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."

Comments

The cost of doing business

[schwit1]

They will just pass this cost and its legal costs onto the consumer. And then take both as an expense tax deduction.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Monoman]

In the end the customer always pays.

The theory is that if they screw up enough and they keep increasing costs that customers will go elsewhere. That's all nice on paper but some industries have little or no competition so the customers never really leave .. or not enough of them. Corporate/Government behavior is not likely to change unless individuals are held responsible.

In the end the customer/taxpayer always pays.

Re:The cost of doing business

[vadim_t]

This assumes customers will always pay whatever is asked for them. If TW could charge more, they already would.

Also, a tax deduction doesn't mean it's free for them. All it means they get to substract $229,500 from their taxable income. They still have to pay $229,500 out of their pocket.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Trailer Trash]

They will just pass this cost and its legal costs onto the consumer.

Of course they will. It's either that or they own a money printing press, right? I see this all the time: "they'll just pass the cost on to consumers". I'm at a loss to determine what you think the alternative would be. Every business technically passes all their costs to their customers as the customers are how they make money. When you pay your TW bill (if you have TW) then part of that bill is covering legal expenses when they screw up. Same as when you buy a can of pop at Walmart, Kroger, etc.

And then take both as an expense tax deduction.

It surprised me to find that they can deduct this. The IRS code doesn't allow deduction of penalties paid to governmental agencies, but apparently civil non-governmental judgements are deductable.

Re:The cost of doing business

[gurps_npc]

Your basic logic is almost correct. But you missed a few important details:

They will lose a few customers who quit when their bill goes up/see a cheaper plan advertised and lose a lot more customers who never switch to them because they are now more expensive than the competition.

This WILL affect their bottom line. That is how capitalism works and in their industry their is a lot of competition.

In reality this fine is not large enough to matter to the company, but the blow to their reputation is worse. It makes them look stupid and their competition can take advantage of that.

Re:The cost of doing business

[vadim_t]

And that 230k is less than a drop in a very, very, large bucket.

For the company itself, sure. For that particular department, it's probably a serious amount of cash, and is likely to get whoever gets blamed for it in trouble.

Re:The cost of doing business

[sribe]

Of course they will. It's either that or they own a money printing press, right? I see this all the time: "they'll just pass the cost on to consumers". I'm at a loss to determine what you think the alternative would be.

Reduced profits. The theory is that in a competitive market, a company's ability to pass that kind of cost to their customers is limited by competition.

Haha.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Holi]

I seriously doubt this would be considered a tax deductible expenditure. U.S. Code 162 - Trade or business expenses penalties or fines paid to any government agency or instrumentality because of a violation of any law are not deductible.

Re:The cost of doing business

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Not so easy. The precedent has been set. You can expect the ambulance chasers to get on to the game.

We all hate personal injury lawyers and their shady advertisement. But when corporations behave like this, they are the only leverage an ordinary consumer has.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Holi]

I don't think they can as this was considered a violation of the law and not a contract dispute.

Re:The cost of doing business

[cob666]

Many fines are not deductible expenses

Re:The cost of doing business

[BVis]

Lower dividends? Reduced C-level and executive compensation?

Why do you hate America?

Re:The cost of doing business

[Stewie241]

As poster above stated, there are a few alternatives:
1. Customer pays
2. Shareholders pay (in the form of less profit)
3. Employees pay in the form of not getting a raise or no increase in compensation
4. The company spends less money on other things to make up the cost

You generally don't change the customer cost too frequently - TWC most likely would not increase costs because they lost a single court case - with a market cap of 50 billion dollars 230k isn't really that much as a one off cost.

In all likelihood this particular cost would be eaten by shareholders in the form of less profit. You can't jerk employees around too much at the lower levels, and executives at the higher levels will probably just be allowed to keep playing. It isn't a significant enough amount of money to really worry about spending less elsewhere as the administrative cost to flip budgets around for such a small amount of money is probably not worth it.

In reality though, I would be rather surprised if an organization as big as TWC didn't have a budget line item at the beginning of the year for things like legal fees, penalties, court costs, etc etc. So in all likelihood, they had already planned to spend some amount of money, and this may or may not have had a big impact on that, and it may or may not cause them to go over budget on legal expenses.

If, over time, the trend of higher legal expenses continues, and overall expenses continue to increase, that would obviously factor into consumer prices. But I wouldn't expect cable/internet prices to rise because of one loss in court.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it was a court imposed penalty for violating a federal law. It just so happens the fine is to be paid to an individual, but it is still a court imposed fine due to violation of law.

Re:The cost of doing business

[TsuruchiBrian]

If they could get away with just raising consumer prices to cover this cost, they should have done it regardless of whether this lawsuit ever existed. By saying "They will just pass the cost onto consumers" you are also saying, TWC will not raise consumer costs unless they are forced to by their own costs (e.g. legal) going up. I don't think this is true. I think they are charging whatever the market will bear at any given time, and given that they have no competition, their lawsuits have no effect on the market.

Re:The cost of doing business

[hjf]

This reminds me of an internet argument i had with a major dumbass.

Here in Argentina, VAT is 21%, CC swipe fees 3% and there are a few other taxes.
This guy was offended that "he" had to pay VAT, "he" had to pay the swipe fee, and "he" had to pay for operational cost of business. I just don't understand what he wanted. Apparently, in his silly world, a business should have only a markup of 30%, and ALL business expenses should come off that 30%. I shouldn't be passing on VAT to him, and I should absorb all costs "and if it's not profitable, I should close my business".

Some people just don't understand how things work.

Re:The cost of doing business

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps the CC companies permit you to pass along swipe fees there, but in much of the world, they don't. They should probably be prohibited by law from prohibiting you from passing those fees on, but ha ha ha

Re:The cost of doing business

[Enigma2175]

Perhaps the CC companies permit you to pass along swipe fees there, but in much of the world, they don't. They should probably be prohibited by law from prohibiting you from passing those fees on, but ha ha ha

Companies everywhere pass along the swipe fees, most just do it in the price of the product. This makes customers that pay by other means subsidize credit card customers. Since many cards return a portion of swipe fees to the user essentially cash customers are putting money directly into credit customers' pockets. It's a real prisoner's dilemma, if you don't use credit cards you are still paying higher prices because of them but you don't get the money back that card users receive. Ideally, nobody would use them and prices wouldn't have inflated to pay for the fees but since people do use them then you are forced to use them as well.

Re:The cost of doing business

[squiggleslash]

To be honest, I have some sympathy with him. Not that you should swallow the costs, of course, but that vendors should publish prices that are meaningful.

The two worst offenders I've seen are US phone companies and car dealerships. Both are essentially allowed to make shit up. Indeed, the FCC regularly encourages telephone companies to do so, telling them they can cover the cost of an additional expense by adding an unadvertised fee of their own choosing to the final bills of their subscribers.

I appreciate many businesses want to advertise the lowest prices they can, but you have to recognize that from a consumer's point of view, if you advertise something as costing X, and then charge us Y, you were misleading us by saying it cost X. You, in fact, provided no useful information whatsoever to us by advertising X.

