Do Not Call Registry violators promised to pay about $7.7 million...
Do Not Call Registry violators promised to pay about $7.7 million in fines in six settlements, and the FTC is preparing to file another complaint in federal district court, the commission said Wednesday. The commission is cracking down because…
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Americans “really own this registry and it’s really offensive to them… to get called,” FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras told reporters. She cited a recent Harris Interactive poll that found more than 70 percent of consumers have registered their numbers. Since the Registry’s inception in 2003, the FTC has filed 34 actions against individuals and companies that allegedly violated its provisions. Craftmatic ran a sweepstakes in which entrants could win an adjustable bed and submitted their phone numbers as part of required information. Craftmatic never revealed it planned to use those numbers to make marketing calls, and yet placed hundreds of thousands of calls, Majoras said. The company also placed millions of “abandoned calls” in which consumers answered but heard nothing but silence from the other end. Craftmatic agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle all FTC charges, she said. ADT Security Systems will pay $2 million to settle charges it and its affiliate, Alarm King, called consumers whose numbers were on the Registry, she said. The case shows that a company “can’t ignore or pretend it can’t control a marketing effort undertaken… on its behalf,” she said. AmericaQuest mortgage used “online lead generation” to illegally call consumers, Majoras said. Consumers interested in mortgage offers entered their data into sites that purported to provide information on mortgages but AmericaQuest was actually selling the data to lenders or sellers, she said. AmericaQuest will pay $1 million to settle charges. Guardian Communications, U.S. Voice Broadcasting and principal Kevin Baker allegedly violated Registry rules by “blasting” tens of millions of calls and failing to transmit its name in caller ID. The companies will pay $150,000 of a $7.8 million penalty, which was suspended due to the company’s lack of funds, Majoras said. The FTC is working with the Justice Department to file a complaint against Global Mortgage Funding, which called hundreds of thousands of registered numbers, didn’t transmit caller ID information and abandoned calls, she said.