Dish Networks Violated Do Not Call List 57 Million Times

[mindwalker_i]

http://www.examiner.com/article/dish-do-not-call-flubs-dish-network-call-you-up-you-and-57-million-others

Dish Network violated the federal “Do Not Call” registry with an overwhelming mass of telemarketing outcalls – the satellite TV provider was found guilty of making over 57 million unsolicited calls to phone numbers that were registered with the Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, known as the Do Not Call list. The complaint was lodged against Dish back in 2009 by the Department of Justice.

Writes CBS News on Jan. 21: “The potential penalty could be staggering, and could include a possible windfall to consumers who often are the beneficiaries in telemarketing cases. A federal judge issued a partial summary judgment, making the finding that those calls violated federal rules, but left open such questions as what potential penalty the satellite-TV provider could face.”

FCC penalties for infringing on the Do Not Call list can be up to a whopping $16,000 for each outbound call. Dish Network, which has 15 million subscribers nationwide, markets its services directly, either via local retailers and installers or through contracted telemarketing firms.

Can we get a medal of freedom, pronto?

[Newsjock]

1. Maximum fine authorized under the law: $912 billion

Likely actual fine: Probably around $20,000 and a double-cross-my-heart promise to never ever do it again, we really mean it, no, really, believe us.

[mindwalker_i]

2. Likely fine around $20

Not including the campaign "contributions" to select house members.

But the guy with a joint, on the other hand, gets the whole "tough on crime" treatment.

[PoliticAverse]

3. DISH Network's political contributions...

http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/dish-network/5f557f31bbe543f4b8f2c1986e12d460

[braddy]

4. Millions of of us will get $5.00 off Dish coupons, the lawyers will make 100s of millions.

[Sherman A1]

5. I would think

throwing the book at them would be wonderful. They simply cannot be that misguided as to believe they would not get caught.

[Jamastiene]

6. Now, if they would go after all the other companies that won't

quit calling people on the DNC list. I tried to get TWC to stop some of those annoying calls and they told me I had to re-register with the DNC registry every month to stay on it. I tried it and still I get calls. How the fuck do they know when I am sitting down to dinner anyhow? I eat dinner at different times of day every day, but they ALWAYS call when either I am sitting down to dinner, cooking dinner, or just going to bed. It is infuriating.

[progree]

9. Registration with the federal do not call list is one time and permanent

https://www.donotcall.gov/

When it first started out, you had to renew a registration every 5 years, but a few years ago the law was changed to make registration permanent.

Sometimes when some literal fuckwad (LFW) calls me and telemarkets me and I tell them I'm on the DNC list, the LFW will give me some crap about how the registration expires after a certain number of years (the specific number depending on which LFW is calling), and I tell them they made it permanent a few years ago, they don't argue. I've never had one claim one has to register once a month or a few months.

I do put it on my calendar every 5 years to check though.

[Jamastiene]

10. Then, the rep at TWC was flat out lying to me.

They limited me to 30 phone numbers I could block and I still had more telemarketers calling. What gets me is that lately, some of the telemarketers are somehow making the caller ID show my name and phone number. So, it looks like I am getting a call from myself, which is impossible. I can't find their number to go block them. It is so frustrating.

[progree]

11. Is TWC Time Warner Cable? That's something different

Its illegal for anyone to telemarket to you if you are on the federal do not call list -- though that applies only to commercial sales calls. (another exception: where there is a "pre-existing relationship). Political and non-profit are exempt from the federal law, though if you ask them to put you on their do not call list, they must comply and then it is illegal for them to call (that includes "pre-existing relationship" ones too).

As for what additional help a phone company (and I assume TWC is your phone provider) can provide, I don't have any experience with that -- because it sounds like a scam they charge you for and make money off of, at least in my case with CenturyLink. And it sounds like telemarketers are getting around that anyway.

[Jamastiene]

13. Yes, TWC= Time Warner Cable. I was so frustrated with the Do Not Call Registry

not working as intended, that I looked on my phone bill to see if I had any options I could try through Time Warner Cable. On the account section of the TWC web site, I found a form with 30 spots to block specific numbers. That quickly filled up.