Re:The cost of doing business

[magarity]

The two worst offenders I've seen are US phone companies and car dealerships

Yep, I've had a car dealership call me repeatedly about someone else's unpaid car. Not someone I know at all; I think they either made up a number (mine) or it was a data entry error. The people calling from the dealership always took the line of "yeah sure it's not you, you're just saying that to avoid us". I had to call their legal department to get it to stop.

Re:The cost of doing business

[hjf]

You don't get it.

I'm not charging an extra 3% for CC payment. That 3% is already taken into account when I mark up my prices.

Re:The cost of doing business

[beanpoppa]

There are costs to handling cash, as well. A business pays fees for guarded transport, security guards, and higher insurance premiums if they deal in a lot of it. So, as the parent said, those CC fees are spread across the board to all customers, but think of it as a money handling fee that has applications across all methods of payment.

Re:The cost of doing business

[swb]

I wonder if it comes under:

1) a sub-entry of the legal department budget
2) a main heading entitled something like "Regulatory fees, legal compliance and civil litigation unrelated to human resources"
3) a sub-entry under "Political contributions, lobbying and outright bribes"

#3 would be nice because they could force the "governmental relations" arm to eat it and reduce lobbying payments, political contributions and bribes. This would probably be the right feedback mechanism because if their political payees want to maxmize their income they need to make sure they are minimizing their fines and penalties.

Re:The cost of doing business

[laie_techie]

Perhaps the CC companies permit you to pass along swipe fees there, but in much of the world, they don't. They should probably be prohibited by law from prohibiting you from passing those fees on, but ha ha ha

Gas stations here (in the US) used to give a discount of a few cents per gallon for paying with cash instead of a debit or credit card. Swiping a debit card generally carries a set fee per transaction while credit card companies charge a certain percentage.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Trailer Trash]

As poster above stated, there are a few alternatives:
1. Customer pays
2. Shareholders pay (in the form of less profit)
3. Employees pay in the form of not getting a raise or no increase in compensation
4. The company spends less money on other things to make up the cost

I think you missed the point, so I'll bring it up again. TW - like most profitable companies - makes all of its money from sales to customers. Therefore, for any expense that TW has the statement "the customers are going to pay for it" is true. Therefore, it's meaningless.

Let me help you:

2 Shareholders pay (in the form of less profit)

<eyeroll> Yes, that'll happen either way. The money that the shareholders earn (in the form of dividends) still comes from customers. Again - they either have a printing press for money or it comes from customers.

3. Employees pay

Yeah, and where does employee pay come from? A magical printing press in the back room, of course, that prints the money that pays employees.

Oh, wait, no, this is reality, so the money COMES FROM CUSTOMERS. <facepalm>

4. The company spends less money on other things....

(Do I have to repeat this at this point?)

The *only* other options for "who pays for this?" would be if an outside investor approached them and, for whatever reason, says "Hey, you got screwed on that court case. Tell you what, for x% of your company I'll pay that judgement for you." Put another way, they could sell extra stock (and thus devalue all existing stock) to raise the money. For a company of their size it's probably not worth it.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Trailer Trash]

Perhaps the CC companies permit you to pass along swipe fees there, but in much of the world, they don't. They should probably be prohibited by law from prohibiting you from passing those fees on, but ha ha ha

LOL, here we go again. Of course you pass on the swipe fees, unless you have a special printing press in the back that prints money to be used to cover swipe fees.

What you're missing is that all customers pay the same amount, meaning if I pay with cash part of my cash is covering other people's swipe fees. I usually pay with cash so, yeah, bit of a bummer. However, you'll find at a lot of stores on large purchases they'll bargain way better when you wave a wad of cash under their nose.

Re:The cost of doing business

[chilenexus]

What's wrong with a perfect, soul-less copy? I'm an average soul-less original.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Stan92057]

Can they? is the real question i would love to hear answered.

Re:The cost of doing business

[lgw]

And that 230k is less than a drop in a very, very, large bucket.

Maybe so, but it's enough to make the point. The lady who got harassed gets nicely compensated, and it's enough that Comcast will probably fire someone over it -- a scapegoat, of course, but that's enough to scare the guy who's really at fault and maybe fix something.

This kind of money won't result in any corporate culture change, to be sure, but it might be enough to motivate one manager to give a shit, which it likely all the problem will take to get fixed.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Stewie241]

Well sure. I guess I generally assume that when people say 'the cost will be passed on to customers' I read: 'the extra expense will result in an immediate increase in price for services'.

I mean, obviously people realize that the money ultimately comes from customers. If you presume that statement to say otherwise then you clearly misunderstand what is being said.

Re:The cost of doing business

[SeaFox]

They will just pass this cost and its legal costs onto the consumer.

Of course they will. It's either that or they own a money printing press, right? I see this all the time: "they'll just pass the cost on to consumers". I'm at a loss to determine what you think the alternative would be.

The alternative would be to take the cost of the loss and legal costs as a hit against T-W's own profits for the quarter -- that wont happen of course, cause then it would be a punishment for the company itself (and we can't have that!). But that is how these things are meant to impact companies.

Re:The cost of doing business

[BronsCon]

Comcast is Time Warner's HR department now? I thought they abandoned the merger.

Re:The cost of doing business

[lgw]

What, read TFS? You must be new here. Heh, I just assume all misbehavior is Comcast - it usually works!

Re:The cost of doing business

[BronsCon]

Honestly, I was only being half snarky. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they went ahead with the merger behind the scenes, maintaining two public faces (as though they haven't both been two-faced the whole time).

Re:The cost of doing business

[diamondmagic]

It's not quite accurate to say the money "comes from customers". Where do customers get their money? From their employers! Or their sole proprietorship, or whatever. And so on in a cycle. This description makes it seem like a positive feedback loop, but it's not.

If costs increase for a producer, that will shift the supply curve up, causing a new equilibrium price that, while indeed higher, isn't proportionally higher: The corporation will also take some losses in the form of reduced (accounting) profit, maybe even taking a loss, if that's the best they can do.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Trailer Trash]

Well sure. I guess I generally assume that when people say 'the cost will be passed on to customers' I read: 'the extra expense will result in an immediate increase in price for services'.

I mean, obviously people realize that the money ultimately comes from customers. If you presume that statement to say otherwise then you clearly misunderstand what is being said.

Uh, no. With a large established company like TW this is simply a drop in the bucket. My point stands.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Stewie241]

Sure, your point stands. But your point demonstrates a lack of understanding of what people mean when they say 'the cost will be passed on to the customer'.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Copid]

Monopoly or not, companies set their prices at the spot that they think maximizes their profits. They can't "pass on" 100% of a new cost by changing the price because that knocks them off of the spot they optimized for. They do lose something in the process. If all it took for them to grab an extra $229K in profits was to raise their prices, they'd have done it already.

Re:The cost of doing business

[david_thornley]

If TWC could get more money from its customers, it would. Assuming they're doing things right, they can't increase the amount of profit they get, because they're already at their maximum. The money comes out of shareholder value, although it will be a tax deduction.

Re:The cost of doing business

[david_thornley]

Shifting the supply curve only happens when there's an additional cost directly related to the transaction. If TWC needs to pay more per subscriber for content, that shifts the supply curve. Increasing other expenses (which applies in this case) doesn't affect the optimum price.

