Santander Lawsuit Accuses Finance Company of TCPA Violations

Plaintiff Phyllis K. has  filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court against Santander Consumer USA Inc. alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Santander is a consumer finance company specializing in vehicle finance and unsecured consumer lending products.

Phyllis alleges that in attempting to collect a debt, Santander intentionally harassed and abused her on several occasions by calling her cellular phone.

These calls were allegedly made over a course of four years and with a frequency “as can reasonably be expected to harass,” the Santander lawsuit says.

Phyllis claims that over the course of four years, going back to at least 2013, the calls by Santander continued once per day on average.

Santander allegedly placed calls using an “automatic telephone dialing system,” or ATDS, without prior expressed consent of the called party–an alleged violation of the TCPA.

An ATDS is equipment that has the capacity to, using a sequential or random number generator, store telephone numbers to be called.

Phyllis alleges that an artificial or prerecorded voice was also used, as when Phyllis would answer a call, she would receive a prerecorded or artificial message.

Phyllis says that she held on the line to be transferred to a live agent or representative. During that call, she asked the representative to immediately cease all calls to her cellular phone.

By explicitly demanding the calls to be stopped, the Santander lawsuit says, Phyllis “revoked any previously perceived expressed consent” to be contacted. However, Phyllis continued to receive more than 200 phone calls to her cellular phone from the defendant.

Overview of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Congress enacted the TCPA in 1991 to curtail and restrict the use of automatic telephone dialing systems, artificial or prerecorded voice messages, and the making of telemarketing calls. It was enacted to help protect privacy interests.

TCPA violations can be subject to statutory penalties of $500, and up to $1,500 per violation, if a defendant has been deemed to have willfully or knowingly violated the TCPA.

Some rules of the TCPA were also revised in 2012 by the FCC. According to the FCC, TCPA rules require telemarketers to obtain prior expressed consent before robocalling consumers.

Telemarketers are also no longer allowed to use an “established business relationship” to avoid getting consumers’ consent, and telemarketers must provide an “opt-out” mechanism to allow consumers the ability to tell telemarketers to cease all calls.

The establishment of a national Do-Not-Call registry was also set in place in 2003. The national registry, which went into effect on Oct. 1, 2003, covers all telemarketers and applies to calls ranging from both interstate and intrastate. It is also nationwide in scope.

The national registry is administered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and was also established to restrict requirements for the transference of consumer caller ID information.

The Santander Lawsuit is Case No. 6:17-cv-01868-ACC-GJK, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division.

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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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