ADT TCPA Lawsuit Claims Spam Phone Calls Were Illegal

A Georgia man is calling for class action status in an ADT TCPA lawsuit claiming the company illegally made spam phone calls to him and others.

Plaintiff Bradley Estey claims that he never provided written consent for autodialed telemarketing phone calls from ADT and that they continued to call him even after he requested that they stop.

This ADT TCPA lawsuit claims that the phone calls made were done so using an automated telephone dialing system. Estey also alleges ADT failed to maintain a proper internal “do not call” list. Both allegations would establish violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

ADT, a named defendant, is a home security company. In addition to ADT, Estey also names telemarketing company iPacesetters in the ADT TCPA lawsuit. He is pursuing this action on behalf of himself and others that may share similar experiences.

Estey says the calls were made by either ADT directly or by iPacesetters on ADT’s behalf and by their instruction. The calls attempted to schedule an appointment to convert Estey’s current home security system from a 2G network to the more widely used 3G cellular network.

Apparently, 2G networks will be phased out eventually, and ADT was allegedly attempting to upgrade Estey to the 3G network. The 2G conversions are supposed to be done free of charge.

But even though ADT offered in these calls to convert Estey’s network for free, the callers frequently tried to upsell Estey on premium systems that are not free, he alleges.

ADT TCPA Lawsuit Finds Evidence in Internal Corporate Docs

These upselling attempts are not secret, according to this TCPA lawsuit. Estey says he found evidence that the upselling techniques were planned in both an iPacesetters call script and a transcript from an internal management conference call for the first quarter of 2016.

The conference call transcript states: “In Q1 we incurred $24 million of radio conversion costs as we successfully converted 124,000 2G customers, a portion of which we were able to upsell ADT Pulse.” In subsequent conference calls, the information was similar.

Under the TCPA, if a call is made “for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods or services,” it is considered a telemarketing call. As such, if the call is made using an autodialer, it must be made with the express consent of the person being called.

Estey states that the defendants continued to call 18 more times even after he asked them to stop calling. Estey says that ADT and iPacesetters did not honor a “do not call” list.

In discovery it was uncovered that even if a customer stated “I don’t want to have calls from you anymore” on a 2G to 3G upgrade call, this would not necessitate adding the customers number to ADT’s “do not call” list.

The plaintiff believes that he and others like him are entitled to compensation for the damages incurred by the unwanted calls.

This ADT TCPA Lawsuit is Bradley Estey v. ADT LLC, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-03141 in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division.

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.

Get a Free Case Evaluation Now