Re:The cost of doing business

[david_thornley]

Cut the wages of employees because they screwed up and you'll get employees who will make sure they don't screw up, by doing the minimum they can get away with. You also make the job much less attractive, so you either get a lower quality of employee (likely to make more mistakes) or you have to raise the base pay. This doesn't work.

Re:The cost of doing business

[kaatochacha]

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"

Re:The cost of doing business

[kaatochacha]

I STILL, two years later, receive calls form India for the loser who had my cell number previously, telling me I qualify for loans I applied for, or from debt collectors.
I've even received a few calls from car dealers, telling me the car he was looking at was available.
I spent some time educating them as to the reliability of "Chris".

Re:The cost of doing business

[drinkypoo]

Gas stations here (in the US) used to give a discount of a few cents per gallon for paying with cash instead of a debit or credit card.

It's interesting you mention that; many of them still do that. However, they're the only business that the CC companies decided to let do that.

Re:The cost of doing business

[Last Warrior]

I've heard this nonsense before. There is a big difference between penalizing someone for an honest mistake and holding someone accountable for breaking the law or doing something which was obviously wrong or bad. Screwing over the customer should have consequences. For the business and for the person who is responsible for making the decision to do it.

Re:The cost of doing business

[whoever57]

"they'll just pass the cost on to consumers". I'm at a loss to determine what you think the alternative would be.

Reduced dividends to stockholders. Or reduced retained earnings (which should result in reduced stock price).

Re:The cost of doing business

[KGIII]

I read the headline and I was like, "So they got drunk after a nasty breakup too? I've had court cases like that!" Then I read the article. It was kind of a letdown really. Still, I kind of feel sorry for those people who happen to have the actual numbers that I used when I give out fake numbers.

Re:The cost of doing business

[KGIII]

I believe they do pay it to the court and the court processes it and hands it to the victim. In fact, I am pretty sure of this for reasons I shall not delve into.

Re:The cost of doing business

[KGIII]

That seems rather arbitrary and a lot like 'no fun.' I think you are just making the rules up as you go along. Do you have any suggestion that this is true beyond your mere say-so? Is there a guidebook? I pay taxes, tax breaks are given the the company that hires you, you have TW Cable, your fee (which did not change) goes towards this fine, and I am paying for the fine. Or, you know, the company that bought my business did. Or, I have stock in TW and enough to get a dividend, so TW paid their own fine via exponentially decreased factors. In other words, when you say the customer paid it is just shilling and moronic because they are not paying extra for this. Otherwise, once you start down that slope you do not get to arbitrarily stop it where it fits your narrative. Logic does not work that way!

Re:The cost of doing business

[Uberbah]

In the end the customer always pays.

Facile, as prices are already set to maximize revenue, and this sum is pocket money for a corporation this size.

Re:The cost of doing business

[diamondmagic]

Consult any economics textbook. I throughly recommend it.

GP is (also) totally correct, and doesn't appear to be disagreeing with me, except to the extent we're classifying which set of rules of economics this is falling under exactly.

In fact, it reaffirms my point that costs aren't 'passed along' to customers.

There's so many variables involved we can't really cover it in a Slashdot comments section, so we're highlighting the interesting and most significant bits.

Re:The cost of doing business

[KGIII]

Perhaps my verbiage was not clear enough. I do not believe the cost is passed on to the customer. They are already charging the customer the most that they can in their given market. It is absorbed from profits, dividends perhaps, and not externalized directly. Otherwise we could say that my tax dollars are paying the fee even though I am, by no means, associated with either of the groups.

Re:Miserable?

[thaylin]

They did make her life miserable up to the point she gets that money, if she ever does.

Re:Miserable?

[master_kaos]

No kidding. $1500 per unsolicited call??? Sign me up! She is really "MAKE $20,000 PER MONTH FROM HOME!!!"

Re:Miserable?

[humptheElephant]

Sign me up too, I would like to get the A-holes who call me when I'm asleep using my own number showing me as the caller.

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

She got 229,500 USD, so they didn't really make her life miserable.

The thief had to give the stuff he stole back so he never really stole it?

It's not like they gave her 1,500 USD every time they called. If that had been the case they would have stopped earlier. The intention was to make her life miserable and not compensate for that.

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The exec's didn't do it, the corporation did, and we can't send corporations to jail, cause if we did that they'd want other rights too... like free speech (in the form of money) and religious freedom (in the form of not spending money).

Corporations are people 2.0, they have many of the benefits of being people, and fewer detriments of being people.

My son answered a telemarketer's questions

[Trax3001BBS]

He didn't see a problem with it, this while all around him were telling him to just hang up, don't talk to them.

I just happened to be visiting when he got another one, hanging up in disgust and damn tired of it; guess they sold his number as one who will talk and it was non-stop.

Re:My son answered a telemarketer's questions

[Megane]

guess they sold his number as one who will talk and it was non-stop.

And this is the most important reason to not ever talk with telemarketers aside from "please put me on your do not call list". Once you're a "live fish", your name and phone number are worth more money to them. Even more so when a "charity" (real or fake) cold-calls you, and you actually give them money. (of which they probably took at least 80% for "expenses")

Re:My son answered a telemarketer's questions

[AK Marc]

I just quietly sit there, letting them talk. Wastes their time and money, and I'm usualy not doing anything important, so ignoring the phone is easily multi-tasked.

Though you highlight the real problem. The numbers are traded. Bob's telemarketing company will start up. It buys a list. The list is "bad", having lots of "please remove me from your list" people. Though, legally, since they didn't tell that to Bob, he can call them. If they tell them to take them off his list, he's banned by law from calling them again, but perfectly legal to sell that list on to someone else with the name on it. So a "do not call" person can legally be called 1,000 times from the same list, so long as they are from 1000 different companies.

The law didn't account for bad actors. Someone trying to break a law can often find a way to circumvent it without breaking it.

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that every exec will tell you "the buck stops here, the reason I get paid so much is because I have all the responsibility". Are you saying they *don't* have all the responsibility?

Re:Miserable?

[tomhath]

Some low-level customer support person didn't do what they were supposed to do in order to stop the calls. We hold the corporation responsible, but this kind of thing is almost always caused by the laziness or stupidity of someone in a cubicle somewhere and by that person's manager not following up to ensure what was supposed to be done was actually done.

Invade Bangladesh!

[Applehu Akbar]

If we can find out which province "Rachel from Card Services" and "Windows repair tech" are from, I'm rich.

Re:Invade Bangladesh!

[cdrudge]

If we can find out which province "Rachel from Card Services" and "Windows repair tech" are from, I'm rich if I ever figure out a way to collect it.

FTFY

Re:Invade Bangladesh!

[e3m4n]

Ironically I got another 'Rachael from Card Services' call earlier while posting to this very thread! That particular scam sells your CC info to a group in Palestine. Probably buying more iranian missiles. I always press 1 and say the most offensive things I can that I think will rattle them...

everything from "hold on, let me put down your grandfather; err i mean this hamburger" .. to
"The prophet Muhammad is a fucking pussy. Fuck him and fuck your credit card scam. I'm drawing a cartoon of him right this very minute.. its funny because in this cartoon he's sucking off a camel and chocking on it at the same time!"

they usually hang up as quickly as possible. its not like I actually did draw him, my drawing skills are so poor that they are more offensive than my creative insults; but they dont know that.

