In a Press Release dated June 27, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that certain amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) have taken effect. Your BBB® would like to let readers know about the new amendments which prohibit payment methods “exploited by con artists and scammers.”

According to the Press Release, the FTC blog, and the FTC as of June 13, 2016, it is now illegal for telemarketers to ask consumers to pay for goods or services using the following four types of non-conventional payment methods:

  • cash-to-cash money transfers such as MoneyGram and Western Union provide
  • PIN numbers from cash reload cards such as MoneyPak, Vanilla Reload or Reloadit packs
  • using remotely created checks (RCCs)
  • using remotely created payment orders (RCPOs).

The FTC finalized the amendments late last year, and in the Press Release announcing the finalization, Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said “Con artists like payments that are tough to trace and hard for people to reverse. The FTC’s new telemarketing rules ban payment methods that scammers like, but honest telemarketers don’t use.” New FTC guidance regarding the amendments warns consumers that if a telemarketer requests payment using any of the above-mentioned methods, it is a scam because those payment methods are now illegal.

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