We’ve no doubt all dealt with the annoyance of phone spam — either from companies that want to up-sell their service, bring us back, or hound for overdue bills which could have already been handled. In our busy lives, getting hassled by aggressive companies is something most of us could do without.
But, there’s a big difference between receiving the odd call once in a while to receiving it all the time, such as what Araceli King had to deal with. In less than a year, Time Warner Cable called her a total of 153 times, all automated, and all meant for someone else. Making matters worse, King had a 7-minute discussion with a customer service rep about the mix-up and still continued to receive such calls.
TWC believed that it had done no wrong, because it “thought” that it was contacting Perez. A US District Judge saw things differently, and jacked the damages to $1,500 per call, resulting in King soon to receive a nice check totaling $229,500.
The judge, Alvin Hellerstein, said that “a responsible business” would have tried harder to find the actual person it was seeking. It’s hard to dispute that.
In late May, it was announced that Charter will be purchasing Time Warner Cable for a hefty $55 billion, valuing the latter at $195 per share. The combined companies would make Charter the second place U.S. cable company right behind Comcast.