Re:Invade Bangladesh!

[narcc]

they usually hang up as quickly as possible.

Who wouldn't? They probably assumed you were mentally ill. Even low-life scammers have their limits.

There will be a mix up

[jfdavis668]

And they will start calling her again.

Re:Miserable?

[tompaulco]

Sign me up, too. At $1500 per call, I will make on average about $9,000 per day from illegal telemarketing calls. I am on the DNC list, both my home phone and my cell phone and I get calls on both every single day from telemarketers. It is not my duty to tell them I am on that list. It is their duty to check that list. I report them to the FCC from time to time but most of the time they are caller ID spoofing and the FCC never does anything about it. However, it ought to be easy enough to follow the money. You can be sure they are not bank account spoofing.

Where's mine?

[freak0fnature]

$1500 per call..I get 3 calls a day from spammers -n- scammers, wish I could get them to pay up.

Re:Where's mine?

[Quirkz]

spammers -n- scammers, wish I could get them to pay up.

That's your problem. Get called three times a day from a genuine business that can be pulled into court, and you're golden. The scammers probably aren't even based in the same country you are, or at the very least (if they're smart) they don't keep their money there.

Re:Miserable?

[MickyTheIdiot]

This is possibly the stupidest post I have ever seen on slashdot, including all the ancient trolls.

Execs take "responsibility" when things go right and pass the buck when things go wrong, then they fail upwards when things REALLY go wrong. It's a new form of aristocracy. If you don't realize that then you're just one of the idiotic drones accepting today's idiotic corporate culture.

Re:Miserable?

[Pinky's Brain]

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.

Re:Miserable?

[MickyTheIdiot]

It wasn't a one off event. It sounds like irresponsibility throughout the organization, from training on up.

I know you corporate butt lickers will never agree, but the fine was justified. Possibly not enough.

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The person in the cubicle almost always wants to help out - it's very rare that I've come across anyone who doesn't actually care - but the problem often lies with the way that support incidents are handled. I work in a company which at the moment has five different ticketing systems, and some of which have queues that are the same in all five, but only monitored in one. A cubicle person may happily escalate to second line, who then escalate to where they believe it should go and the... black whole!

These are the places where the buck does stop with the execs. By not structuring their business in such a way that allows complete interoperability, they are the cause of these issues.

One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was bizarre

[sirwired]

I get those "Microsoft" support calls a couple times a month... I usually cuss them out and hang up the phone, like I imagine most computer-literate people do. (That job has gotta have a high turnover rate...)

Well, a few months ago, one called me, identified himself as being from "SpeedyPC" (points for not pretending to work for Microsoft, I guess...), and I did my usual string of expletives and slammed down the phone. The *bleep!*-er called back! I let it go to machine. He does it again. I let it go to machine. He does it a third time, and I pick up because I need the line open for business purposes. He begins to scold me for being rude to him! WTH? He knows he's a scammer, I know it, he knows I know it, so why on earth is he wasting his time letting me know how mean I was to him? He tries to argue with me about how he's going to "prove" my machine is infected or something...

Don't these people have call stats to meet like any other telemarketer? Why did he take time to call me back? How was that ever going to work?

Re:Miserable?

[sribe]

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.

Re:Should have revoked their license.

[OhPlz]

You don't need a license to make phone calls..

Re:Should have revoked their license.

[Megane]

You need a license to make phone calls now? Please tell me where I can get one so that I can keep calling my pet fish Eric. He gets so lonely when nobody calls.

Re:Miserable?

[sjames]

They did make her life miserable. The $229,500 is supposed to compensate that, or in legal terminology, make her whole again. Ideally, the net result is that whatever they did is more or less undone, so that would be about right.

Assuming they ever pay up, that is.

Re:Miserable?

[sjames]

I believe the AC wrote that between the lines.

I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services...

[adric22]

I get a call every single day on my cell phone from a robocall company called "Cardholder services" and sometimes they go by "cardmember services" and they refuse to stop calling me. They've been calling me every day for almost 2 years now with a pitch to lower my credit card interest rates. I have threatened them with everything from bodily harm to legal action. Nothing seems to help. They just call me back the next day and the cycle repeats. I guess they figure if they didn't get my business the first 600 times they called, maybe if they just call me 601 times, that will do the trick.

Dang.. I should be in for some BIG settlement from these guys if Time Warner had to pay up...

Re:Miserable?

[Sponge Bath]

For Time Warner it is a purposeful, long standing choice and not a knee jerk reaction. You don't get something this pervasive and long lasting without an overall corporate culture that promotes it. There is a reason their frequent billing mistakes are always in their favor: they aren't mistakes at all.

Re:Miserable?

[TheRhinoplast]

I think that's called Mulholland Drive Syndrome. You have a real problem...

Male Hair Removal

[Errorcod3]

One of my previous phone numbers was a phone number for a business that closed. That wonderful business was for Male Hair Removal. So I had random men and wives calling me for hair removal which led to some awkward conversations!

Re:Male Hair Removal

[Nidi62]

One of my previous phone numbers was a phone number for a business that closed. That wonderful business was for Male Hair Removal. So I had random men and wives calling me for hair removal which led to some awkward conversations!

You should have told them that the previous business had closed and you run a new business for Mail Hare Removal and then proceed to ask them how they would like the body disposed of and your shipping options.

Re:Male Hair Removal

[neminem]

That is *way* better than the problem we faced last year, which took many months of sleuthing to fix: our phone number had somehow gotten wires crossed with an honest to god escort service in Canada somewhere (we live in California, not even the right *country*). Don't ask me how, I don't know, and neither did the phone company when we eventually managed to track down the source of the real number. We would have several calls a week (some weeks several times a day) requesting to know whether specific hooker-sounding female names were "available" right now. And of course it took forever to get any information out of these clients as to who they were trying to call and how they got our number (at first we thought it was just wrong numbers, *eventually* we got enough information from the callers to piece together what was really happening).

Loads of fun, but not really the same, since the people calling *were* looking for a (I assume?) legitimate business in the location they were calling, and it wasn't at all their fault, nor the fault of the business in question, that it was being mistakenly redirected to our number. Was pretty hilarious, though. When I finally tracked down someone capable of fixing it at the phone company responsible for the mixup, he laughed for like a minute straight.

A good start

[sjames]

Now, the FCC needs to get motivated and hunt down all of these annoying callers before they render the telephone completely useless.

How about making *something auto-report the last call. The caller ID may lie, but the phone company has the real call data and can log it for prosecution on request.

Re:A good start

[e3m4n]

true, the callerID field and the RNIS are two separate attributes of a calling record.

Re:A good start

[Cramer]

You mean ANI? Unless you have a digital line (ISDN PRI or BRI), you don't get ANI.

VoIP systems tend to blindly forward whatever the caller provided.

Hello, it's Lenny!

[Tokolosh]

Fight fire with fire. Let Lenny talk to them and amuse us at the same time.

https://youtu.be/m674Hq7-tyQ

Re:Should have revoked their license.

