DialAmerica Marketing Telemarketing Call TCPA Class Action

Perhaps some of the most annoying robo-calls are those that try to fool you into thinking you’re talking to a real person—saying, for instance, “This is [name]. Can you hear me OK?” According to the complaint for this class action, that’s the kind of call plaintiff Ariel Shuckett got—over and over and over again—from DialAmerica Marketing.

The class for this action is

• All persons who received a call on their cells phones,
• From DialAmerica Marketing or its agent,
• Not sent for emergency purposes,
• Made through the use of an automatic dialing system and/or with an artificial or pre-recorded voice,
• Between October 9, 2013 and October 9, 2017.

Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to protect consumers from the ever-increasing tide of telemarketing calls, texts, and faxes that companies were able to send thanks to new technology. It found that banning such calls “is the only means of protecting telephone consumers from this nuisance and privacy invasion.”

Of particular concern were telemarketing calls made to cell phones, because owners typically pay for incoming as well as outgoing calls, which adds expense to nuisance. Under the TCPA, it is illegal to make telemarketing calls to cell phones using an automatic dialing system and/or an artificial or pre-recorded voice, unless the company first gets the customers express written consent.

Sometime around July or August of 2017, the complaint alleges, DialAmerica began calling plaintiff Shuckett, purportedly from numbers beginning (619) 340-XXXX, with the last four digits varying, using an automatic dialing system and a pre-recorded voice.

The calls were an attempt to sell Shuckett bathroom fixtures, the complaint says, even though she had not shopped for bathroom fixtures, did not want to buy any, and had not given anyone permission to call her about them on her cell phone.

If Shuckett took the trouble to answer, the recorded message took her through a series of yes-or-no questions, and if her answer at any point was unsatisfactory, it terminated the call—only to call her again on another day. The complaint claims that at least three times Shuckett took the trouble to get through to a representative, to ask the company to stop calling her, but the company continued to call.

Not only did it continue to call; according to the complaint, they called up to four times a day, approximately forty times in a two-month period. The complaint therefore claims the company both negligently and knowingly violated the TCPA.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Failure to List on Internal Do Not Call List, TCPA, Unsolicited Cell Phone Calls