floridians fight back against robocallers

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floridians fight robocallers

By Paula McMahon, Sun Sentinel6:51 p.m. EDT, September 10, 2011

South Florida consumers aggravated by annoying "robo calls" on their cellphones from debt collectors are fighting back – suing the companies that make the calls and often collecting cash settlements from the lenders.

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott D. Owens has filed dozens of civil lawsuits against lenders and debt collection agencies. He says they have been violating the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act by using "autodialers" – services that automatically store and call phone numbers, then play a pre-recorded message that says something like "This is Debt Collector X calling for John Jones. If this is John Jones, please press 1, if not, press 2."

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If the companies don't play by the rules, the law says they can be forced to pay the consumer $500 in damages per call or $1,500 per call for "knowing or willful" violations.

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"One young female client was getting calls from a major credit card company and they settled [her lawsuit] in the six-figure range. They called her 180 times," Owens said. "People just put up with it because they figure 'it's a bank, they must know what they're doing.'"

The law prohibits any auto-dialed or pre-recorded message made to a cellphone caller without prior permission. Federal lawmakers said such calls are a nuisance and unfair because they can cost consumers money – people with limited minutes in their cellphone plans could end up paying extra charges for the received calls or voicemails and people with unlimited calls often pay premium rates for that service.

Different, and much more complicated, rules apply to calls to land lines and lawsuits there are less common.

Among the South Floridians who have filed court cases is a 15-year-old boy from Aventura who received dozens of calls from a major bank trying to collect on an alleged consumer debt.