First Caller-ID Spoofers Punished

coondoggie plugs a NetworkWorld story that begins, "The first telemarketers charged with transmitting false Caller IDs ... to consumers were fined and barred from continuing their schemes by a New Jersey District Court judge.... [T]wo individuals and one corporate defendant have been barred from violating the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule and its Do Not Call requirements ... They were also found liable for $530,000 in damages ... [T]he case was the first brought by the Commission alleging the transmission of phony caller ID information or none at all."

and if you rtfa

[way2trivial]

you find out they don't have it and are only paying 45,000 in fines..

Re:Jesus Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

Gives us legitimate telemarketing companies a bad name.

And yes there are those of us that don't believe that pi55ing off 1000 potential customers to get 1 low value sale is a good idea.

Qualitative based projects where the communication itself can add value to the prospect is what works (this is somewhere between customer service and sales)in particular where the person has expressed an interest already and telemarketing is following up.

Re:and if you rtfa

[wvmarle]

Also according to tfa the original fine is based on gross revenue. That means all income, before cost. Of course a fine has to be punitive, but gross revenue that of course no-one can pay. Many costs have to be deducted, starting of course with their telephone bills.
Great to hear a telemarketer getting fined though. Irritating lifeforms.

Re:I hope that this set precedent...

[smooth wombat]

I always hoped that, even if my individual complaints weren't looked into, maybe they would aggregate complaints, and investigate the bigger offenders.

Last year, out of the blue, I received an envelope from our Commonwealth's Attorney General. My first thought was, "Huh. They finally caught up to me. Took them long enough."

I opened the envelope and inside was a letter and a check. The letter indicated that sometime back I had submitted a complaint to them about someone who had left repeated messages on my answering machine even though I was on the DNC list. After investigation, the company was fined and the check represented my portion of the settlement amount.

The federal list might take longer but at least in my case, Pennsylvania does investigate marketers who do not observe the list and penalizes them.

You're probably wondering about the check, aren't you? It was more than $10 but less than $100. Enough to fill up my tank a few times back when gas was less than $3/gallon.