John Oliver Robocalls Ajit Pai For Not Doing More To Thwart Robocalls

from the ill-communication dept

Despite endless government initiatives and countless promises from the telecom sector, our national robocall hell continues. Robocalls from telemarketers continue to be the subject the FCC receives the most complaints about (200,000 complaints annually, making up 60% of all FCC complaints), and recent data from the Robocall Index indicates that the problem is only getting worse. Consumers continue to be hammered by mortgage interest rate scams, credit card scams, student loan scams, business loan scams, and IRS scams. 4.9 billion such calls were placed in February alone:

You might recall that HBO's John Oliver caused Ajit Pai's FCC no shortage of trouble when his coverage of net neutrality drove millions of pissed off consumers to the FCC website to complain. The FCC then got into a bit of hot water (and remains under investigation by the GAO and others) after falsely claiming those angry website visitors were part of a malicious DDOS attack. In reality, emails confirmed FCC staffers were simply trying to craft an alternative explanation to try and downplay massive public opposition to the Trump FCC's policies.

Fast forward to last weekend, and Oliver again brought some much-needed attention to the FCC's apathy, this time on the subject of robocalls. The whole missive is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it already:

Oliver's bit (which involves robocalling all five FCC commissioners) does a stellar job highlighting that the previous FCC passed new rules to rein in the robocall threat. But those rules were struck down by the courts after a lawsuit by the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, a group representing debt collectors (Pai celebrated the ruling at the time). To be clear, Pai has done a few notable things to try and crack down on the problem, ranging from slightly expanding (pdf) carrier abilities to try and block the calls, to issuing major fines against particularly-obvious scammers.

But as Oliver notes, there's a lot more Pai's FCC could do, like demanding big carriers offer their customers free robocall protection services, actually punishing those lagging behind at adopting anti-spoofing authentication tech, and narrowing the definition of robocalls to include debt collection and other purportedly "legit" but overwhelming callers. But that would require Pai actually standing up to major industries, something he's yet to do at any meaningful point during his appointment as FCC boss.

As it stands, predictions are that by next year, half of all calls made will be robocalls. And while companies like AT&T spent a few years trying to blame everybody else for its own failure to police the problem, it's one of several carriers finally on the cusp of deploying SHAKEN/STIR authentication technology that should dramatically put a damper on caller ID spoofing later this year. But evolving scammer tactics and lagging carriers means that to solve this problem, the FCC will need somebody willing to actually punish companies that refuse to do more.

Filed Under: ajit pai, consumer protection, fcc, john oliver, robocalls

FCC Pretends To Hold Carrier Feet To The Fire On Robocalls

from the annoy-me-during-dinner dept

Despite numerous government initiatives and countless promises from the telecom sector, our national robocall hell continues. Robocalls from telemarketers and scammers continue to be the subject the FCC receives the most complaints about, and recent data from the Robocall Index indicates that the problem is only getting worse. Consumers are routinely hammered by mortgage interest rate scams, credit card scams, student loan scams, business loan scams, and IRS scams. In September, group data showed that roughly 4.4 billion robocalls were placed to consumers at a rate of 147 million per day. The trend is not subtle:

Usually, you'll see the FCC crack down hard on small robocall scammers if the case is a slam dunk. But you'll never really see the agency hold giant carriers accountable for their longstanding apathy, blame shifting, and tap dancing that they have engaged in in terms of quickly adopting modern technical solutions to the problem.

This week, FCC boss Ajit Pai took a break from neutering popular consumer protections to send a letter to 13 companies including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Google, demanding they all do more to help protect consumers from robocalls. In a separate statement (pdf), Pai declared that if things don't start improving by next year, he'll maybe actually do something about it:

"Combatting (sic) illegal robocalls is our top consumer priority at the FCC. That’s why we need call authentication to become a reality—it’s the best way to ensure that consumers can answer their phones with confidence. By this time next year, I expect that consumers will begin to see this on their phones...If it does not appear that this system is on track to get up and running next year, then we will take action to make sure that it does."

