Time Warner Cable Owes $229,500 To Woman It Would Not Stop Calling 215
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."
My son answered a telemarketer's questions (Score:2)
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.
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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")
Invade Bangladesh! (Score:2)
If we can find out which province "Rachel from Card Services" and "Windows repair tech" are from, I'm rich.
One of those "Microsoft Support" calls was bizarre (Score:3)
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 t
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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.
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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
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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
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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 hi
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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
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FTFY
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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 ve
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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 (Score:5, Funny)
I get a call EVERY DAY from cardmember services... (Score:2)
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 firs
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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).
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see my previous post of things I do...
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... [slashdot.org]
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.
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Or, if you're feeling irritable, string them along for a while and then tell them th
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Male Hair Removal (Score:2)
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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.
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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
A good start (Score:2)
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.
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true, the callerID field and the RNIS are two separate attributes of a calling record.
Hello, it's Lenny! (Score:4, Insightful)
Fight fire with fire. Let Lenny talk to them and amuse us at the same time.
https://youtu.be/m674Hq7-tyQ [youtu.be]
'OWES' is the operative word. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 k
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And that's why justice is for the rich, in the US. If you have enough money, you are effectively above the law.
I should do this (Score:2)
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 ni
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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 e
This made my day (Score:2)
Re:Miserable? (Score:5, Insightful)
They did make her life miserable up to the point she gets that money, if she ever does.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:Miserable? (Score:5, Funny)
No kidding. $1500 per unsolicited call??? Sign me up! She is really "MAKE $20,000 PER MONTH FROM HOME!!!"
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hacked SIP accounts are a vast majority of these sources now.
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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:Miserable? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Re:Miserable? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Miserable? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Miserable? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Corporations are people the same way pigs are animals in Animal Farm.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
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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.
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I believe the AC wrote that between the lines.
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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
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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:The cost of doing business (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Add SIT tones to your voicemail (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [lifehacker.com] 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:The cost of doing business (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:two certainties in life... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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.
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Re:The cost of doing business (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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 likelihoo
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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
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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 prin
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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.
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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 c
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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
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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 [wikipedia.org], 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 woul
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you hate America?
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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 wors
Re:The cost of doing business (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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corrective action would be swift... (Score:2)
corrective action would be swift if you deduct that 229k off the CEO compensation.
Re:The cost of doing business (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't need a license to make phone calls..
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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.
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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.
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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 peo