TWC To Pay Texas Woman $229,500 for 153 Robocalls
Time Warner Cable must pay a Texas woman $229,500 for 153 automated calls it made to Araceli King's cellphone number meant for someone else, said a Tuesday decision from the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The calls started in July…
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2013 and continued until August 2014, several months after King filed the lawsuit against TWC, said Jenny DeFrancisco, of Lemberg Law in Connecticut. More than 70 calls were placed after the lawsuit was filed, which the decision said are "particularly egregious violations of the TCPA [Telephone Consumer Protection Act] and indicate TWC simply did not take this lawsuit seriously." The FCC adopted a proposal to protect consumers against unwanted robocalls and spam texts less than a month ago (see 1506180046). One section of the proposal said reassigned numbers aren't loopholes in the law; if a phone number has been reassigned, companies must stop calling the number after one call, said the FCC. Lawyers for TWC said they're reviewing the decision before determining how to proceed and therefore didn't offer a comment Wednesday. DeFrancisco said her firm frequently represents consumers in TCPA cases, especially in the past few years when technology has gotten more sophisticated. While she is not sure if the decision will necessarily deter other companies from doing the same thing, DeFrancisco said she hopes it helps. "There's plenty of class-action suits out there for violations of this statute," she said. "We're hopeful that [the FCC's changes are] going to strengthen the consumers position under this statute. ... I think it's a great day to be a consumer -- it's really a great decision."