"Do Not Call" Violators Fined $1.2M 185
coondoggie writes "A federal court today spanked two telemarketers with some $1.2 million in civil penalties for violating the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call Rule. According to the FTC, the companies called consumers whose phone numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry without having obtained their express written agreement or having an 'established business relationship' with them. One group's telemarketers also allegedly abandoned many calls, by failing to connect the calls to a sales representative within two seconds after consumers answered, as required by law, the FTC stated. The cases were filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the FTC."
Blow to "Fine print" contracts? (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I can tell, this decision is actually a blow to so-called "fine print" "privacy policies" and "terms and conditions" so prevalent on websites these days. In the article, it says that they were convicted even though their "fine print" said the consumers would receive marketing calls. It sounds like to me that those types of one-sided "fine print" contracts are not being upheld in court.
Phone Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a Virgin Mobile that I've been using now for nearly a year and I still get calls from all sorts of telemarketers who refuse to stop calling me, claiming I owe money or that my car warranty is about to expire. I recently made a report on one of these companies whose robo calls filled up my voice mail, only to recieve a letter back saying the report was 'unfounded' and wishing me a nice day. So while I'm happy to see there has been some action taken here against some of these companies I wish they'd be more consistent in enforcement.
The other thing that bothers me is the increasing frequency of these types of calls coming over VOIP and their increasing similarity to spam. My fear is that unless we get consistent in enforcement we're going to end up with today's situation with email repeated on cellphones, just as it was on faxes and landlines.
--happy one
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:5, Interesting)
They didn't fine the industry $1.2 million. They fined two companies $1.2 million.
Even so, $1.2 million doesn't seem like very much money to fine a large corporation for.
Having $1 billion in revenue instead of $300 billion doesn't suddenly make $1.2 million a big sum.
Oh, I see it makes the fine 0.012% instead of 0.00004%
If the FTC wants to be noticed, they should set a minimum of 1% of revenue for first time/minor offense of calling a few people on the do-not-call-list
The fine should be minimum 20% of annual revenue for a pattern of violations.
And the penalties should be much more severe for repeat violators.
That would actually encourage companies to obey the rules. A $1 million fine is like a fly buzzing around, that companies can ignore and still go about their dastardly business.
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:4, Interesting)
There should also be other remedies available, such as prohibiting the CEOs of these companies from holding any company office for five years. That's the kind of penalty which sets an example to make other companies think twice about what they're doing, and I don't think it's disproportionate.
And that's what fraction of the profit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless those 1.2m are a sizable portion of the revenue (read: enough to make it unprofitable), it is just a cost factor, not a fine. A fine has to discourage. Unless the fine is actually high enough to make the illegal business unprofitable, it will not stop people doing this kind of business.
Example: You run a scam that cheats people out of 100 bucks each. When you get caught, you have to pay 50 bucks per person scammed as a fine. Question: Do you stop scamming, or is those 50 bucks just the cost factor to take into account for your next run?
Re:Thats good to hear. (Score:5, Interesting)
They may be "vague sweeping populist statements" to you, but if you had been paying attention here over the years, you would see that just about every report of such cases that has made its way to slashdot has played out pretty much exactly as claimed. Try reading up on Bennett Haselton [google.com] and his efforts to use the law to punish do-not-call violators.
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:3, Interesting)
And you expect the government to know all that? They can't even see red flags when someone claims to trade 1 million stock options on an exchange that at most does 200,000 trades in a day. (numbers approximated)
Re:Phone Spam (Score:3, Interesting)
It's illegal for telemarketers to call cellphones
No it's not.
My company runs at least two dialing campaigns that go to cell phones. In order for the call to be legal, you probably need a prior business relationship (though I'm not certain) and you do need to do what's called "preview dialing," where someone is actually on the line the entire time, from the moment the line starts ringing and until the customer hangs up.
You may not like it, but should you ever get solicited on your cell phone, chances are good it was legal.
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:1, Interesting)
The US population is roughly 300 million. So, telemarketing revenues are about $1,000 for every person in the US? That doesn't pass the sniff test.
anyone else get calls from "credit card services"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I get them a couple of times a week. They're robo calls, with the usual "press 1 to ..." and they all start with the claim to help you with your CC rates and that this is "your last chance".
Once, I played them. I pressed 1. Said I was interested. Was asked if I had "at least $4000 in CC debt." Once I passed that test, I was handled off to the closer, a really slick asshole who asked for my CC#'s. I stalled. He waited. I acted dumb and said I'd look for my statements. I just set down the phone. 10 minutes later I hung up. I immediately got a call back. At first, he thought I accidentally hung up, but I hung up again. He called back again and before I hung up again I hear "you'll be sorry..." The next 5 rings were people that asked to be taken off their list. I had to take the phone off the hook for 30 minutes.
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:5, Interesting)
When a person violates motor vehicle laws badly enough, they lose their license to use a motor vehicle for some duration.
When a lawyer violates the Bar rules badly enough, they lose their license to practice law in that state for some duration (or forever, if you do the types of things Jack Thompson did.)
When a company violates telemarketing laws badly enough, they should lose the ability to telemarket for some duration. Prevent them from calling any customers (without the customer's explicit request -- if someone leaves your company voicemail asking you to contact them, that's okay) for a week for the first offense, doubling with each subsequent offense. Make it so that the punishment sticks even if they try to do some sort of corporate shell game ("No we're not HyperGlobalMegaCompuTech, we're GlobalCompuHyperMegaTech. See our freshly painted sign?") Eventually they'll learn (or be barred from calling customers for long enough that they'll go out of business before regaining the ability to telemarket.)
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember, companies have all the rights as people in the US.*
* except when it could inconvenience the company.
Re:cost of doing business... (Score:3, Interesting)