So, I called them to ask if I could either buy more spots to block some more or if they had some kind of White List system I could use so only those I approve could call me. That's when the guy told me I had to re-register with the Do Not Call Registry every month or that I would still keep getting the calls.

Asking the telemarketers that call here to take my name off their list and not to call back has not worked yet. One is a known scammer called the NC Sheriff's Association. There was even an article in the local paper last year to point out to people that they were scam artists and in no way associated with our local sheriff. I would love to finally stop receiving calls AND junk mail from them, specifically, because they call too often.

I cannot believe the volume of Republican junk mail (snail mail) I receive too. It took forever to get rid of that John Locke crap and Carolina Journal flat out told me just take the paper free. Well, I never asked for a subscription to it and wasn't paying for it to begin with. I just didn't want it cluttering up my mailbox with their right wing garbage. They STILL, to this day, keep sending that crap here. I think it's standard in all mailboxes in my county that people get that garbage routinely, whether there is an election coming soon or not. What is worse is when they robocall me incessantly when there IS an election going on, back to back to back. I flat out told them I'd vote for a skunk before I would vote for a Republican and they still wouldn't take me off their list.

[progree]

12. The jerks can and do spoof any phone number they want to -- make any phone number they want

to show up in your caller ID, so as to get around blocking.

[Jamastiene]

14. I have noticed that.

Sometimes, the phone number comes up as Name: 1-000-000-0000 and the phone number will be listed as 1(000)000-0000. So, unless I answer, I don't even know who that one is. I have started just not answering if I don't recognize the number. Sometimes, that works and they take the hint. Sometimes, they keep calling back either every 10 minutes or every hour on the hour. They make it so you pretty much have to cuss someone out because you finally have had all you can take. At that point, you either have to let it all out or pop a blood vessel in your head from the frustration.

[silvershadow]

7. He was just exercising his freedom. Dish Network is a he, isn't it?

I'm not sure how you really tell the gender of persons, corporate. Anyway, I expect he will face jail time. Most of the cases I've seen over the years involving that kind of harassment usually result in jail time, and admonition from the court to behave.

[Monk06]

8. I used to work doing 'market research' as a phone interviewer. We were excempt from the DNC list

because we were doing research not soliciting. Even then 90% of the jobs I was on did not collect usable data. Instead they were push polls to skew customer satisfaction data to make the companies look good to the public, industry regulators and investors.

There are lies, more lies and then statistics.

[JonLP24]

15. I know people that work for them -- telemarketing

The company here in Arizona is independent, but they do telemarketing for both Directv and DISH. Only one I know with any kind of training as close to as described here is with Directv but did do it for DISH within the same company. The way Directv's telemarketing firm has it set-up is if a customer requests to be on the DNC, they put it on the company's DNC list and it expires in 6 months or so and they call back again. They way it is explained to the telemarketers since the only people they call are existing customers with Directv, in fact an employee says often time someone will flip out they are on the Fed DNC, when it is calmly explained they already have contract in-business, they often calm down or it makes sense in their head.

I don't know if it is legit reason or not to comply or not with the "do not call list" and this is for Directv, not DISH. However, Directv has been hit with largest DNC fines ever several years ago and appear to continually to break it.

The thing that should be clear, is they hire independents to do their telemarketing for them so I'm not sure what kind of guidelines, demands(except make sales or you're out the door, the turnover rate is like 99%--no joke), regulations, etc.

[progree]

16. This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn't, Wired, ~1/28/15

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/guy-found-way-block-robocalls-phone-companies-wouldnt/?mbid=synd_yahootech

The FCC is now taking public comments on the issue, but that process ends early next month. After that, the FCC will decide whether or not carriers can block them outright.

... most carrier phone-blocking systems force you to manually enter blocked numbers. AT&’s system, for example, allows only 20 such blocked numbers. “Usually, carriers give spots for 5-10 numbers to be blocked,” Foss says. “This is woefully inadequate. The Nomorobo blacklist has over 850,000 numbers on it and changes hundreds of times per day. Try putting that in a short blacklist.”