> That means the FTC has negotiated a settlement where the distress caused by harassing the same person 100 times in a row, day after day over the period of a few months, merits the measly penalty of $1.25.
Honest question: why can’t the victims sue the company for harassment? (or rather a lawyer start a class action). I’m sure a jury trial would award very large damages, or is this protected by free speech in the US?
It's important to raise the topic of a lawsuit here, as distinct from the concept of a government fine, which exposes, in my opinion, an error in the reasoning of the line you quoted.
If you are speeding and get hit with a $X speeding ticket, this does not suggest that the local authorities believe the threat to public safety you were caught making is somehow worth $X in damages. It means the local authorities believe an $X fine is sufficient to deter you from doing this again, and that the prospect of an $X fine is sufficient to deter others from doing this in the first place.
Now, if you actually cause injury or damage, we are in a whole different ball park and you may be sued for a heck of lot more than $X. The value of damages should be expected to far exceed the value of a fine.
So getting back to the quote from the article, I don't think it makes sense to put the fine amount on one side of the scales and the damage caused on the other. That's not what fines are for. The fine money won't even go to the injured party anyway.
That's a non-sequitur for fines. I'm going to be fined the same for speeding whether I'm late for my flight (no financial return), or I'm participating in an illegal street race in which I win $10,000.
Some spamming campaigns do not expect revenue (e.g. recent convictions for a targeted voter misinformation robocall campaign whose desired outcome was to discourage the targets from voting). Tying fines to revenue won't affect the $0-revenue campaigns
I'm not saying that the fine should be some fixed percentage of the revenue, I'm saying that it absolutely must be high enough to ensure the expected profit of just eating the fines and carrying on is negative. A sufficiently small fraction of speeding is revenue-generating that it's likely not worth the trouble, but in that example, you should probably be fined $10,050 or something. Though speeding tickets are a bit different because they already also come with points and a path to revocation of license.
It impacts how large a fine needs to be to be an effective deterrent. If you get a fine of 2 cents per call, and you have an average benefit of 50 cents per call, then the fine is just an operating expense, and doesn't deter you from continuing the behavior.
Bad example. Speeding fines are set to be low enough to not deter you, and be lower than the transaction costs of fighting them, so the government can maintain a revenue source.
I wish that US law enforcement, who likes to act all tough when dealing with helpless poor people, would instead act tough with white collar criminals. Instead of taking their fake SWAT team units into twitch streamers homes and to schools where they sit there and let kids get murdered, imagine them storming into Theranos and yanking them straight to jail, and then having a speedy trial, rather than wasting years of our tax dollars to slap them on the wrist.
Unfortunately, law enforcement organisations have always existed to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Individual officers and agents may (may!) have empathy for the little person, but their employers have a different agenda.
Seems to me like 'defrauding some of the most powerful people in the world, misdiagnosing serious diseases, and harassing a whistleblower to the point where he killed himself' is an awfully high bar to clear in order for white-collar crime to be taken seriously. They fined Jammie Thomas, like, $800,000 dollars for downloading 30 songs off of napster or whatever. As far as I know, she didn't get to plead 'inability to pay'.
I think GP makes a totally valid point. Big companies only get punished hard when they defraud powerful people, normal people get punished hard for doing something a company doesn't like.
It really does seem the harshest punishments are handed out for hurting people/companies more powerful than you. The rich and powerful, including corporations, should be held more accountable. Instead, the law seems to get used mostly to keep people in their place.
I still remember how HSBC got fined millions for laundering billions for Mexican drug cartels. Normal people would be doing hard time if they did that. Banks get fined less than the size of the crime.
Let's not forget things like the Sackler family's relentless marketing of addictive opiates. They and their expensive retainers get to have lofty discussions about this and that, whether a particular settlement number is _fair_ or in the 'best interests of the patients' or whatever, how the very idea of litigation is hurting their ability to help those who really need it.
Contrast that with the tone taken by our most powerful, about the scourge of illegal immigrants bring the very same chemicals into the country by swimming the Rio Grande. I would not be surprised to hear support for summary executions of every third person in Laredo, TX.
> maybe? will they get out early? when will they go?
I don’t know, but that is a question for behavior. I do believe in rehabilitation being the underlying goal of prison, so I’d be thrilled if they came out of it changed people.
> a guy selling cigarettes on the streets of NYC without a permit would have been choked to death in seconds. (actual thing that happened)
And that is awful. Never said I was defending that.
