The Federal Trade Commission has approved changes to its Business Opportunity Rule that will ensure that consumers have the information they need when considering buying a work-at-home program or any other business opportunity. The changes simplify the disclosures that business opportunity sellers must provide to prospective buyers. The simplified disclosures will help prospective purchasers assess the risks of buying a business opportunity, while minimizing compliance burdens on businesses. In addition, the Final Rule, which will be effective on March 1, 2012, applies to business opportunities previously covered under the Rule, as well as work-at-home offers such as envelope stuffing and craft assembly opportunities. The final Rule requires business opportunity sellers to give consumers specific information to help them evaluate a business opportunity. Sellers must disclose five key items of information in a simple, one-page document: the seller's identifying information; whether the seller makes a claim about the purchaser's likely earnings (and, if the seller checks the "yes" box, the seller must provide information supporting any such claims); whether the seller, its affiliates or key personnel have been involved in certain legal actions (and, if yes, a separate list of those actions); whether the seller has a cancellation or refund policy (and, if yes, a separate document stating the material terms of such policies); and a list of persons who bought the business opportunity within the previous three years.
That last one seems like it would be a list that other unscrupulous sellers would use as a target list.
"...ensure that consumers have the information they need when considering buying a..." As Brownster said... a list of previous users???? Available to every prospective purchaser??? WTF???
It just dawned on me that if your Privacy Policy says you will keep your customer's identity secret you will need to change it to allow for listing your past customers under this new regulation.
Yeah, need to add something like, "except where required by law" but that might as well be in the policy anyway. That last requirement still surprises me. I could see making the list available upon request, but to give that information over to every prospective buyer brings up several concerns. First, a customer list is usually one of a businesses most prized assets. To force companies to give it away seems unusual. Second, what real value does some list of names versus say a number of buyers provide to other prospective buyers? Basically, it will just be a random list of names. I am not sure how a list of 30 names helps anymore than informing a prospective customer that 30 people purchased this opportunity over the last 3 years.
Like browntwn I don't know what good a list of names would do for the consumer. However, a list with contact info would allow the consumer to check references. Therefore, I wanted to check the regulation itself to see if the list of previous customers was to have contact info. However, when I tried to read the actual regulation I got to a page with this message: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/business.shtm The Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Business Center website, run by the Federal Trade Commission, was hacked on February 17, 2012. The FTC takes this malicious act seriously. The site has been taken down and will be brought back up when we’re satisfied that any vulnerability has been addressed. Therefore, I could not read the regulation itself on the ftc.gov page.
The link :http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/business.shtm: now returns a 404... was anyone ever able to read the regulation to determine if the customer list needs to provide complete contact info? Personally I find it rather ironic, as most people do not want their contact info shared. Billy