Last week, New Jersey’s Governor, Chris Christie (R), signed a bill which will allow telemarketing companies to make sales calls to mobile devices when the call is made to a customer with whom an existing relationship exists or in response to the customer’s written request.

While many companies focus on complying with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), companies who conduct outgoing calling campaigns cannot overlook states law which may be more restrictive that the TCPA.  New Jersey’s law for example, applies to all telemarketing calls, regardless of the whether or not an automatic dialing system is utilized.   To fall within the TCPA, companies need to utilize automatic telephone dialing systems to make the calls in question.

The signed bill (S.1382) immediately amends N.J. Stat. Ann. § 56:8-130, New Jersey’s do not call law, to prohibit only unsolicited telemarketing calls to mobile devices.  Prior to the amendment, all telemarketing calls to mobile devices, regardless of whether an automatic telephone dialing system was used, were prohibited unless the call was from a commercial mobile service company to its customers and related to the company’s mobile services.