> seems like this justice imbalance in the USA is something we can get bipartisan support for changing. lets do it yall.
There's some guy out there doing this kind of thing without lawyers and wins every time, and is making a living on it. It was posted on HN some years ago.
The point is that if your potential earnings cap out at $10k there's a very good chance you're going to end up paying more in legal fees than you ever make in a settlement and leave yourself at a net loss.
The cost of losing is small and the cost of restarting again is small. Meanwhile, the potential upside of even one call netting a sale is very large. I reckon two calls netting sales would have paid for this fine.
We have hucksters abusing legitimate business structures. I think we need an “in good faith” escape clause for LLCs that captures folks that abuse them.
not authoritative, but general trend is ~ 40 plaintiff are acceptable minimum cohort for a class, but that can be even smaller, a class of 1 is feasible but very uncommon.
The short answer is, you can, but it takes a lot of work. I’ve settled with several telemarketers who have called me (as a pro se litigant) and forwarded information that helped a large telecom company back in 2008 with their suit against one of the infamous auto warranty robocallers.
I’ve found that many people are fascinated by the stories but nobody that I know of has gone on to actually take these people to court themselves.
Average is about $3000. I tend to only go after the most egregious violators so this amount represents at least 5-10 calls all after being asked to be placed on their do not call list.
Typically these guys will use the same prerecorded message for all phone calls. I'll record one of them when it's convenient for me, then just note every phone number and time of day I receive another call with the same message. The messages are very distinct so it's not hard to keep track. The hardest part is having a note taking system that's truly portable as these calls come at the worst possible times.
The first few times they call, I'll ask to be placed on the do not call list (and record that fact in my notes as well). Of course, they'll continue to call... so then it's on to social engineer the name of the company or beneficiary company (if a lead generator is calling you rather than the company itself).
Once I've figured out the name of the company, then I have to basically do the whole thing in reverse: I find a "legitimate" number for the company (off the website, whatever) and get a customer service associate to read off my fake customer information back to me.
It's important to keep receipts. The attorneys for these companies don't give up easily. They'll come up with all sorts of excuses - we don't make outgoing calls, its not us (OK then how did I get your company name?); how do you know it's XYZ company? (because Bob gave me the name when I received the call); how do you know that someone didn't falsely give our company name to defame us? (because I called the number for XYZ and Dave was able to look up my "customer" record)
Once you show that you have receipts and you're serious, they generally fold very quickly.
In most cases because it is impossible to find out who is doing the calling because the numbers are spoofed.
For example, when my phone receives a call from my own phone number am I going to sue myself? There is no way to track down the actual caller in most cases.
Exactly right. It’s actually a fun exercise in social engineering, and can be a fascinating sociological experiment if you’re into that sort of thing.
The most successful persona unfortunately is that of a slightly senile senior citizen. Senile enough that you seem gullible to the caller, but believable that you have enough money and sense to continue with the transaction.
Correct. Sounding old and slightly senile is what gets them on the hook most effectively.
Unfortunately - when they're calling, they also seem to have all your personal info, and know your name and how old you are. So I put on my best senile guy voice, they confirm my name, and then they hang up.
I have several personas that have made the rounds in the underground somewhere. It’s actually kind of interesting - I made up a persona back in 2016 or so and even six years later I’ll get calls for that “person”.
So while sometimes the information is legitimate - especially if you’re not opted out of the major internet people search engines (ref optery which is a yc graduate company) - but you can also “poison the well” enough to get your fake persona disseminated.
In my experience it's usually a 2-step system. I get a spam call frome either a robot voice or someone with a heavy accent. This company is generally not based in the US. After collecting some basic information like your name and eligibility for Medicare, they forward you to a US based company.
I'm not a lawyer, but even though the foreign scam call company illegally called you, I don't believe the US based company is liable for anything because the scammers make you agree to be transferred to a Medicare licensing office.
Your carrier can trace it back. They have more information than just the spoofed CID.
They almost certainly don't have ALL the information, but they'll know which carrier sent them the call, who can then look into it... and on back to the source carrier.
Most of the companies in this space are breaking so many laws they are operating outside the US. Near the beginning of the pandemic, when they resumed their calls (that WAS a nice few months!) I would mess with them. I could keep the "Mexican vacation" scam calls on the line for 20 minutes before telling them I knew they were scammers. About 1/2 the time they hung up, but the other times they would argue with me about why I would do this.