Pai's letter resulted in numerous outlets stating that carriers must finally move quickly on the scourge of robocalls, "or else." Some outlets took the FCC's letter to mean that carriers absolutely had to solve robocalls by next year or something ambiguously serious would happen to them.

But that's not likely to be the case. Giant carriers have, if you haven't noticed, found the Trump FCC to be a mindless rubber stamp for every single one of their wishes, no matter how preposterous. Surely they're terrified that Pai may actually send them some additional snarky letters. After all, AT&T spent years trying to blame the FCC for its own failure to do more on this front, with zero real repercussions for the behavior (aside from being appointed lead on a "strike force" a few years back that pretty clearly hasn't addressed the problem).

Like past FCCs under opposing parties, the agency loves to do this thing where it "demands" carriers do something they already planned to do. In this case, it's the adoption of a new SHAKEN/STIR call authentication technology to hinder the use of spoofed numbers, which are all but impossible to police. Outside of a few holdouts (CenturyLink, Frontier), most of the carriers Pai sent letters to this week are already engaged in trials of this new technology, and have publicly stated they'll be launching the tech in early 2019.

In short, Pai is "demanding" that carriers adopt technology he knows they already planned to adopt. But his failure to impose a hard deadline (unlike, say, Canada), and his legacy so far of being aggressively cozy with the companies he's supposed to hold accountable, means that it's pretty unlikely that companies that fail to keep pace on SHAKEN/STIR deployments will actually see much in the way of punishment. After all, wasn't letting giant, lumbering telecom monopolies pretty much do whatever they want supposed to be a mystical panacea for the ills of the telecom sector?

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, robocalls, telemarketing
Companies: at&t, google, sprint, t-mobile

34 State AGs Demand The FCC Do More To End Annoying Robocalls

from the sorry-I-was-eating-dinner dept

Despite endless government initiatives and countless promises from the telecom sector, our national robocall hell continues. Robocalls from telemarketers continue to be the subject the FCC receives the most complaints about, and recent data from the Robocall Index indicates that the problem is only getting worse. Consumers continue to be hammered by mortgage interest rate scams, credit card scams, student loan scams, business loan scams, and IRS scams. In September, the group found that 4.4 billion robocalls were placed to consumers at a rate of 147 million per day. The trend is not particularly subtle:

The trend continues skyward despite the fact that the FCC passed new rules in 2015 expanding the ability of telecommunication companies to block robocalls and spam messages at the request of customers. And in 2016, the agency created a "robocalling strike force" tasked with crafting solutions for the problem. Additional rules dropped in 2017 taking aim at robocall spoofing.

So why is this still a problem? For one thing, cheap, internet-routed calling and spoofing options have outpaced both legal and technical solutions, leaving regulators and lawmakers in a perpetual race to catch up from behind. Flimsy security standards embedded in most caller ID systems also make spoofing phone numbers relatively trivial. Enforcement is also inconsistent (in part because smaller robocallers are often much easier to defeat in court than major companies), and years of apathy, blame shifting, and tap dancing by major carriers like AT&T certainly didn't help.

To that end, 34 State attorneys general signed a formal request this week urging the FCC to do more to thwart the problem. Comments made to the FCC make it clear that the FCC's 2017 spoofing rules didn't go far enough, so the AGs are requesting that the FCC create additional, more tailored rules to tackle things like "neighbor spoofing":

"One specific method which has evolved recently is a form of illegal spoofing called ‘neighbor spoofing.’ A neighbor-spoofed call will commonly appear on a consumer’s caller ID with the same area code and local exchange as the consumer to increase the likelihood he/she will answer the call. In addition, consumers have recently reported receiving calls where their own phone numbers appeared on their caller ID. A consumer who answered one such call reported the caller attempted to trick her by saying he was with the phone company and required personal information to verify the account, claiming it had been hacked. Scams like this cannot be tolerated."

