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Dish Network Violated Do-Not-Call 57 Million Times

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.

7 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Most calls not really from Dish by Brad1138 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most of the calls are from telemarketing companies that sell Dish, not Dish themselves. I work for an authorized, small local company that sells and installs Dish (and DTV). As we see it, the biggest problem in the industry is telemarketers that sell the systems and then don't care at all about the customer. These unethical companies are the ones breaking the laws, but Dish looks the other way as long as they are sending them lots of business.

    The sad thing is, it is very possible Dish will do away with all retailers to help fix this problem, and the small, ethical, local retailers will get thrown out in the wash... This is the complete livelihood for the 5 of us that own and work at our company. We handle some large accts like our state capital, entire state prison system, state University medical center (to name just a few). My boss has built a great little company, it will be very sad to see it taken away as a result of this. This is actually quite scary, we all have over 15 years of our lives invested in this company.

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    1. Re:Most calls not really from Dish by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Most of the calls are from telemarketing companies that sell Dish, not Dish themselves.

      Who cares? They retained those companies and then didn't do any checking up on them, or they did and they let it continue. Either way, they're responsible.

      The sad thing is, it is very possible Dish will do away with all retailers to help fix this problem, and the small, ethical, local retailers will get thrown out in the wash...

      Well, to be fair, Dish are massive spammers. What's ethical about the massive volumes of spam that they snail mail out?

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  2. The Irony of Law by JimSadler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Despite the fact that dish Network is superior to 99% of the telemarketing companies due to the fact that Dish network actually delivers a product instead of simply taking your money and delivering nothing they are the ones that get hammered by the law. The sick part of this is that the DOJ prosecutes only a dozen or so telemarketing companies a year and they go after the ones that can pay large fines exclusively. That leaves the merry bands of thireves who are less succesful free to keep ripping people off endlessly. And unlike other issues this one is easy to solve. Each town should advertise to get homes that voluntier to be honey pots that record each and every phone call into the home. That way they could raid every telemarketing room in the US if any laws are broken at all in the solicitation. Usually the people who actually do the calling are not aware that they are commiting major crimes. The managers and owners are the ones that need to be in prisons. I've even seen an unskilled and unkowning grandma made the room manger as the room new they would be raided. The old woman had no clue and was convicted of felonies. One Nation Under God With Idiocy And Injustice For All.

  3. Re:Cardholder services by Sable+Drakon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or perhaps we should change caller ID schemes? Instead of showing the number that the headers are spoofing, have CID show the actual billing number. That can't be spoofed as easily as the CID headers are.

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

    would take an insanely huge fine to scare away investors

    Isn't that what I was suggesting. A fine of say $3 billion structured over 10 years wouldn't put them out of business, but it would be an ongoing 30% hit to earnings. Even if you think they were going to double or triple before, that will significantly hamper growth just coping with the need to come up with the outgoing cashflow. You'd likely see a longterm 20-30% hit to the stock price. Pension and mutual funds don't just shrug that sort of thing off -- their analysts and decision makers have to look smart quarter-by-quarter -- and will do something about gross executive incompetence of that sort.

    I've worked at 2 different companies where the CEO was fired, along with most of the top execs. In one case, most of the board was fired too. CEOs live in fear of that sort of thing - they give 0 shits about what you or I think, but they know who their actual bosses are.
     

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  5. Re:= $912,000,000,000 by crbowman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bull. Levy a fine larger than the market cap of the company (or even greater than the assets.) When they can't pay the company as a whole can go into bankruptcy and the government can be awarded the company as a whole functioning intact corporation (if they don't get it all they can get enough to control it). There is no reason the company needs to be broken up, it's a working functioning corporation. As the now largest owner the government can fire several high level employee including the CEO, dissolve the board and sell all shares to the public. Low level employees with no connection to the crime can continue to work. A functioning profit making concern continues to exist and the shareholders and bond holders get zero'd out, thus providing them with incentive not to be so passive and allow a corporation to do shit like this again next time. The government gets money in the end. It's a win-win-win!

  6. Re:Cardholder services by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What constitutes fraud is the reason for the spoofing. You're doing the spoof to make sure that people know who you are and can find you easily by maintaining a level of contact consistency. This is the exact opposite of fraud in that you are spoofing your number to maintain consistency in your identity to others. Fraud is using these techniques to misrepresent and obfuscate yourself to others in the attempt to perform some form of malice.