Comcast May Pay Thousands in TCPA Lawsuit

A string of unconsented robocalls about a debt that was already paid has landed Comcast in federal court.

Plaintiff Kia E. is suing Comcast under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. She claims Comcast started using an automatic telephone dialing system to make a series of phone calls to her mobile phone. Kia alleges that upon answering the calls, she heard an automated voice say, “We’re calling from Comcast.” Then she was transferred to a live person.

According to the Comcast TCPA lawsuit, Kia claims she spoke with a live representative in September 2014. She says that representative told her Comcast was calling to collect an outstanding debt. Kia allegedly informed him that she had paid that debt off in 2011. She also told him she wanted Comcast to stop calling her mobile phone, and she claims he acknowledged that request.

Even after requesting cessation of phone calls, the plaintiff alleges Comcast continued to call on average once or twice a day until June 2015.

Background on TCPA and Allegations

Kia’s claims fall under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The TCPA has been in place since 1991 in order to limit the ways businesses can communicate with consumers. It prohibits the use of automatic telephone dialing systems or prerecorded voice messages to make calls to cell phones without express consent by the person being called.

The real muscle in the TCPA is its provision for statutory damages. With that provision on their side, plaintiffs don’t have to prove actual harm caused by the call. Businesses can be made to pay damages at $500 per unconsented call. If the business knew the calls were unwelcome, the act provides for treble damages at $1,500 per call. If Kia can prove all her allegations as pleaded, she could be looking forward to a damage award of several hundred thousand dollars.

The Federal Communications Commission is the agency charged with enforcing the TCPA. In July 2015 the FCC issued a declaratory ruling clarifying several TCPA provisions. One of these clarifications had to do with the situation Kia found herself in, in which a caller trying to reach a person who had consented to contact reaches another person to whom the phone number has been reassigned. The FCC ruled that the term “called party” in the TCPA refers to the current subscriber for that number, not the person the caller intended to reach. The agency says callers who don’t know of the reassignment and who reasonably believe they have valid consent may be excused for making one call to the new subscriber, putting the caller on notice about the reassignment so they know not to call again.

Kia’s TCPA lawsuit comes not long after a judge in New York awarded a plaintiff $229,500 against Time Warner Cable. That plaintiff, Araceli K., claimed she got 153 unconsented robocalls from Time Warner Cable, as they tried to reach a person who used to have Araceli’s phone number.

Araceli said the calls continued even after she made it clear to Time Warner that she was not the person they were looking for. However, Time Warner Cable claimed it did not know she did not consent to the calls. In fact, the company kept calling even after Araceli had initiated her TCPA lawsuit. Judge Alvin Hellerstein said those calls were “particularly egregious violations of the TCPA,” and made it incredible to believe Time Warner Cable’s claim that it was unaware of its error.

Join a Free TCPA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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