[mark-t]

Obviously you don't need a license to make phone calls that aren't for solicitation purposes... but otherwise, isn't that what a telemarketer's license is for?

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like being taxed without a right to vote?

Re:Miserable?

[AthanasiusKircher]

The exec's didn't do it, the corporation did, and we can't send corporations to jail, cause if we did that they'd want other rights too

I know this is sarcasm, but I don't understand how this stuff gets modded up as "insightful."

Being an employee or member of a corporation in no way absolves an individual of CRIMINAL responsibility. Many corporate employees and executives have gone to jail over the years when they have committed criminal acts in the name of a corporation. In fact, being part of a corporation often opens up people to "conspiracy" charges, even if they aren't individually culpable, so being a corporate executive actually can open more avenues to prosecution.

Of course the reality is that executives are less likely to be convicted of serious crimes -- but that's because they're often rich and can afford better lawyers, not because they are legally less responsible for criminal action.

In any case, this was NOT a criminal action, so your misleading statement is completely irrelevant. This was a civil lawsuit, and this woman probably received significantly more in monetary damages than she would have if an individual had harassed her... so once again, it seems the corporation actually opens up a greater avenue for legal culpability than for an individual.

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[mark-t]

I have threatened them with everything...

How do you threaten a robocall, exactly? In my experience, you never get to talk to a live person without explicitly taking action to do so (which initiates a voluntary agreement to have a dialog and therefore does not constitute an unsolicited call).

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[pr0fessor]

I got a couple of those.. At first I would pretend I was going through OS X or ubuntu and would tell them I don't have that feature then describe what it looked like, but it stopped being fun so I started telling them "but I don't have a computer" this would make them hang up almost immediately.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[BVis]

I have fun with those shitbags. I play the dumb grandpa who only knows "The Internet" and "The Google" and couldn't find the start menu if his life depended on it. Endless fun. They ask for something, you deliberately give them the wrong information. I've kept some of those twits on the line for an hour before I finally let them know that I know they're a scammer, that the "ID" number that they're giving me is the same on every windows PC, and that I've been deliberately wasting their time so they don't have that time to go rip someone else off.

If I don't feel like playing that day, I just tell them I don't own a computer. That *really* confuses them.

Re:Should have revoked their license.

[OhPlz]

That's a state thing and not all states have them, and you're assuming the call centers are making any effort at all to stay within the law. Most still don't even send proper caller id information. Plus there's always the cute trick of using a call center outside the US.

Re:Miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sue the phone company for allowing caller ID spoofing then.

They don't have to allow it. They certainly knows who really made the call, or they would not be able to bill them.

Re:Miserable?

[e3m4n]

the argument can also be made that by paying someone a living wage, your selection process of who you hire goes up and you get less morons looking for a paycheck while doing almost nothing. So albeit a moron dont-giva-shit employee caused the problem, the corporation is still liable because it was their personal greed that led to the environment of shit wages to begin with. Much like Edison Electric laying off their entire IT staff and hiring H1B Visa replacements hoping to save $40k per employee. The guys at the top make a 8 - 9 figure salary and they have problems paying someone else even a 5 figure one. I have no sympathy for them. Sympathy falls between Shit and Syphilis in the dictionary.

Re:Miserable?

[chispito]

They did make her life miserable up to the point she gets that money, if she ever does.

Miserable? Seriously? I get far more than 153 unsolicited calls a year so I just don't pick up long distance area codes I don't recognize. Getting a call once every two days doesn't make a normal person miserable.

Re:Miserable?

[Jason Levine]

Corporations are people 2.0, they have many of the benefits of being people, and fewer detriments of being people.

Corporations are people the same way pigs are animals in Animal Farm.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

corrective action would be swift...

[Lead Butthead]

corrective action would be swift if you deduct that 229k off the CEO compensation.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[TheCarp]

I heard my mother getting nasty with them on the phone.... "Windows doesn't call people!"

So I stopped her, and said "You know how you annoy me by asking vague questions? why don't you do it to them, just, pretend to be following their instructions and keep claiming its not working".

We used to work at the same company, one day the head of the helpdesk called me up and said "I just got off the phone with your mother"

He then told me how he spent an inordinate amount of time, and had to send a tech out, because he couldn't get her to plug the ethernet back into the wall.

He just fell silent when I asked the one question: "So, did she even bother to tell you she is practically blind?" Guessing she didn't.

I haven't checked in on it but, I do hope she has turned her power to good.

Re:Miserable?

[Jason Levine]

Agreed. This wasn't one unwanted call resulting in a $229,500 judgment. It was a series of calls with the woman telling them to stop calling and that the person they were trying to reach wasn't at that number. They even kept calling after the lawsuit was filed. In short, Time Warner Cable has some seriously mucked up telemarketing practices and didn't care enough to clean them up. Maybe this judgement will jump start some discussions in the company to fix this.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[andrewbaldwin]

Slightly poor taste but....

A friend of mine got one of the calls and when they said he had a virus he cried out -- "It isn't Ebola is it? I was emailing a chap from Nigeria who's going to send me money" and continued on with calls off to an imaginary person nearby to fetch disinfectant and discuss whether it was worth replacing the whole PC or get a new keyboard.

He appeared to have worked himself up ino a right state.

Apparently he was so convincing he had the scammer seriously worried and trying to calm him down from his hysterics :-)

Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

Many companies on this planet suffer from the same inability of updating their CRM databases, no matter which country or culture. Perhaps a planet-wide alien attack is on the way, and they are testing our defensive lines by randomly canceling updates to our CRM databases.

Re:Miserable?

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'm not a big fan of punitive damages payable to the victim. (In my country there's no such thing; there are fines payable to the state, and actual damages payable to the victim, with very small amounts being paid for unquantifiable stuff like "mental anguish"). I'm also not a big fan of people landing a huge payday because of a small "jackpot" mishap or being slighted in some small way by a large, rich company.

However, I am in favour of strict anti spam laws and rules against robocalls. $1500 per unlawful unsolicited call does not sound excessive to me, either as a fine paid by the company or as a sum received by the victim. I wish we had a similar law. But yes... if you are going to call someone 150 times, even after the person points out that you have the wrong person, then you are going to pay the fine 150x. Simple math.

Re:Miserable?

[hjf]

Man, envy is such a horrible thing.

You must be ANGRY at Bill Gates. I mean the amount of money he has, and you, here, a fucking lowlife, whining about a woman that managed to beat the kind of company that screws you every day of the year, and you just whine but do nothing about.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[Pinkfud]

Those people are impossible. I've tried telling them everything I have runs Linux, I've told them I know Windows does not report viruses to Microsoft, once I even posed as a Microsoft employee and tried to get him to tell me where they are. All of that gets the current caller to hang up, but it doesn't stop the next idiot from calling. Obviously there's no communication between the various people who run this scam.

Re:Miserable?

[hjf]

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.

Add SIT tones to your voicemail

[emil]

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.

Re:Add SIT tones to your voicemail

[bughunter]

The Lifehacker article describes the process, but fails to provide a link to an actual tone, and the site referenced in plaintext no longer has the tone.

