Judges Decide That Cable Companies Really Do Tell People To (Expletive) Off
from the not-offensive-if-true.. dept
It sounds like some magistrates in the UK are fed up with waiting on hold to speak to customer service reps as well. Last fall, we wrote about how an angry customer of cable company NTL figured out how to change their recorded message to say: "You are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a (expletive) about you. We are never here. We just (expletive) you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just (expletive) off and leave us alone." The company, as you might imagine, was not amused. However, rather than being sued for hacking into the system, he was sued for the message being "grossly offensive" in violation of the Communications Act in the UK. It sounds like the members of the court have had one or two experiences with waiting on hold for NTL (or other, similar, companies) as well. While the guy admitted to changing the message, the court found that the particular message wasn't grossly offensive. Apparently, they felt it's not grossly offensive if it's true.
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