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I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

impactdialing.com

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

#31

Post by crusso »

reader5000 wrote: post #19

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.

So you want the Phone Companies to get involved in policing the content of the calls that are made?

When you order a phone line, should the Phone Company put you through a detailed and exhaustive screening process mandated by their lawyers because they've been sued for the contents of calls that some of their customers have made? Should they then be allowed to monitor your calls for violations of their AUP? I mean, if they're responsible for the content of your calls then they need to be able to monitor them, right?

No, I completely disagree with you. Phone Companies aren't responsible for how their communication channels are abused any more than road builders are responsible for the getaway of bank robbers who use roads.

Cable Companies' are a little different. Mainly because they tend to be the carrier of the content, the creator of the content, and the beneficiary of both. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that in many areas they have a government-enforced monopoly on the biggest data pipe into our homes.

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

#32

Post by TwiztidK »

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?

It's not the same as a mailing list at all. It was person-to-person contact between David and yourself. Although it appears that the law was violated when you were called by David, he was simply following up on your interest in his company's products.

Honestly, I feel like you are totally abusing the law in this situation. At the first available opportunity, you should've asked to be placed on their DNC list without expressing false interest in their products. Then you would've been in the right by sueing for the first an all subsequent calls. It seems that you went about this in the most malicious way possible, even going so far as to essentially trick them into violating the law.

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

#33

Post by DanBC »

corin_ wrote: post #18
michaelrkn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes.

That's the entire point of sanitising your lists. When someone asks you to stop calling them you remove their number and stop calling them.

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

#35

Post by tlrobinson »

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…

I got a call that went something like this:

Them: hi I'm blahblah and I'm calling about your credit card

Me: is this about one of my existing cards?

Them: yes

Me: which one?

Them: all of them

Me: click

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

#37

Post by michaelrkn »

eslachance wrote: post #28
pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Oh I misread that as "I threated to sue if I didn't hear back in a week". Oops, sorry, my bad. As for trying it myself, I guess it's simply because whenever I get into such a situation, I lose my nerve, butterflies invade my stomach, and I can't think straight. Just calling Visa to try to report it gave me the same kind of jitters, I really hate it. I will, however, report the information I have in my possession to m…

The best place to report illegal calls is http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm. Your local police department probably won't have any idea what to do with the complaint. Good luck!

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

#38

Post by hermannj314 »

corin_ wrote: post #18
michaelrkn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In his post he links to the Code of Federal Regulations. It allows for mistakes to be made by the business.

This is what I read: It says: you can't call someone that says "Don't call me" However, if you have a written policy to try your best and follow the law and generally your business follows the policy, then you are not liable for violating this rule if it was a simple mistake.

So the case of David calling him back a few days later may have been an honest mistake. But the if the business did not have a written policy in place, have training of the policy, maintain a list of DNC numbers, etc. then they are liable for the mistake.

That's how I understand it. So it seems the law is forgiving for businesses that are trying to follow the law. But I am not a lawyer, so my reading comprehension skills are worth very little.

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

#39

Post by michaelrkn »

thesis wrote: post #22
michaelrkn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Political robocall campaigns are absolutely NOT exempt in every state. It's kind of odd that you'd make the initial post about how people need to do robocalls right and then you make a blanket statement how political campaigns are exempt.

You're right about robocalls, but we primarily deal in live phone calls, dialed by a computer but connected to a live person ("predictive dialing" or "power dialing"). These calls are almost always legal for political campaigns.
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