But Wikipedia does. The proper tone is IC_SIT.ogg

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[SuiteSisterMary]

I once told a Toronto Star phone salesman that I didn't need a subscription, as I was illiterate. He then argued with me that I couldn't be.

'OWES' is the operative word.

[tekrat]

Corporations like Time Warner truly believe they are above the law. They will not pay this woman. Ever. In fact, my bet is that they will SPEND $500,000 or more, to avoid paying $299,000 -- and here's why -- Time Warner's lawyers will advise the company to appeal, appeal, appeal, because if they pay, it will open the door to more lawsuits.

Instead, if they take a hard stance, and essentially, run the plaintiff into the poorhouse on legal fees, they will come out the winner in a war of attrition.

And then also, they will lobby for more Tort reform in Washington DC, so that consumers/citizens *never* have legal recourse against abuses by the ruling class.

Re:'OWES' is the operative word.

[e3m4n]

and this is why losing appeals should come with a consideration of steeper penalties. Perhaps a court ordered suspension of services for 5 days would do the trick. "TWC, you are ordered to close your doors for no less than 5 days. You are to provide no phone service and no Cable video or internet services." I would deliberately pick a 5 day period that fell on either NCAA playoffs, World Series, Superbowl or something equally high profile. Imagine how pissed off you would be as an innocent consumer if you knew that because your provider was such a fucking asshole they literally got an injunction which impacted nearly everyone you know. Their revenues would go down, people would call in and wait for hours demanding credit on their bills, some people would leave their contracts and get internet or phone service from another provider that might be less at risk of having such injunctions slapped against them.

Re:'OWES' is the operative word.

[blind biker]

And that's why justice is for the rich, in the US. If you have enough money, you are effectively above the law.

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[e3m4n]

see my previous post of things I do...
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

I think if enough of us press 1 and tie up their call center, and on top of that spit out the most vile offensive things we can concoct, then we may eventually get all the employees to quit. 1 or 2 crazy assholes like me per day isnt so bad. If 5000 people a day opt to press 1 and spit out massively offensive verbal abuses, that will be something like death-by-a-thousand-cuts.

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[Rigel47]

Here's what I do.. change your attitude. Every time they call, get out a stop watch. Start it the moment someone starts talking. See how long your can keep them on the phone before they hang up. Keep track. Learn delay strategies. Your credit card is in the other room. Hold on, you need to look up how much you owe. Finally, tell them you need to sign for a package. Mute the phone, put it down, get on with your day.

Or, if you're feeling irritable, string them along for a while and then tell them this is what you do - every day. "Talk to you tomorrow!"

Oh, and fuck you FCC for being so damned useless.

Re:Miserable?

[Krojack]

How the hell do some of you people get so many of these spam calls? I've had my cell # for a good 10 years and I'm shocked to get 2 spam calls a year.

Re:BS

[e3m4n]

thats only because a collection agency is regulated by the FDCPA which explicitly lists requirements and punitive action in the amount of $1000 per violation for non compliance. Sending someone a letter, fax, email that says "do not call me" is defined as a cease and desists. They must then ONLY use US Postal mail for delivery. Verbally saying you cannot take calls at work and this is your work number also counts as a C&D for the work number only. Most collection agencies spend massive time training people about the requirements of the FDCPA because they can lose their asses very fast. They are often small businesses of fewer than 20 employees and they had to register a bonded cash deposit with their secretary of state. If you win in court you get that money straight away and they have to re-bond to retain their business license. TWC could give a shit. Not only are they a billion dollar corporation, but they have half the senators and congressmen in their back pockets. Its hard for the NSA to spy on you all the time if the phone companies are not helping you spy on their customers. This is also why all the anti-competitive behavior against smaller ISPs has been ignored and downright OKd (see verizon removing copper from customer property so competitors cannot even provision services). This is partly why they have this culture of this sort of behavior. There is no telling what sort of murder they are capable of getting away with when the Obummer spying programs depend so heavily on their cooperation.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[freeze128]

I strung one along for a while when he called me. He asked me to take a look at my computer (I have several), so I chose the one running freeDOS. He asked me to look at my desktop with all the icons and I said "I don't HAVE any icons". This caused him to transfer me to a 2nd tier technician. I'm not going to wait on the line for someone I don't want to talk to, so I hung up. That's when the 2nd tier guy calls me back (I ignored it - go to VM) THREE TIMES.

Re:two certainties in life...

[Khyber]

Settlements and court awards are generally not taxable as income.

I certainly didn't have to pay taxes on any insurance settlement I got into from accidents. I didn't have to pay taxes on the check EA cut me when I sued their ass.

Each time, I asked the lawyer "Do I need to claim this on taxes?"

"No." was the answer I got in return.

Re:Miserable?

[chispito]

How the hell do some of you people get so many of these spam calls? I've had my cell # for a good 10 years and I'm shocked to get 2 spam calls a year.

I don't know but I'm guessing it only takes being on one list and then you're on all of them.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[swb]

I know it's wrong and I will go to hell for it, but when I get a spyware plant Microsoft support call I usually try to play dumb for as long as possible to keep the guy tied up (I'm kind of paying it forward to someone down the list who may not get called because I kept the guy going).

Once i get bored with that or they get irritated with me and it's obvious the caller is from South Asia, I start to get insulting. Some guys won't just hang up on you, they try to bully you and that's when I get really cruel and drag out truly offensive insults -- "So I hear you upgraded your residence recently, you moved from a cardboard box to a tin shanty. How's that working out? Are you still eating insects or have you moved to a fresh rat diet? Your wife, has she freshened her dot lately, or is it the same old faded one she's had for a while?"

If I get that far, the guy is usually really wound up and spewing profanity as fast as he can mentally translate it. One guy threatened to kill me and I told him that the CIA would be interested to know that he's probably a terrorist and might want to watch those drone stike videos on YouTube for a preview.

I know, it's awful, the worst kind of Americanism possible, but I figure these people are the scum of the Earth and deserve no quarter.

Re:Miserable?

[e3m4n]

hacked SIP accounts are a vast majority of these sources now.

I should do this

[kimvette]

I should do this. At my place I get calls about every other day from bill collectors. They're trying to reach the person who had the phone number previous to me. I explain that the person they are looking for is not here, that I have had the phone number since December, and they need to update their records and stop calling me because they are wasting both their time and mine. They refuse to update their records, so maybe I should cash in on it? If it's worth a couple years' salary... it'd be a hell of a nice bonus. :-)

Re:I should do this

[e3m4n]

get more information about the bill collector. If its not a direct creditor, but a actual collection attorney or agency, fax them or mail them a Cease & Desist letter telling them to never call you again in accordance with the FDCPA [15 USC 1692c] article 805

(b) COMMUNICATION WITH THIRD PARTIES. Except as provided in section 804, without the prior consent of the consumer given directly to the debt collector, or the express permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, or as reasonably necessary to effectuate a postjudgment judicial remedy, a debt collector may not communicate, in connection with the collection of any debt, with any person other than a consumer, his attorney, a consumer reporting agency if otherwise permitted by law, the creditor, the attorney of the creditor, or the attorney of the debt collector.