The AGs also encouraged the FCC to bring some additional pressure on carriers to speed up the deployment of STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), protocol frameworks that should make it notably easier to authenticate legitimate calls and identify illegally spoofed calls. Hopefully the FCC can take a brief break from ignoring the public and kissing up to widely despised telecom monopolies to consider the request.

Filed Under: fcc, robocalls, scams, state attorneys general

AT&T Falsely Blames The FCC For Company's Failure To Block Annoying Robocalls

from the nice-tap-dance dept

Last year, the FCC made it abundantly clear in an announcement (pdf) that it was giving the green light to carriers that wanted to offer consumers robocall blocking technologies. Numerous companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon quickly complied, integrating services like Nomorobo in order to help consumers block annoying telemarketers from disrupting dinner time. Independent California ISP Sonic even went so far as to praise the FCC in a blog post, welcoming the FCC's clarification that offering call blocking technology won't violate call-completion rules.

Then there's AT&T.

In an interesting back and forth with the Dallas Morning News, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson joins us plebeians in complaining about robocalls, the day after Consumer's Union delivered a petition to the CEO with more than 600,000 consumers urging AT&T action. But when asked why AT&T isn't following other companies in the industry and actually doing something about it, the CEO first tried to tap dance around the question, before ultimately trying to blame the FCC for the company's own inaction:

"But didn’t the FCC just give you that permission last year for phone companies to install stricter call-blocking services?

“There will be rules around this,” Stephenson said. “We don’t go in and just start discriminately blocking calls going to people without their permission, without the appropriate authority. I don’t want to be on the front page because we blocked somebody’s call, if it was a life-saving call of some kind, right?"

Right, except that's bullshit. Again, the FCC made it perfectly clear that offering call-blocking services is absolutely no problem. When pressed further by the Consumerist as to why AT&T isn't helping consumers out, a spokesman tries to claim that the technology just doesn't exist to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate calls:

"Last year, the FCC gave us authority to implement technology to allow consumer-initiated robocall blocking. However, there are no technologies currently available that can accurately distinguish illegal robocalls from legitimate calls, which could include emergency calls,” reads the statement.

“In fact, many robocallers even spoof legitimate phone numbers, making it even more challenging. As a matter of law, we don’t have permission to block legitimate calls – that is a violation of the Communications Act. We’re continuing our work to find a solution that can identify illegal robocalls 100% of the time. Until then, we cannot risk blocking legitimate calls from consumers. But in the interim, although not a perfect solution, consumers can use apps like Nomorobo to block these calls."

Again though: bullshit. One, this hasn't been a problem for any other large company; companies like Time Warner Cable and Verizon that have offered such services face no such problems. AT&T also forgets to mention that it already offers a call-blocking service for landline customers (to the tune of an extra $8.50 per month) with apparently no such issues. And of course, given that AT&T was the one that effectively made mouseprint binding arbitration a permanent fixture in America, annoyed consumers wouldn't be able to sue AT&T anyway:

"Of course, even if AT&T screwed up and deployed a horrible call-blocker that caused you to miss only important calls, you couldn’t sue the company. The 2011 Supreme Court ruling in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion upheld the use of forced arbitration clauses and class-action bans in customer contracts. So not only can’t you take AT&T to court if it breaks the law, you can’t enter into a group arbitration with other AT&T customers."

Caring about the customer in this way just isn't in AT&T's corporate DNA. Remember, this is a company in the last few years that has been fined for ripping off programs for low-income families, settled a lawsuit for helping scammers rip off IP relay services for the hearing impaired, and paid an $18 million settlement to the government after it was found to be making bills intentionally harder to understand to help crammers. This isn't the kind of company to give a damn whether robocall blocking technology is blocking legitimate calls, unless there's some undisclosed financial and marketing/robocall relationships at play that benefit AT&T.

