Depending on which survey you look at, Time Warner Cable is either the most-despised or second most-despised company in America. It’s tough to pinpoint why this is. Honestly. I have no idea.
But I think I’ve figured it out. Robocalls!
A Texas woman will receive a pretty sizable chunk of change after a court ruled that Time Warner Cable violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 with each of their unwanted robocalls administered over an 11-month period.
153 calls, to be exact.
Araceli King of Irving, Texas found herself the owner of a phone number previously held by one Luis Perez, with whom Time Warner Cable had some beef. According to King, Time Warner continued to harass her with the unwanted calls and messages even after she explained the situation.
“A responsible business in TWC’s position might have dispatched a live agent to reach out to Luiz Perez after the IVR (interactive voice response) failed to reach him the first several times,” Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote. “The responsible company will reduce its exposure dramatically by taking proactive steps to mitigate damages, while its competitor, who unthinkingly robo-dials the same person hundreds of times over many months without pausing to wonder why it cannot reach him, cannot complain about much higher liability.”
In fact, the court found that 74 of the 153 robocalls came after King sued Time Warner Cable.
It was because of this sort of egregious behavior that the judge pretty much threw the book at Time Warner. He awarded King $1,500 per call – triple the penalty. That’s a total of $229,500.
Time Warner says it is “reviewing its options and determining how to proceed.”
If Time Warner Cable wants to call me 153 times next year, that’s ok with me.