faster. No more waiting until you’re back in the office. You’ve got the essential searches you need … [Read more...]
3 Reasons You Need More Phone Numbers and How To Use Them
Have you ever wondered if we will run out of phone numbers? When you look at the number of phones in the world, it seems possible. Here are some interesting facts: In 2017 the number of mobile phones users is expected to be 4.77 billion. That’s 64% of the global population. (statista.com) In the United States, mobile phone users total 266 million, or 83% of our 319 million people. (statista.com) As of 2015, 98% percent of adults in the United States own a cellphone. … [Read more...]
Your Burner Phone Isn’t Ready for Business
Many people have reason to use a burner phone. The term “burner phone” is slang that refers to a cheap, disposable pre-paid cellular phone. These phones come with their own number and are often used when someone does not want to expose their personal phone number to the pubic. Imagine you’re selling furniture on Craigslist prior to a family move; using a temporary burner phone keeps your personal number private. Burner phone apps make it possible for someone to have burner phone … [Read more...]
The High Cost of a Poor Call Impression
How much do you think about your customer’s experience of doing business with you? In today’s marketplace technology has leveled the playing field. Everyone is reading the same thing. But some businesses believe customer experience is the only thing that really matters. Despite media hype for a web-based, virtual-reality business-world, your first touch-point with a customer is still likely to be on that old standard of business communications, the telephone. There are businesses, and maybe … [Read more...]
A Better Burner Phone for Business
We all have times when our business needs to contact someone, a seller on Craigslist for example, but we don’t want to use our personal phone number. Or, maybe our business works with sensitive information, such as debt collection, financial investment, or skip tracing, and we want to keep our business identity private. In these situations business often use a regular burner phone, such as a pre-paid cellphone or a burner phone app. Both of these solutions work for occasional calls. But, they … [Read more...]
Another database won’t help find people faster. But, a faster database will.
In the business of finding people and skip tracing there is a myth about the magic-button database. The myth says somewhere there is a database so good that all you have to do is enter one search, push one button, and everything you need to know about your skip will appear. Lots of people search for this database, jumping from one service to the next, but never find it. The Truth About Data There are very few primary sources for public records data. If you subscribe to more than one … [Read more...]
Local Phone Numbers, Local Presence, Matters for Your Business
When it comes to skip tracing and the business of finding people, local presence dialing makes a better call impression and gets your calls answered more often. In fact, your calls are four times more likely to be answered when you call from a local area code. Toll-free numbers have the lowest answer-rate because people know they come from businesses. Calls from out-of-state area codes do slightly better, but still have an answer-rate that is three times less than local area codes. Your … [Read more...]
Getting Consent to Text a Consumer
In 2013, the FTC released additional rules regarding the Telecommunication Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and in these rules reaffirmed that text messages were subject to the TCPA. As text messages are sent to wireless numbers, any company sending text messages must comply with the rules regarding calls to wireless numbers, including having consent in writing from the owner of the wireless number (with a few exceptions where a text to the company may act as consent as further discussed herein). … [Read more...]
Find a Database You Hate the Least
Public records databases are a part of skip tracing. For some, databases are all they rely on. For others, databases are just one tool in the toolbox. No matter how you see it one thing is true, no database has everything. If one did, there wouldn’t be competition amongst data providers. Something else that's true is this -- new regulations and privacy concerns means the database information business is only going to become more fragmented. What You Need Most I'm always asked about the … [Read more...]
