Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
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.
Do you have ESP?
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.
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.