Filed Under: call completion, fcc, randall stephenson, robocalls
Companies: at&t

Settlement Reached In Class Action Lawsuit Against Rightscorp For Robocalls

from the well,-it's-something dept

In late 2014, we wrote about a class action lawsuit filed against copyright trolling operation Rightscorp, which argued two things: (1) that the company's robocalling people's mobile phones accusing them of copyright infringement violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), because you're not allowed to robocall mobile numbers, and that (2) the use of questionable DMCA 512(h) subpoenas to discover accounts associated with IP addresses was "abuse of process." Rightscorp and co-defendant Warner Bros. got that second claim tossed for violating California's anti-SLAPP law.

However, the robocalling/TCPA claim remained, and after bringing in a third party to help the two sides negotiate, it appears that they've reached a settlement agreement that has been presented to the judge for approval. According to the proposed settlement, the defendants will have to cough up $450,000, and members of the class (i.e., those who received Rightscorp robocalls to their mobile phones) can claim up to $100 each from the pool of money. Perhaps more interesting is that, so long as those class members sign an "Affidavit of Non-Infringement," then Righscorp promises not to pursue them for any copyright infringement claims. Apparently, this actually applies to members of the class who don't even make a claim for any money.

Defendants will contribute $450,000 to the Settlement Fund. Each Qualified Class member who timely submits a claim may receive a payment of up to $100.00 subject to the following condition. The Settlement Agreement provides that Defendants will release any and all alleged claims or counterclaims for copyright infringement against Settlement Class Members who timely execute an Affidavit of Non-Infringement. The value of the total infringement releases is estimated to fall between $94.8 million and $19 billion in total statutory damages.

That last number is a bunch of hogwash. It's just using the ridiculous statutory damages numbers to put a value on the promises to drop any copyright claims, but since Rightscorp never actually sues anyone, the statutory damages are meaningless. The idea behind it, though, is to show why the amount is lower than what the TCPA prescribes for violations of robocalling rules. Either way, this at least gets a bunch of folks out of Rightscorp's crosshairs. Rightscorp also promises to prevent future such robocalling, which may somewhat limit its ability to keep up its trolling operation.

It's not clear who exactly is paying the $450,000. Even though Righscorp is the real culprit, the much bigger pocketed Warner Bros. Entertainment and BMG are both defendants as well, so it wouldn't surprise me to discover that the actual money comes from them. However, maybe it will make them think twice about associating with trolling lowlifes like Rightscorp. This isn't final yet, as the court still needs to approve it -- but courts generally approve these kinds of settlements just to get the cases off the docket. So unless someone raises serious issues with it, it's likely to come to pass.

Filed Under: class action, copyright trolling, john blaha, robocalls, settlement, tcpa
Companies: bmg, righstcorp, warner bros.

Comcast Sued For Robocalling Woman 153 Times Over A Bill She'd Already Paid

from the if-you're-annoyed,-press-1 dept

Techdirt's very own Karl Bode had just written about Time Warner being forced to pay over $200k for robocalling a woman 153 times about an overdue balance that actually was owed by a completely different person. What with all the complaints that ISPs these days aren't forced to actually compete with one another, Comcast, in its infinite wisdom, decided to prove to the public that it will in fact directly compete with Time Warner on the battlefield of robocalling people about stuff when they shouldn't. Comcast's entry into the competition concerns the company robocalling Kia Elder about an overdue balance...that she'd already paid four years ago.

According to the lawsuit, Comcast customer Kia Elder was robocalled repeatedly by Comcast for an overdue balance of $527 she said she paid way back in 2011. Yet Comcast repeatedly called Elder "once or twice a day" between September 2014 and "at least through" June 18, and was incapable of updating its systems to show the bill had been paid despite repeated complaints. Elder and her attorney are now seeking $500 to $1,500 for each alleged Comcast violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. "Defendant acknowledged plaintiff’s instructions to stop calling her phone but did not stop," states the complaint.

