DOJ and 4 States Want $24 Billion In Fines From Dish Network For Telemarketing (arstechnica.com)

walterbyrd writes: The DOJ as well as Ohio, Illinois, California, and North Carolina say that Dish disregarded federal laws on call etiquette. US lawyers are asking for $900 million in civil penalties, and the four states are asking for $23.5 billion in fines, according to the Denver Post. 'Laws against phoning people on do-not-call lists and using recorded messages allow penalties of up to $16,000 per violation,' the Post added.

Comments

Steals your time

[Etherwalk]

The difference is that telemarketing steals your time in a way you can't reallocate. It's a much more significant intrusion than junk mail, and much more inconsiderate. And it is used much more frequently by very disreputable companies who hide caller IDs, refuse to give you real addresses, pretend to have preexisting relationships with you, etc...

Basically the sheer quantity of fraud combined with the much greater intrusion make it an appropriate area for regulation. The phone companies should be preventing it but don't. So long as the phone companies won't, governments should.

Re: Too Bad

[Entrope]

There is a serious collective action problem here. Between caller ID spoofing, robo-calling, callers refusing to identify their company or who they are calling on behalf of, and outright fraud, it is all but impossible to establish a TCPA violator's identity well enough to stand up in court, and then it is practically impossible to enforce any judgment. The time and effort it takes to win money is more costly for most people than what they could collect in a civil case.

Awesome, but...

[flopsquad]

So, it's fine they're going after a big company for being robocall jerks.

I get a bunch of these calls every week and... it's never once been Dish. It's always these sleazy scam operations with "Stop what you're doing I can make you ten thousand bucks" or "The FBI says there's a break-in every 8 minutes." I know it's only anecdotal, but no one I know who complains about annoying robocalls has ever mentioned Dish, it's always scammers.

I don't doubt that Dish has abused their phone privileges. But while this (unrealistic) fine in the tens of billions of dollars is big headlines for these AGs, maybe before they tear a ligament patting themselves on the back, they could also do some (less glamorous but more impactful) work against these mom and pop scam outfits?

Re: Too Bad

[JoeMerchant]

Some of this is cat and mouse... whatever system is used to identify them is circumvented, when that circumvention no longer works a new one is devised. If a company gets nailed badly enough, they declare bankruptcy and continue on in another corporation using slightly improved evasion methods.

Re:Lots of money

[Greyfox]

I put a corporate death penalty up on the whitehouse.gov petitions a couple years ago. Got something like 3 signatures. It was even less popular than the one where I suggested that members of Congress should be required to use VA hospitals until the problems with VA hospitals are solved. A couple veterans I know were pretty gung-ho for that one.