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The Courts Cellphones Communications Spam The Almighty Buck

Time Warner Cable Owes $229,500 To Woman It Would Not Stop Calling 215

Posted by Soulskill from the twc-customer-service-at-its-almost-best dept.
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."
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Time Warner Cable Owes $229,500 To Woman It Would Not Stop Calling More

Time Warner Cable Owes $229,500 To Woman It Would Not Stop Calling

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  • 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: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      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")

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

    • 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

      • 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: (Score:2)

          by TheCarp ( 96830 )

          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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BVis ( 267028 )

        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

        • 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.

      • 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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pinkfud ( 781828 )
        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.
      • 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: (Score:3, Funny)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      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: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        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)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2015 @08:35AM (#50068585)
    And they will start calling her again.

  • 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      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: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      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.

    • 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 th
      • 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 minu
  • 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: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      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: (Score:2)

      by neminem ( 561346 )

      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

  • 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: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

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

  • Hello, it's Lenny! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2015 @09:51AM (#50069109)

    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)

    by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Wednesday July 08, 2015 @10:49AM (#50069573) Homepage Journal

    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: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      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

    • 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. 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      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

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

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