Yes, Comcast apparently called Kia regarding a bill that had already been paid more often than a high school kid calls his ex to try to win her back. Kia reportedly complained about the calls, but they still kept coming. She tried to get Comcast to update its records to reflect the paid bill, but the calls kept coming. And now, thanks to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which essentially requires companies not plug up the public's cell phones with robotic corpo-vomit, she's seeking anywhere between $200k and half-a-mil-do as punishment.

Now, I'm not sure why legislation is required to inform companies that calling someone's cell phone twice a day is inappropriate, but it sure seems like Comcast hasn't given up on its dedicated aims to treating the public like shit now that the merger-dream is over.

Filed Under: customer service, kia elder, robocalls
Companies: comcast

Rightscorp Claims Its Harassing Phone Calls Safeguarded By Multiple Constitutional Amendments

from the putting-the-'rights'-back-in-'rightscorp' dept

Third-party copyright troll Rightscorp is fighting a couple of lawsuits related to its alleged telephonic harassment of alleged infringers. One wonders what the ROI is on funding robocalling in pursuit of $10-20 "settlements" from suspected infringers. Whatever it is, the ROI is definitely edging further into the red, what with the company now paying lawyers to safeguard its "right" to harass and threaten people who won't pay up (or haven't even performed any infringing activity).

I don't make this assertion lightly. Multiple complaints made to the FCC back up the assertions being made in two class-action lawsuits. Rightscorp has responded to the allegations made in the lawsuit filed earlier this year, claiming the company willfully violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in its "collection" efforts. (Note that most collection efforts revolve around unpaid bills -- something consumers previously agreed to pay in one form or another. Rightscorp's "collections" involve no agreement from consumers -- only accusations based on little more than snippets of torrent activity and an IP address. And yet, the company treats accused infringers as though this is unpaid debt, rather than the speculative wallet-rummaging it actually is.)

Rightscorp's response is hilarious -- although certainly not intentionally. First off, it denies pretty much every allegation except for the issuing of subpoenas and emails -- things nearly impossible to deny thanks to the paper trail they create.

Once it gets past that point, it starts issuing its affirmative defenses. According to Rightscorp, several Constitutional amendments enshrine its right to harass alleged infringers over the phone.

While the majority of its eleven defenses are questionable enough, the defenses 3-6 attack the law itself, claiming that TCPA is unconstitutional, namely it violates the First, Fifth, Fourteenth, and Eighth Amendments. Why is it so, Rightscorp doesn’t say.

From the filing:

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“the TCPA”), codified at 47 U.S.C. § 227, upon which Plaintiffs’ claims rely, violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

[...]

The TCPA violates the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

[...]

The TCPA violates the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

It appears Rightscorp would rather have the court examine a law twice held to be constitutional than look into its "collection" activities.

The First Amendment argument isn't exactly novel. Rightscorp and Warner Bros. have previously argued that copyright trolling is free speech. But, in that case, at least it actually made an argument. The affirmative defense offered here is nothing more than literally "the law violates the First Amendment," something no court has held to this point.

Beyond that, the other affirmative Constitutional defenses offered by Rightscorp are probably going to be viewed as "novel" by the court -- something that's rarely a compliment when it's written in a judicial opinion. As of right now, they're not even arguments. They're just assertions. The real fun will begin when Rightscorp starts explaining how violating a consumer protection law is not just protected speech, but is safeguarded by the application of Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Filed Under: constitution, due process, fifth amendment, first amendment, harassment, robocalls
Companies: rightscorp

Time Warner Cable Forced To Pay $229,500 For Robocalling The Wrong Person...153 Times

from the dysfunction-junction dept

Time Warner Cable continues to be incredibly good at being incredibly bad at what it does. The cable operator already enjoys arguably the worst customer satisfaction ratings of any company in any U.S. industry, below even Comcast. Its horrible customer service is legendary, and things have actually gotten worse as the company has sat on its hands waiting to be sold off to a rotating crop of equally dysfunctional suitors. When you're this bad at what you do, you have to be truly creative in finding new and imaginative ways to annoy your customer base.

