Background

In July 2007, the US House of Representatives was considering an identity theft bill (HR 3997). The bill pitted consumer advocates against list vendors, credit bureaus, and banking interests who wanted limited notification in the event of identify theft.

Our client, a leading consumer advocate organization, wanted legislation guaranteeing consumer notification when a company or government agency loses personal information. They also wanted to provide consumers the right to place a security freeze on their credit files in the case of lost information.

Our goal was to generate enough pressure on members of Congress to delay the legislation until after the summer recess in order to give our grassroots activists an opportunity to influence Congressmen when they returned to their districts.

We used an inbound, automated operator patch through system to aid consumer activists in reaching out to their representatives.

Our system sorted the callers by their area code and three digit exchange, automatically matched them with the appropriate congressional office, and patched the call through to the receptionist on Capitol Hill.

During our campaign, 1,871 callers were patched through to the offices of 400 different Congressmen from coast to coast. The House Leadership got the message from the rank and file members and decided not to move HR 3997 to the floor for a vote before the summer recess.