The initial call was clearly someone outside the US. The 2nd level was someone with better English skills, but the real scammers at the 3rd level spoke perfect English and were likely inside the US.
And, the initial call to me was from a spoofed number, likely from an owned PBX.
It's a LOT of work to track down these companies. There was a particular scam related to CC rates and I was able to find a lawyer in TX that had successfully prosecuted the company that did the scam. I called him and he picked up after 1 ring. We had a nice conversation, but his advice was: do not mess with these people (by wasting their time intentionally). They are not nice people and after he helped shut them down, they just popped up somewhere else.
I am not a lawyer so take what I say with a grain of salt.
The last suit I filed against a telemarketer was against the “beneficiary” company as the lead generator who called me was of course overseas. They claimed that they could not be held vicariously liable for the calls but ultimately settled with me because litigating that would cost a lot more money than the settlement amount.
Some state statutes go further than the tcpa and address vicarious liability specifically, so if you’re in one of those states you have a stronger legal leg to stand on.
Pro se just means I did it myself - no lawyer involved. My costs therefore were limited to filing and service fees (about $100). I’d say I spent about 10 hours working on it (spare time over weekends etc). My settlement amount in that case was several thousand dollars after an in person negotiation with their lawyer (they had to fly in to my local court for an 8am Monday morning hearing time).
It was worth it to me at the time but the biggest issue is you don’t have control over when the calls come in- so you have to spend some time up front social engineering these people to get the information you need during inconvenient times of the day.
Unfortunately I can’t share my docs as I don’t wish to out my identity here. But if you search for tcpa demand letter you can get some ideas on how to get started.
Basically once you’ve identified the caller or the business that benefits from the call, you write a demand letter that states the details of the calls and you intend to sue under the tcpa if they do not wish to settle for $$$ before a given date.
You’ll want to read the text of the tcpa first - basically you can be awarded up to $500 per call and ask the court for triple damages so you can allege damages for up to $1500 per call. Also research any state laws you may have (that have a “private right of action” aka you can bring the suit yourself). Those damages can be layered on top.
The TCPA is a federal law, right? Do you sue them in federal court for TCPA, and then a separate lawsuit in state court to layer on top the state fines, or this is all somehow combined into one?
I hold an electricians license in Texas and get an absolute truckload of spam texts and calls with regard to my license renewals. What's a good way for me to get started with doing research on how to start filing litigation?
i think you would have to communicate your desire not to be contacted, then it can be telephonic/electronic harrasment. so far, good luck actually getting any meaningful contact with these entities.
Apparently regardless of how annoying it is, it's still worth it for the perpetrators.
Over here in the EU I can start off with asking who is the data controller, but results are still mixed - from hanging up, through trying to weasel out of a response to finally telling me who is mismanaging my data like this[0].
I think I'm still getting labeled as "asking too many questions", because it's subsidised.
Also, robocalls still happen occasionally - can't do anything about that.
[0] A guy producing shell company after shell company - twelve such entities since mid 2020.
I have the feeling, FTC doesnt want to destroy business that has a theoretically valid model, rather it [FTC] is interested in the illegal behaviours exhibited.
fines should be of magnitude that discourages the behaviour, but should not be so large as to be an instant kill for what could be a legal business if not for the behaviour. there should be a negative reinforcement that provides a window of opportunity to learn and adapt, or else fold up.
I get your point, and I agree the govt shouldn't be in the business of putting companies out of business if their crime just needs some discouragement.
The problem is, if a company made 500M from their bad behaviour, and the govt only charged them 300M. The company is not incentivized to not do this behaviour anymore. They made 200M net after the fine!
If they made 500M and the fine is 550M, then they are incentivized. It hurt them 50M to do the bad behaviour.
It's obviously not as simple as I'm making it, because just calculating the money they made from the bad behaviour could be very complicated. but you get the idea.
> but should not be so large as to be an instant kill for what could be a legal business
Why not? A corporate death penalty should absolutely be a thing. If we can have it for people, then we can have it for a business. The problem is that government sucks at doing its own job and the usual punishments are a joke.
The negative reinforcement needs to be strong enough to make the behavior unprofitable or it is completely ineffective. The fines exhibited here don't do that so your justification falls flat.
I also really don't see the economic harm in killing robocall companies. It seems like a net win to me.
The telcos making money from these calls disagree with your assessment of the economic harm of killing them. It'd be shut down in a heartbeat if they were costing them money.