Time Warner Cable's latest incredible display of ineptitude? The cable giant has been sued for robocalling a woman 153 times regarding an overdue balance. The problem? Time Warner Cable was calling the wrong woman, who ultimately had to file suit against the cable operator to get them to stop annoying her:

"King, of Irving, Texas, accused Time Warner Cable of harassing her by leaving messages for Luiz Perez, who once held her cellphone number, even after she made clear who she was in a seven-minute discussion with a company representative. The calls were made through an "interactive voice response" system meant for customers who were late paying bills."

Time Warner Cable is being ordered by the courts to pay Araceli King $229,500 (or $1,500 per call) for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, not a bad payout for the woman having to delete 153 unlistened-to voicemails. The truly amazing part is that Time Warner Cable still managed to robocall the woman an additional 74 times...after the suit was filed:

"He also said 74 of the calls had been placed after King sued in March 2014, and that it was "incredible" to believe Time Warner Cable when it said it still did not know she objected. "Defendant harassed plaintiff with robo-calls until she had to resort to a lawsuit to make the calls stop, and even then TWC could not be bothered to update the information in its IVR system," Hellerstein wrote."

That's pretty impressive even for Time Warner Cable's low standards of operational efficiency. Some bad news for Time Warner Cable: the FCC actually just got done making Robocall restrictions a little tougher for violators. Surely Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus, set to potentially make $97 million as an exit package via the upcoming Charter merger, is working tirelessly at making his company much less professionally annoying.

Filed Under: do not call, robocalls, telemarketing, telephone consumer protection act
Companies: time warner cable

Complaints To FTC About Rightscorp Detail Robocalls, Harassment And Baseless Threats To Sever Internet Connections

from the you-know,-all-those-things-everyone's-suing-about dept

If these FTC complaints are to be believed, Rightscorp is doing pretty much everything Morgan Pietz's class action lawsuit has accused it of.

Among other wrongful conduct: Rightscorp has engaged in telephone harassment and abuse (15 U.S.C. § 1692d); made various false and misleading representations (15 U.S.C. § 1692e); engaged in unfair collections practices (15 U.S.C. § 1692f); failed to provide validation and required notices relating to the debts (15 U.S.C. § 1692g); and furnished emails and letters knowing they would create false beliefs on the parts of consumers that their Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) were participating in the attempt to collect on the purported debts when in fact the ISPs were not participating (15 U.S.C. § 1692f).

Robocalls, baseless threats, seemingly endless harassment, constantly fluctuating "settlement offers"... it's all included in the FTC complaints. (And turned over with extreme expeditiousness by the FTC -- seven days from the point my FOIA request was received.) [Spreadsheet link. Scroll all the way to the right to see complaint details. Also note there are two tabs of complaints.]

Consumer had his internet turned off and he called his service provider and they told him that Digital Rights Corp sent them a warning telling him that they would shut off his internet if he didn’t contact them and he did and they told him that they had 34 counts against him of uploading a children’s song and they told him that it could be $150 thousand dollars per each count and they have admitted that he didn’t do it but he has to pay it because his service was used to do this and he has to pay teh consumer was told if he gave them $500 they would make everything go away. Advised Consumer to call the State Attorney General.

---

Consumer is receiving repeated phone calls from a company claiming to be from Rights Corp and the company claims that the consumer has illegally downloaded music and the company is trying to collect money for the illegal downloads. Consumer states that the company states that the consumer must pay immediately and they tried to obtain a cc number. Consumer states that the company claims that if the consumer does not pay over the phone the amount of the money owed would be mulitplied by 100% and that they would terminate the consumer's internet services.

