I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000 • Hacker News Board

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#11

Post by alain94040 » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well.

Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering such a service? If I ever use the magic number, the transaction is perceived to go through, but it's actually tracked and no money is exchanged. Not sure if it's doable with respect to Visa and Mastercard networks.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#12

Post by yaix » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #8

> Although manually dialing is very rare, many of these regulations do not apply to manually dialing. Followed by > I already had three violations on my hand, but I knew I could get two more pretty easily. The next day, I called the alarm company and asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list, and asked for a copy of their Do Not Call policy. A few days later, David called me again – violation number four. So…

I think you just totally missed the point.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#13

Post by michaelrkn » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:07 PM UTC

_sentient wrote: post #7

It would be nice if the author had laid out some examples of how telemarketing can be done correctly, without breaking any laws and risking this sort of response. Hopefully we will see a followup post that explains how Impact Dialing gets away with it, but I suspect that they benefit from all the fear and uncertainty.

Hi Sentient. We actually mainly work with political campaigns, which are exempt from the regulations. I don't think we benefit from the uncertainty; it makes it difficult to explain to potential customers what is and isn't legal, and we turn away clients sometimes because they aren't familiar enough with the laws to know what's legal and what's not.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#14

Post by michaelrkn » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

alain94040 wrote: post #11

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well. Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering suc…

Thanks to Voice over IP, this is pretty much impossible to regulate any more. The telephone networks were built on a trust model that VoIP destroyed. Now, you can originate a call on the internet that's nearly impossible to trace.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#15

Post by michaelrkn » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #4

The first call after he goes on the DNC is clearly a violation. The calls thereafter, when he's stringing them along...not so sure. Once you start saying "I'm interested, tell me more"...I think the company has a fairly solid claim of having a business relationship...if not legally, certainly ethically.

That's why I didn't sue for any of the calls after I talked to a rep - only the automated calls, and the call that came after I asked to be on the DNC list.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#16

Post by pavel_lishin » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:10 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #4

The first call after he goes on the DNC is clearly a violation. The calls thereafter, when he's stringing them along...not so sure. Once you start saying "I'm interested, tell me more"...I think the company has a fairly solid claim of having a business relationship...if not legally, certainly ethically.

What about the very first call? That's certainly a violation as well.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#17

Post by pavel_lishin » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

eslachance wrote: post #6

(Edit: please ignore the following line, I misread. Kept for posterity.) The title is incorrect. He threatened to sue but didn't actually do it. Which I'm all for. (/Edit) I received, just yesterday, a call from a company claiming they could reduce my credit card interest rate to "up to 0%", but it was obviously a scam as he said he worked both for Visa and Mastercard, claiming it was "the same company and they both…

He most certainly sued:

> I wrote back giving them the dates and caller IDs of the calls, and when I didn’t hear back in a week, I filed my suit.

He just settled out of court before appearing in front of a judge.

> Wish I could find the nerve to do this myself.

Why don't you? What do you have to lose, aside the time trying to track them down?

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#18

Post by corin_ » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

michaelrkn wrote: post #10

corin_ wrote: post #8

> Although manually dialing is very rare, many of these regulations do not apply to manually dialing. Followed by > I already had three violations on my hand, but I knew I could get two more pretty easily. The next day, I called the alarm company and asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list, and asked for a copy of their Do Not Call policy. A few days later, David called me again – violation number four. So…

Hi Corin. I asked to be on their internal DNC list, and several days later, they called me again. That's illegal. Don't you think companies should have to respect your requests to be put on their DNC lists? I mean, if you unsubscribed from an email list and kept getting emails, wouldn't you be upset?

He was in the middle of legitimate conversations with you.

You have a product yourself, if I contacted you and implied I was interested in becoming a customer, and we got to talking about it over the phone, would you look up your DNC list every single time before calling me just in case I had, since we last spoke, contacted a colleague of yours to be put on it?

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#19

Post by reader5000 » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:14 PM UTC

Main culprits in this nonsense are the phone companies who profit off it at their customers' expense. It's basically like cable tv where you're expected to pay to watch commercials.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#20

Post by xxiao » Fri, May 25, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

like this. i was bothered by a caller so much that I had to switch my phone to a new number. yes I'm on the do-not-call list, but the calling company, or more likely some agent it contracts, does not care. the company is named italkBB and i was also getting calls from dish network for months after i ended the contract with them. there is Dell too, after i bought laptop from it i started t o get calls from them, I told them I'm not interested in their calls, but once a while i still get the call, guess it's because i was a customer?