I don't think that such a "sweet spot" necessarily exists for every company. Many of the companies depend on these illegal business practices to be profitable. If you levy fines that make those illegal practices unprofitable, there are companies that will no longer exist (and shouldn't have been allowed to exist in the first place.)
The bigger problem, is that many of these companies are structured in a way that profits get extracted to the owners while liabilities don't. So even if you fine these companies out of existence, you don't necessarily make the practice unprofitable.
This is why we need these fines to also pierce liability limiting corporate structures and why we need laws to allow us to put the people profiting from these illegal acts in jail.
Dying to hear about someone's life who was actually improved by taking a cold sales call. Make it straight up illegal and egregiously non-profitable to even try and the world will be much better for it.
Mostly because almost all of this originates from India and the Phillipines, not from within the US. The scammers are almost never associated to any US entity. The spam telemarketers that work for US companies that are beneficiaries are kind of a different sort of deal, although should also be penalized.
Or maybe because it would be an act of war and a war crime to drone-strike civilians in a foreign country because of them committing a criminal act? We generally arrest criminals and put them on trial, we don't summarily execute them by raining fire from above.
I hate robo-callers and scammers as much as anyone, but I don't think drone-striking them is the proper response.
If you take the stance that these calls are impacting the US infrastructure and falls under the Homeland Security umbrella, these robocall farms would be stopped with appropriate resources. Right now, violating DNC (the various lists) is not a criminal violation.
I get something to the order of 60-100 spam calls a day regarding medicare benefits (my number has somehow been associated with a retiree who shares my name). I fully support drone strikes on overseas call centers.
The people working in these call centers know what they're doing by defrauding the most vulnerable members of our society and should be considered enemy combatants if their host government is unwilling to act on their crimes.
You take it as a given that what they did broke the law just because the government claims it was illegal. However, that is not what the settlement proposal actually says.
There was no trial, there was no conviction, and the telemarketers admit to no wrongdoing.
They also agree to pay the full $13m if they fail to comply with a whole host of reporting and reform, including stopping their part of the calls.
Okay, first off, this is the comment you replied to:
>Why can't we just start putting the CEOs of robocall companies that break the law in jail?
I take it as a given because it was given in the premise.
Anyway, I read the settlement proposal. There was no trial because the company waived their right to it. Because they know they're getting a slap on the wrist compared to the potential fines they could face. They're getting told they got away with all the illegal acts they previously committed (and yes, some of those things are definitely illegal), as long as they stop it now.
Imagine if someone steals hundreds of TVs, gpus, and laptops, then when they finally get caught, the courts say "Naughty naughty. We're fining you 100 dollars, but you can keep everything you stole. Now don't do it again or we'll actually punish you". It's absurd.
Literally not given in the premise, and these people haven’t been convicted of anything, so your analogy is flawed (they didn’t steal or get caught doing anything).
The older I get the more I think we need a constitutional amendment saying the monetary fine for lawbreaking must exceed the profit gained by the lawbreaking.
Should probably include verbiage about shell companies and the like. It would get messy fast and a lot of... more-innocent... people would take the fall instead of the people actually responsible.
First it says one of the five companies given in the press release, so does that mean that 4 out of the 5 are actually going to be paying exactly what the FTC said in their press release? Where do the fines for the other 4 relate to what they claimed for this one? As in if the other fines are still higher than the claimed for this one, it still seems like a success and not "Do Not Take Illegal Telemarketing Serious".
Why exactly is there such a discrepancy? I don't see any explanation for why this is the case.
Even the 1 out of 5 that was selected, the press release was very clear that it's a partially-suspended fine. I understand that the language is a bit weaselly -- 99% suspended feels like a stretch for the word "partial". But it's also just suspended, which means that the company and owner have a $13.6m axe hanging over them to behave properly into the future.
Also, this settlement did not include Vision Solar, the actual beneficiary of the marketing. My guess would be that most of the profits went to Vision Solar, and so the result will be proportionately larger.
Selective complaining, there was a press round on the $300M fine so they’re counteracting by complaining histrionically about a smaller one and not mentioning larger ones.
I don’t quite get the motivation either but it beggars belief they got into the weeds on this fine and don’t know the other happened, given they’re right next to eachother in press releases and documentation
Honest question: why can’t the victims sue the company for harassment? (or rather a lawyer start a class action). I’m sure a jury trial would award very large damages, or is this protected by free speech in the US?