Every settlement offer looks "reasonable" when compared to maximum statutory infringement damages -- something Rightscorp has no intention of pursuing. As for the claim that the alleged infringer's internet connection could be cut off? It's mostly false. Rightscorp has managed to push around a few small ISPs using its untested theory that the DMCA requires service providers to boot repeat infringers. But at this point, any internet disconnection is a purely voluntary action on the part of the ISP. There's no legal basis for its claims and no court decision that backs its assertions up. And, most importantly, Rightscorp can't actually cut off anyone's internet connection -- at least not on its own. But that doesn't stop it from insinuating that it possesses this power.

How can you tell Rightscorp has far less power than it pretends to have? By how swiftly it resorts to bargaining.

The Digital Rights Corp. has charged us with 216 illegal down loads. They said that 153 sucessfully down loaded. They first wanted us to pay 3,000 dollars. Now everytime we speak to them the amount changes from 3,000, 560.00, 500.00, and the last amount was 390.00.

---

Rightscorp, Inc sent us a letter about 6-24-2014 saying we owe $4,060 for copyright infringments. We called to inquire on this accusation. They stated pay $460 by ~6pm (that day ) or pay the full amount. They also pressed for a credit card number. To this day they have been calling about 3x's a week. (They threaten to cut off our internnet service.)

And how can you tell Rightscorp is nothing more than a troll? Because if you feed it, it comes back for more.

Forwarded by the State of Alabama Office of the Attorney General… Consumer responded to first email and paid $20 for the fee requested. She received 27 more emails each requesting $20… Consumer received another email threatening to shut down her internet service demanding settlement. Consumer states she is now getting phone calls from this company.

---

Digital Rights started annoying robot calls after I made a $20 payment on behalf of a third party to settle an alleged copyright issue. They decided I "owed" them a lot more, $280. I demanded no further calls...They insisted they can call me as much as they want by any means even though I was not actually involved directly with the internet account.(gift,not at my home) They sent a threatening letter and emails, too...

---

I received notification from my internet provider that a report had been made of illegally download. I contacted Charter who offer no assistance they were "only relaying a message" I then contacted the RIGHTSCORP. I was hesitant to give them information but was coerced into giving them our name and phone number. Initially they said they wanted 20.00 or else they would sue us for 150,000.00 dollars. I told them I had checked with the entire family and they did not believe they had downloaded these songs. She , Cecilee, called back and stated the charges were now 180.00.

---

I made a single payment on behalf of my son in law to clear a digital rights claim as I gave him a year internet as a gift. Now they won't stop calling me trying to get more money for more "claims."

Rightscorp apparently deploys two tactics with regularity, both unpleasant: threats and harassment.

Rightscorp sent me a letter for copyright infringement so I called the number on the paper they sent and they said that it carries a fine of $150,000 but if I gave them $20 they would settle it. Now they call me every Monday, Wednesday & Friday and are continuing to send me the same letter.

---

Rights Corp is claiming that I owe them money because they served my internet service provider with a subpoena for my information. They call 3 or 4 times per day in addition to text messaging…

---

This company has been calling my home 3-4 times a day for months, originally threatening me to pay them thousands of dollars or they would sue us. Since the initial call with them, which I refused to comply with, they have called continually, everyday and on weekends, always with a recorded message that I never pick up...

And the company's "collection agents" appear to be disguising the origin of the calls.

False claims of copyright infringement from well-known copyright "troll". Company is California based, but call came from Tennessee.

---

...They are trying to intimidate me into giving them money for nothing by harassing me over the telephone. Most of the telephone calls are not live people, but an automated message that leaves me a voice mail from several different numbers with several different area codes..

I've reached out to Rightscorp to see if it has any comment on the FTC complaints. I'm not holding my breath for an answer, considering much of what's alleged in these complaints is the subject of two class action suits. But what's detailed here is nothing more than pure copyright trolling: baseless threats, harassment, and settlement offers. We've seen this deployed by a fair number of supposed rights enforcement entities and most of those are now languishing. Rightscorp isn't looking too healthy itself.

