Earlier this year, I was receiving daily calls to my cell phone from an automated voice offering an extended auto warranty. Trouble is, I live in New York City and haven't had a car in three years. It got so annoying I went so far as to file an official FCC complaint, and the calls have since stopped.
I'm an AT&T customer, but these car warranty auto-calls have apparently also been plaguing Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon announced Tuesday that it has reached a settlement with two companies that bans them from illegally contacting Verizon customers.
St. Louis-based National Auto Warranty Services and Florida-based Explicit Media, doing business as Voice Solutions, were hit with a $50,000 fine--which Verizon will donate to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports domestic violence advocates.
"This auto warranty scheme has been going on for quite a while, and we're pleased to have identified and stopped two of the companies responsible for harassing our customers," Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel of Verizon Wireless, said in a statement. "However, we know that unscrupulous companies and individuals continue to make these calls and offer these products, and we will continue pursuing them aggressively with litigation and referrals to law enforcement to stop them and protect our customers' privacy."
The companies are accused of using an autodialer to contact Verizon Wireless customers, and of masking the origin of their calls. Since January 2008, more than 2 million customers have received such calls.
Pre-recorded voice messages say that a recipient's car warranty is about to expire, and tells them to press "1" for more information. If the call recipient does, he or she is connected to a person who asks for the make and model of the car. If the recipient asks for information about the company, the operator hangs up.
The companies' actions are also in violation of the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal to use an auto-dialer to make calls to wireless phones, as well as state fraud and privacy laws, Verizon said.
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April 29, 2009 4:43 PM
"Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports domestic violence advocates."
Really? They support advocates of domestic violence? So what you seem to be saying is...Verizon is handing off blood money to wife beaters and Christian Bale...
April 29, 2009 6:13 PM
With all due respect to Verizon, this is another case where crime pays! Considering the volume of calls I received $50k can only be considered a small cost of doing business. It certainly can't be read as disincentive for others to do the same thing.
April 29, 2009 6:55 PM
Grammar and syntax aside, I'm glad to read that the calls on my cellphone were illegal and that somebody took action about it. I tried to make my cell number available only to family and emergency personnel but their autodialer quickly made a farce of that attempt. A first ammendment defense, asserting their "right" to advertise, pales beside my inherent right to privacy.
April 30, 2009 3:04 PM
How come AT&T doesn't do the same thing? It's not that hard to trace the actual origin of a call, probably before the automatic recording gets half way through after the automatic dialer calls the cell phone. And, if AT&T doesn't feel they have the capability, they could always ask their Government friends in New York, Florida or California to help them. It's reached the point where the bogus telemarketing calls are seriously reducing the value of having a cell phone. Why doesn't the FCC step up and do its job?
May 6, 2009 11:18 AM
Verizon already knows that crime pays... they'd rather simply pay penalties to state regulators than spend the money actually upgrading their landlines. Probably why they got so little out of them, they feel kin to their money making tactics.
May 17, 2009 5:31 PM
I'm a verison customer. Thanks for doing this for us as it was getting unbearable to run to the phone to find out it was a scan or junk call. I have caller ID so I would let my answering machine take the calls then I can choose whom I wanted to call back. Now all you have to do is work on the e-mails and all of that trash that comes threw the internet. No one emails you anymore. All you do is delete the TRASH coming threw.