(c) CEASING COMMUNICATION. If a consumer notifies a debt collector in writing that the consumer refuses to pay a debt or that the consumer wishes the debt collector to cease further communication with the consumer, the debt collector shall not communicate further with the consumer with respect to such debt, except --

(1) to advise the consumer that the debt collector's further efforts are being terminated;

(2) to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor may invoke specified remedies which are ordinarily invoked by such debt collector or creditor; or

(3) where applicable, to notify the consumer that the debt collector or creditor intends to invoke a specified remedy.

If such notice from the consumer is made by mail, notification shall be complete upon receipt.
(d) For the purpose of this section, the term "consumer" includes the consumer's spouse, parent (if the consumer is a minor), guardian, executor, or administrator.

if they continue to call you can file suit in your local federal court against them for $1000 fine per time they violate it. Either they violated 805(c) and call you after a C&D or they refute that you are defined as a 'consumer' iaw 805(d) in which case they, under oath, admit to knowingly 805(b) and continue to contact you as a third party. Either way its $1000 per violation opting for 813(2) under civil liability.

Re:Miserable?

[chispito]

You have it exactly wrong. I don't get angry because I ignore the calls.

This made my day

[ggraham412]

Thank you Judge Alvin Hellerstein for not automatically siding with mega corporations over their hapless customers.

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[PraiseBob]

I practice my role-playing and voice acting. One day I'm grandpa fumbling for a card, and yelling at children in the yard, the next day I'll practice my french accent and talk about cheese. The fun part is seeing how far you can go before they give up. The trick is to respond to questions in a way in the first few minutes that make them think they've got a big fish on the hook, then slowly escalate the absurd responses. "My mistress demands I hurt myself thrice daily with this card. Please hang on a minute while I remove it from the spot of punishment." I consider it a victory if I get them to lose their temper and cuss me out.

Re:Miserable?

[lgw]

What you meant to say is that the SCotUS granted Corporations all the benefits of citizenship, with none of the responsibilities.

This is such bullshit, and I wish people would stop repeating this urban legend. The only way in which "corporations are people" is in that laws restrict "person or persons" restrict corporations as well (which had nothing to do with the SCOTUS, and is good thing).

What the SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld is that people don't lose their first amendment rights when they form partnerships or tightly-held corporations (as the latter are effectively partnerships). You don't lose the right to free speech, or the right to freedom of religion, or the right to peacefully assemble, just because you start a business.

None of that applies to public corporations like Comcast in any case: not that it stops them from abusing the system to bribe congresscritters in other ways, but that's a very different problem than Citizens United, and conflating the two issues doesn't help fix anything!

The plenty to be pissed about the SCOTUS shredding the constitution, especially this past couple of years, without making up false distractions.

My experience

[laie_techie]

My cell has been on the NDC list for over 10 years, with me verifying its status every year. Somehow a company got a hold of my name and cell number and called me up offering a free sample of some product. They hung up as I was in the middle of telling them I had no prior experience with their company and that I am on the NDC list. They did not give me time to demand to be removed from their calling list. Same company called back four times, and only on that last call did they not hang up before I was able to request to be removed from their calling list and threaten to report them for not honoring the DNC list. I was unable to determine how they got my information. It's now been three weeks without hearing from them (knock on wood).

Re:My experience

[Skapare]

wow, the scumbags actually have a "yes, really delete" button.

Re:Miserable?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

What the SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld is that people don't lose their first amendment rights when they form partnerships or tightly-held corporations (as the latter are effectively partnerships). You don't lose the right to free speech, or the right to freedom of religion, or the right to peacefully assemble, just because you start a business.

Nobody claimed that the people would lose their first amendment rights. The question was whether said partnership/closely held corporation had first amendment rights of its own.

I believe the corporate entity should not have any religious rights (unless the primary purpose is to facilitate religion, like a church.)

Re:Miserable?

[lgw]

The question was whether said partnership/closely held corporation had first amendment rights of its own.

No, that's just it: that was never the question. A partnership isn't "an entity on its own" when it comes to civil rights, it's a few people who run a business. Just as a few people can individually buy political ads, the same people can pool their money to buy a single, bigger political ad. You need some kind of joint accounting for that, some way to have a checking account where the money is pooled, so a partnership or (tightly held) corporation is appropriate: that was exactly the Citizens United case.

I believe the corporate entity should not have any religious rights

You have the right not to be compelled to act against your religious beliefs (the right to do nothing) by the government, unless the government can show both a compelling state interest is being server, and that the law that compels you is the narrowest possible law that serves that interest. In other words, if the government is going to force you to do something that you think is Evil, the state needs to prove it has no other option.

You don't lose the above-stated right when you form a partnership or (tightly held) corporation, and in that case forcing the business to do something is the same as forcing you to do it, as you are the business. That's what the Hobby Lobby case was about. That doesn't apply to "normal" corporations, where you're just buying some ticker symbol - even if you're on the board, it's still not "your company" in the same way that it is with a partnership, and so you do lose that right against compulsion.

In none of these cases has any right been assigned to a corporation, instead it's the rights of small groups of people who directly own and manage a business are still protected.

Re:Miserable?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Why shouldn't the victim, who took it upon themselves to seek justice (instead of the state) and their lawyer be compensated for that benefit?

Re:Miserable?

[david_thornley]

That lazy or stupid person was acting as a representative of the corporation and was hired by the corporation to do that job, and the corporation allowed bad management. We hold the corporation responsible because the corporation is responsible. If the corporation doesn't want to be responsible for what stupid employees do, it needs to do something about those stupid employees.

Re:Miserable?

[bughunter]

No, thank you, Princess Projection of Ironica!

Re:Miserable?

[bughunter]

we can't send corporations to jail, cause if we did that they'd want other rights too...

Umm... clearly they want all of the rights and none of the obligations or liabilities. Even the biggest corporate penalties ever, the Deepwater Horizon fines levied against BP, are not any worse in the context of the companies earnings than a good spanking would be to an 8 year old. How is this justice, when the amount of damage they caused (workers killed, cleanup costs, fishery collapses, etc.) that would have put an individual person in jail for life?

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[hey!]

It's a scam that's been shut down, but it's impossible to put a nail in its coffin because it's not one company doing it. The FTC tracked down a bunch of companies at the start of this year and forced them to fork over $700,000 in compensation, and it didn't even make a dent in the volume of calls.

"Cardholder service" scams are low success rate, high volume affairs which require only a small number of people to run and thus are easy to shut down and start up again under a different corporate entity. The only way to stop them is to make all low success rate, high volume telemarketing businesses intrinsically unprofitable, and the only way to do that is to charge for all calls.

This can be a nominal amount that wouldn't interfere with normal calls, it just has to be enough to deter calls that have very little chance of accomplishing anything useful. Ten minutes of a US minimum wage employee's time will cost a company $1.20, so let's set the level of pain at less than 1/10 that: every time a call is connected, $0.10 should be deducted from the caller's account and credited to the recipient's account. That way parties that call each other equally will tend to come out even.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[bughunter]

Well, it appears he was right.

Re:Miserable?

