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Time Warner Cable Owes $229,500 To Woman It Would Not Stop Calling
HughPickens.com writes: Reuters reports that a Manhattan federal judge has ruled Time Warner Cable must pay Araceli King $229,500 for placing 153 automated calls meant for someone else to her cellphone in less than a year, even after she told them to stop. King accused Time Warner Cable of harassing her by leaving messages for Luiz Perez, who once held her cellphone number, even after she made clear who she was in a seven-minute discussion with a company representative. Time Warner Cable countered that it was not liable to King under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a law meant to curb robocall and telemarketing abuses, because it believed it was calling Perez, who had consented to the calls. In awarding triple damages of $1,500 per call for willfully violating that law, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said "a responsible business" would have tried harder to find Perez and address the problem. While Time Warner argued that they were unaware King ever asked to be on the company's "do not call list," Hellerstein determined, "there is no doubt King made this revocation." He wrote that the company "could not be bothered" to update King's information, even after she filed suit against TWC in March of 2014. The judge said 74 of the calls had been placed after King sued and that it was "incredible" to believe Time Warner Cable when it said it still did not know she objected. "Companies are using computers to dial phone numbers," says King's lawyer Sergei Lemberg. "They benefit from efficiency, but there is a cost when they make people's lives miserable. This was one such case."
They got a summons in march ... so at least legal was involved as well, knee jerk reaction of "customer is always wrong" won this woman the lottery.
No kidding. $1500 per unsolicited call??? Sign me up! She is really "MAKE $20,000 PER MONTH FROM HOME!!!"
Sure. Find them, track down their info, hire a lawyer, invest months of your life. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying it's usually a lot of work for a smallish payoff. It's very unusual that one company with a traceable location and actual ability to pay makes 100+ calls to the same person.
They aren't mistakes AND they're so small, most people don't bother. Bill an extra "wrong" $5 every month to 10 million customers, though, and what do you get? A few thousand people calling about that charge, and getting it as credit in their next bill, and the rest of the millions just paying it without noticing.
I moved my long-time landline to my cell several years ago, and I could not get robocallers to leave me alone, even after several years on the do not call registry and regular complaints. It was particularly annoying when parts of their ads ended up as voicemail messages.
I finally added the tones for a disconnected/no longer in service number to the beginning of my voicemail message, and the calls are drastically reduced, and I haven't had such an intrusive voicemail yet this year.
I've always felt that, as punishment, large corporations should be obligated to add a 5 second spot to their advertisement saying something embarrassing about themselves, such as "we're time warner, and we cheat our customers"