Seller and telemarketer

Under the Telemarketing Sales Rule a seller is the party whose goods or services are being sold, and a telemarketer is the party that makes or takes the call. They are roles, not company types, and one business routinely occupies both at the same moment. The distinction decides who has to be able to prove what when a call is questioned, which is why it sits at the front of the Rule rather than in a contract.

Two definitions, written around conduct

A seller, at 16 CFR 310.2(ee), is any person who, in connection with a telemarketing transaction, provides, offers to provide, or arranges for others to provide goods or services to the customer in exchange for consideration. A telemarketer, at 310.2(hh), is any person who, in connection with telemarketing, initiates or receives telephone calls to or from a customer or donor.

Three words in those sentences do most of the work. Both open with any person, so the two roles stack rather than compete. Arranges for others to provide reaches a party that never funds the loan itself. And receives means the telemarketer role is not limited to dialling: a person taking the call back is inside the definition too.

Neither definition mentions an agreement, a purchase order, or who paid whom. They describe what a party does. That is the whole reason the question of who answers for a call is settled by reading these two sentences rather than by reading a supply contract.

Source: 16 CFR 310.2, definitions of seller and telemarketer, read in full on 20 September 2026 in two independent copies that agreed word for word: the current text from the eCFR and the annual-edition XML at govinfo.gov. Those texts support the two definitions quoted above and nothing further. They say nothing about contracts between businesses, and no such statement is made here beyond the observation that the definitions do not contain one.

The paragraph letter moved in January 2025, the wording did not

A 2024 compliance note citing 310.2(gg) for the telemarketer definition was correct when it was written. At 89 FR 99075, published 10 December 2024 and effective 9 January 2025, paragraphs (gg) through (ii) were redesignated as (hh) through (jj) so that a new (gg), technical support service, could be inserted. Telemarketer became (hh). Seller has been (ee) throughout, and the text of both definitions is unchanged.

This is worth checking before quoting any TSR paragraph letter from memory. The annual print edition and the live eCFR disagree on the letter today while agreeing exactly on the sentence, so a citation can be stale in its address and sound in its substance at the same time.

Why the registry exemptions are drafted around the seller

When a number is on the national register, 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B) allows the call only if one of two things can be demonstrated, and both are facts about the seller: that the seller obtained the express agreement in writing of that person, or that the seller has an established business relationship with them. The party doing the demonstrating may be the telemarketer. The fact to be demonstrated is still about the seller.

The company-specific request in 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(A) is keyed the same way, to the seller whose goods or services are being offered. So a caller working several products can be inside the register rules on one and outside them on another, depending on which seller the call is for. The register itself is covered in national do not call registry.

The defence after a mistake is drafted more broadly. Under 310.4(b)(3) a seller or telemarketer will not be liable for violating 310.4(b)(1)(ii) and (iii) on conditions tied to the seller's or telemarketer's routine business practice, which is set out in do not call safe harbor.

Source: 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(A), 16 CFR 310.4(b)(1)(iii)(B) with its arabic clauses (1) and (2), and the lead-in of 16 CFR 310.4(b)(3), read 20 September 2026 at ecfr.gov and confirmed against the govinfo.gov XML of the same part. The redesignation is stated in that XML's effective-date note for 89 FR 99075. These texts support only which party each clause names. The six safe harbor conditions themselves are set out on the safe harbor page and are not restated here, and the FCC's separate rules at 47 CFR 64.1200 were not read for this page, so no FCC term or figure appears on it.

A third party who is neither can still be reached

16 CFR 310.3(b) is headed assisting and facilitating. It makes it a deceptive telemarketing act, and a violation of the part, for a person to provide substantial assistance or support to any seller or telemarketer when that person knows or consciously avoids knowing that the seller or telemarketer is engaged in conduct violating 310.3(a), (c) or (d), or 310.4.

Read the direction of that sentence carefully, because it is the part most often reversed in summary. The liability attaches to whoever supplied the assistance, not to whoever received it. The provision does not make a buyer answer for a supplier's conduct on its own.

Two further limits sit in the text. The list of predicate violations is 310.3(a), (c) and (d) and 310.4; 310.3(b) does not list itself, and it does not list 310.5 or 310.6. And the Rule nowhere defines how much help is substantial, so there is no threshold to quote and none is quoted here.

What this means before you dial a purchased record

If the loan is your product, you are the seller for that call. If you or your dialler places it, you are also the telemarketer. Most desks buying leads are both, and it is the seller half that carries the register questions above, because that is the party the exemptions name. The mechanics of the call itself, including the two-second connection test, sit in abandoned call.

A vendor agreement allocates money and indemnity between two businesses. It is a real instrument and worth reading. What it is not is an input to either definition above, because neither definition asks about one.

What these sections leave unanswered

No figure appears on this page and that is deliberate. The Rule counts nothing: not how many callers one purchased record produces, not how often assistance has been found substantial, not what share of calls draw a complaint. Figures of that shape circulate widely and, when traced, land on vendor blogs rather than on any document you can open. There is no primary source for them, so there is no number here.

Source: 16 CFR 310.3(b), the assisting and facilitating provision, read in full on 20 September 2026 in the same two copies: the eCFR current text and the govinfo.gov XML, which agreed word for word and both carry the provision at paragraph (b). It supports the knowledge or conscious avoidance standard, the direction of liability toward the person providing the assistance, and the closed list of predicate sections. It supplies no definition of substantial, no dollar figure, no count and no percentage, which is why none is printed above.