[Last Warrior]

If the company is mismanaged, has bad policies or has employees that do wrong or bad things, who should be held accountable? Just because the person might want to be helpful, it doesn't change the fact that company is doing something wrong. Should the victim of that bad behavior bear the brunt of it and just accept it as part of normal business? Should they be forced to change their phone number and all the other things that go along with that including updating all their accounts and making sure anyone who might want to contact them for the foreseeable future is aware of the number change. Where does the burden here lie?

If a company is not willing to address problems in their organization in a timely professional manner, then they need to be held accountable and face the consequences for that.

In this case, the person was being harassed. People have a legal right to not be harassed. Harassment is a pretty specific thing with a pretty strict definition. And this definitely falls under that definition. Is it good enough to just say, don't be a dick to people and you probably wont run into these types of issues.
 

Re:Miserable?

[whoever57]

Some low-level customer support person didn't do what they were supposed to do in order to stop the calls

Initially, yes, but what about the calls that happened after she initiated her lawsuit? None of the lawyers asked if the calls were continuing? None of the bosses asked if the calls were continuing? This wasn't just a low-level f*ck-up.

Re:Sheesh

[KGIII]

Most (technically all) lawyers that I know, who work on contingency, take 1/3 or a pre-set dollar amount or even 1/3 after a pre-set amount or just 1/3 of a pre-set amount with no earnings over that et amount. I know none that take 2/3rds. I do not know all liars, only some liars. I am not a lawyer, I certainly am not your liar, and this does not constitute legal advice or an agreement between us. I have a strange amount of lawyer/liar friends. I would say that I am not sure how this happened but, really, I know exactly how this happened. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Re:Miserable?

[Uberbah]

This is such bullshit, and I wish people would stop repeating this urban legend.

Your projection is noted, as is your self-contradiction:

What the SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld is that people don't lose their first amendment rights when they form partnerships or tightly-held corporations

Except that's the very conflation he was talking about. Mitt Romney has free speech rights under the Constitution. Bain Capitol does not.

Re:Miserable?

[Uberbah]

I'm not a big fan of punitive damages payable to the victim.

Uh, why? Comcast wasn't harassing the people of the state, it was harassing this specific individual.

. I'm also not a big fan of people landing a huge payday because of a small "jackpot"

So you want the fine to be utterly meaningless as a deterrent to future action by Comcast? Let me guess: you also don't like class action lawsuits, to rule out many people getting smaller amounts of money, on the other end of the scale.

Re:Miserable?

[JaredOfEuropa]

In all but a few cases, the victim would call a consumer rights organisation, a state oversight committee, or even simply the police. From that point the organisation or state would take over.

The chance to win large sums in punitive damages, or even in settlement, combined with ambulance chasers and lack of a "loser pays" system leads to a system where people are encouraged (and do) file large claims for the most ridiculous things, in hopes of winning the jackpot.

Re:I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services

[AK Marc]

In my experience, you never get to talk to a live person without explicitly taking action to do so (which initiates a voluntary agreement to have a dialog and therefore does not constitute an unsolicited call).

Your experience is wrong. No action you take after they call can make that call soliscited. Your logic is that you must explicitly authorize the call and caller before you can request to be taken off their list. That's the opposite of reality.

Re:Miserable?

[Skapare]

New Jersey Bell did this back in the 1970s, i one of my bills to be over by just one penny. when i called to complain, the most common response i got was "it's just a penny". i often countered with "it's just a penny". it took about 40 calls before someone credited my account for $0.01.

Re:Miserable?

[Skapare]

the stockholders get to vote.

Re:One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was biza

[Skapare]

how do you figure that? you do know THIS IS Slasdot?

they will ....

[Skapare]

... terminate the outbound call department in whole and outsource it all to a scammer in another country.

Re:Miserable?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Uh, why? Comcast wasn't harassing the people of the state, it was harassing this specific individual.

Correct, and in this case you might say the fine is for actual damages (being troubled by unsollicited phone calls). If I read it right, the fine is $500 per call, and it got tripled because the company kept it up even after the lady filed suit. Again 150x the crime = 150x the fine. All payable to the lady. That's not excessive, that's just how it works (you don't get volume discounts on fines apparently), even though personally I would gladly put up with 150 robocalls for that amount.

So you want the fine to be utterly meaningless as a deterrent to future action by Comcast? Let me guess: you also don't like class action lawsuit

I am not saying the amount should be lower. I think $500 - $1500 per call is ok, and as I said, it's also ok for it to go to the victim. What I am against is huge punitive damages, meant to financially hurt a company, to go to the victim. If a company through wilful omission causes you to be in the hospital for a year, you're certainly entitled to all medical bills paid, recompense for lost wages during and after the year, and a goodly sum for mental anguish (losing a year, basically). But not millions of $ on top of that. If the company deserves a fine, why should you get that money, if you have already been adequately compensated?. Recompense the victim generously, but let punitive fines go to the state, so that people aren't encouraged to make a grab for the company coffers every time a little mishap befalls them. That is what our law states: compensation and fines are strictly separate things.

By the way, I haven't said anything about class action cases. Laws in our country don't really cater for them but that is changing, and I think it's a good thing. The problem is that in many such cases, it seems that the claimants come away with a pittance; the real winners are generally the lawyers.

Re:Miserable?

[lgw]

I don't know much about Bain Capitol, but the SCOTUS has not "found" any rights for public corporations. Partnerships on the other hand (and tighty-held corporations, which are really a kind of partnership) have the rights implicit in the partners. A partnership can buy a political ad, just like the individuals can, and after all you need some way for a group to pitch in to collectively fund an ad buy. The individuals in a partnership have the same rights under the RFRA as they do as individuals: the government must clear a high bar before compelling you to act against your religious beliefs. None of that applies to "normal" corporations, because it's too abstract and diffuse.

Re:Miserable?

[stoatwblr]

"most of the time they are caller ID spoofing"

This is a criminal act all in itself.

The things to do are

1: record all your inbound calls
2: string them along long enough to find out the name of the company that they're repsresenting.

The TCPA allows you to go after _both_ the company which called you AND the company which hired them. The former may hide but the latter can't - and once you have them in court they can be forced to name who they hired.

Re:Miserable?

[stoatwblr]

"the fine was justified."

For those who object to this (and some US judges have refused to hear TCPA cases on the basis that they're unfair to businesses, which _always_ results in their butts being kicked if appealed upwards)

The amount is $500 - low charge, but a small claims slamdunk.
The amount is tripled if knowingly done - anything after being told to stop, or calling a DNC listed number is knowingly.

The FCC itself can levy a $11,500 fine PER CALL if it weighs in and has done to take out various industrial-scale operations. Unlike regulators in some countries, they can and _have_ gone after outfits based outside the USA and achieved shutdowns.

The law is deliberately and explicitly written with per call damages to take out the likes of Sanford Wallace - it was actually written specifically with him in mind - companies can fight large value claims, but the death of 1,000,000 papercuts is devastatingly effective at bringing companies to heel.

The TCPA came in over 25 years ago. Some companies are skirting around it by forging their origins, but imagine how much worse the problem would be if that law wasn't there.

What amazes me is that despite all these millions of calls, telemarketers don't occasionally dial someone unhinged and determined enough to hunt them down and murder the entire call centre.