I am plagued by telemarketing calls. They never identify themselves before the actual sale so I can not complain.
This should dampen their ardor a bit - from Salt Lake City, Utah station KSL:
Unprecedented telemarketing violation case could lead to trillion dollar fine
Three Utah companies await a judge’s decision on how much they’ll have to pay for violating telemarketing laws — and the dollar amount is raising eyebrows.
The case involves three companies: Feature Films for Families, Corporations for Character and Family Films of Utah. It's the first time complaints about the “Do Not Call” registry have gone all the way to a jury trial.
The case started in 2011 and wrapped up with an eight-day trial. The jury gave the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) exactly what they wanted by finding those companies engaged in deceptive and unlawful telemarketing, including making more than 117 million illegal calls to consumers.
The jury verdict covered six different violations, including that the companies’ telemarketers made misleading statements while selling DVDs and also failure to transmit the name of the company to caller IDs.
If the regular fine for all the calls is applied, the damages could reach more than a trillion dollars.
The FTC is not expecting to collect the full trillion - they want to grind this business model into the ground. Make their rubble bounce.
What really gets me is that why would I ever do business with someone who spams me? They know that I am on the Do Not Call list - what makes them think that I would listen to their sales offer. Lulu finds it amusing as I can work up a good stream of cuss words in the ten seconds it takes for the operator to realize that I am not signing on to the deal.
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