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Dish Network Violated Do-Not-Call 57 Million Times

Posted by samzenpus on from the please-stop-calling dept.

lightbox32 writes Dish Network has been found guilty of violating the Do Not Call list on 57 million separate occasions. They were also found liable for abandoning or causing telemarketers to abandon nearly 50 million outbound telephone calls, in violation of the abandoned-call provision of the Federal Trade Commission's Telemarketing Sales Rule. Penalties for infringing on the Do Not Call list can be up to a whopping $16,000 for each outbound call.

14 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This will continue until the principals in the companies are either sent to jail, castrated, or both. Fines don't seem to work, in the rare cases where any are imposed.

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    1. Re:Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The principals are disposable, interchangeable, replaceable. Fines big enough to cause a shareholder revolt will have a lasting effect, on more than just this company (as the large shareholders of Dish are likely large shareholders of many other companies). Fine em a significant percentage of the market cap of the corporation, and that will leave a mark.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re:Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by 31415926535897 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The principals are disposable, interchangeable, replaceable.

      Just curious, if this is true, why are they paid 100x more than anyone else in the company?

    3. Re:Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They knew the law and they knew how many calls they were making...

      They should fine them $1000 per call * 57 million calls = $57 billion.

      Prohibited from releasing any employees or managers, altering policies, disposing of any property, or stopping any ongoing business operations in order to pay any portion of the fine. Any amount that cannot be paid in cash within 5 business days, to be settled by constructing a trust and transferring all remaining equity in the company to the trust, with the government assigned secure debt convertible in part or in whole to common shares on demand at any point in time, having value equilvalent to the greater of the number of shares valued at the deficit amount today and the number of shares valued at the deficit amount on the day of conversion.

    4. Re:Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just curious, if this is true, why are they paid 100x more than anyone else in the company?

      They aren't. There's a normal "power curve" distribution of salaries. You have to understand that CEOs (and to a lesser other extent senior execs of larger companies) are professional entertainers, just like movie actors and professional athletes, and you'll find the same salary distribution in each of the three groups. Sure, they entertain investors and analysts instead of the hoi polloi but even so.

      Sometimes the CEO is a founder, of course, and then his real compensation is as a major shareholder, and any salary is just number games, but when it's not there's a bidding war for those seen as the best. If you can make a company of 100,000 people just 1% more productive than the next guy, how much is it worth to the stockholders to get you instead of the next guy? Of course, it's often illusion, but that's just a risk factor in that calculation.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:Suitable Penalties Need To Be Given by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just curious, if this is true, why are they paid 100x more than anyone else in the company?

      Because if you price a product too low, people think it's not worth anything.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Re:In related news by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And we only need another 20 to do it to solve the debt problem.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  3. Re:= $912,000,000,000 by hermitdev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Market Cap of Dish Network is roughly $34B, so the max potential fine is roughly 30x what the company is worth. If levied, it means *poof*, gone. Won't happen. There will be a fine, but I'll be surprised if it ends up being more than even $30M.

  4. Re:= $912,000,000,000 by pete6677 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep. Dish is surely "too big to fail". Large corporations simply cannot be effectively punished. They fund enough political campaigns that legislators will have a definite interest in making sure no truly harmful penalty is ever inflicted on a big company.

  5. Make an example of them. by JDAustin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fine them to the max and if they shut down, they shut down. That will wake up the rest of the corps that do this.

  6. Re:Cardholder services by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It should be illegal to spoof caller ID. It's fraud. Lying for gain. They know that their real number would get blocked/ignored.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  7. Re:Cardholder services by Nkwe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It should be illegal to spoof caller ID. It's fraud.

    Fraud is already illegal. Perhaps we should enforce that.

  8. Re:.912 Trillion dollars. by davester666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actual penalty: $57.00

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  9. The real problem... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is that the phone company is allowed to let callers lie about their identity via caller ID.

    If all commercial calls could be incontrovertibly tied to corporate officers, a lot of this nonsense would end quickly.