Dish Network Hit With $280 Million Fine

rgMekanic

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Dish Network was ordered by U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough to pay $280 million to the U.S and four states for using robocalls to customers on do-not-call lists in a record fine for telemarketing violations. The company has to pay $168 million to the federal government and $84 million to California, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio for federal law violations. An additional $28 million in fines was awarded to California, North Carolina and Ohio for violations of state law.

I am happy to hear this. At my office I receive about 20-30 robodial calls per day, to the point where we just installed a PBX with an auto-attendant to block them. While DIsh is appealing the ruling, I hope it serves as an example to others.

The U.S. and the four states sued Dish in 2009, alleging the company violated two consumer telemarketing laws by making more than 55 million illegal calls. The U.S. asked for $900 million in fines, while the states sought more than $110 million.
 
whats this pbx thing ? is there anything we can do at all to stop\block this stuff?
 
They need to do something about snail mail spam also. I keep getting offers from every cell, TV, internet, credit card out there. I get at least 1 a week from each one.
 
They need to do something about snail mail spam also. I keep getting offers from every cell, TV, internet, credit card out there. I get at least 1 a week from each one.

COX (cable/internet) keeps raising my rates every year.
I also receive about a dozen ads every week (direct mail upgrades, advertising fliers and in the newspaper), plus they run multiple ads on a single TV show.
If they would stop spending so much on ads, maybe they wouldn't have to raise my rates every year :mad:

Time to call them again and threaten to cancel my services so they can offer me a decent rate.
Their current "new" customer rate is about half what they charge existing customers.
 
COX (cable/internet) keeps raising my rates every year.
I also receive about a dozen ads every week (direct mail upgrades, advertising fliers and in the newspaper), plus they run multiple ads on a single TV show.
If they would stop spending so much on ads, maybe they wouldn't have to raise my rates every year :mad:

Time to call them again and threaten to cancel my services so they can offer me a decent rate.
Their current "new" customer rate is about half what they charge existing customers.

Charter/Spectrum is just as bad with ads. I'd be fine if they just sent monthly ads or something, but at least once a week there is an ad from them in my mailbox. When I had cable, at least once every couple hours there was a Charter ad on, it was ridiculous.
 
They need to do something about snail mail spam also. I keep getting offers from every cell, TV, internet, credit card out there. I get at least 1 a week from each one.

There is a way to get crap like that blocked. The problem is it's all or nothing. There's probably some stuf fyou may want to see that falls into the same category as the junk.
 
whats this pbx thing ? is there anything we can do at all to stop\block this stuff?

I bought a call blocker box made by CPR off Amazon a few years ago for ~$60. I'll see the caller ID pop up and it drops the connection before the phone can get a single ring off. It uses in line current to power itself, so no batteries or external power cords to mess with.

It came with a couple hundred numbers pre programmed (I've only seen one of them trip) and I added 50+ in the first few weeks I had it. Political calls in the state typically come from one area code or area code+prefix as is the case of the majority of the robo calls I receive. So, I entered them and my random call volume immediately dropped by more than two-thirds.

An average of 6-8 calls per day down to two. :nailbiting:

There is no message and they do not hear the click of a hangup. The call is simply severed. Eventually, robo callers mark the number as dead.

Over the course of a few months, I saw a pattern developing of calls using area codes in Miami, FL, Scottsdale, AZ, two little towns in California and one in Virginia. Rather than simply answer and enter #2 to add the single number to the block list, I let voice mail catch their hang-ups and later entered the area codes for those cities as well.

Now, I average 2-4 no-name/hangup calls per week, which isn't that different than commonly misdialed calls - even during election season. :D

I also installed a blocking app on my cell, using the same idea of entering key area codes or area code+prefix combos, to find a result very similar to what I had with the physical unit. This became paramount as groups for a certain campaign and certain organization decided to repeatedly trespass my cell last year.:rage:

It's once again usually a pleasure to answer the phone- unless it's my Mom needing tech support:banghead:
 
Great, they will probably raise their already too high rates to pay for this now.
You sign on for TV for a low rate for 3 months, then it's triples in price and if you are in the country you have no other choice, pay or have no TV.
T
 
whats this pbx thing ? is there anything we can do at all to stop\block this stuff?

I don't know, but if this voicemail considered as spam texts/calls, my mother has dealt with a company several years ago on court because of their continuous calls to my home phone. My mother hired a lawyer (Lemberg firm or something) to help her file lawsuits against the company. She ended getting few thousands as compensation. I think if you could find who's calling (the company name, at least), and you keep the logs and maybe recordings, you could sue the senders/callers.
 
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