And the most amazing part is that -- despite two lawsuits centering on this abusive behavior -- it hasn't reined in its collection efforts. Many of the complaints filed with the FTC appeared after Morgan Pietz filed his lawsuit in November of 2014, with the latest listed being March 24, 2015. Apparently, it's just going to keep up its questionable tactics until it's forced to stop, even though there's little indication they've resulted in anything more than a few scattered, small settlements.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, ftc, harassment, robocalls, shakedown, threats
Companies: rightscorp

Class Action Filed Against Rightscorp For Shaking Down People With Robocalls

from the heading-down,-down,-down... dept

We've written a few times about Rightscorp, the company that has tried to set itself up as a sort of "friendlier" copyright troll, acquiring a bunch of copyrights, sniffing out IP addresses connected to sharing of content associated with that copyright, and then trying to demand payments. The main "difference" with Rightscorp is that it usually demands lower, potentially more palatable sums than traditional copyright trolls, and it's trying to "partner" with ISPs to send notices on its behalf, rather than suing people. Most ISPs, so far, have refused to do this. And so far, Rightscorp has been something of a joke -- thinking it had discovered a subpoena loophole that had been slammed shut by the courts years ago (every few years a new copyright troll thinks it's found this same loophole) and talking about hijacking browsers. The reality is that it's a company with a sketchy past that seems to have reverse-mergered itself into being a public company that has seen its stock drop precipitously and still hasn't shown much ability to actually make any money from shaking down file sharers.

And now, it's facing a class action lawsuit from Morgan Pietz, the lawyer who was one of the main lawyers who helped unravel and bring down Prenda.

The complaint seeks class damages against Rightscorp for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, California’s Rosenthal Act, and Abuse of Process. The complaint alleges unlawful robo-calls, as well as other unfair debt collection practices, and that Rightscorp has abused the legal process by issuing DMCA Section 512(h) subpoenas that it knew were objectively baseless.

Here's the same thing in more detail from the legal filing itself:

Rightscorp is regularly engaged in the business of collecting on alleged obligations of consumers to pay money (i.e., debt collection) for purported copyright infringement claims, such that it is subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act (15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq.) (“FDCPA”) and the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1788 et seq.) (“Rosenthal Act”). However, Rightscorp has repeatedly and systematically failed to comply with the provisions of the FDCPA and the Rosenthal Act. Among other wrongful conduct: Rightscorp has engaged in telephone harassment and abuse (15 U.S.C. § 1692d); made various false and misleading representations (15 U.S.C. § 1692e); engaged in unfair collections practices (15 U.S.C. § 1692f); failed to provide validation and required notices relating to the debts (15 U.S.C. § 1692g); and furnished emails and letters knowing they would create false beliefs on the parts of consumers that their Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) were participating in the attempt to collect on the purported debts when in fact the ISPs were not participating (15 U.S.C. § 1692f).

Further, to identify potential consumers to target, Rightscorp has willfully misused this Court’s subpoena power by issuing at least 142 special DMCA subpoenas, per 17 U.S.C. § 512(h), to various Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”). These subpoenas, which were issued on this Court’s authority, but procured outside of an adversarial proceeding and without any judicial review, are so clearly legally invalid as to be a sham and abuse of the legal process. After an ISP moved to quash one of these 142 subpoenas in the Western District of Texas, on September 10, 2014, Rightscorp withdrew that subpoena rather than risk judicial review of its plainly unlawful use of this Court’s subpoena power. See In re Subpoena Issued to Grande Com’n. Net’s., LLC, W.D. Tx. No. 1:14-mc-00848, ECF No. 3, 9/10/14; see also id. at ECF No. 1, 9/5/14 (ISP’s motion to quash). Nevertheless, since then, throughout the later part of September and through until the filing of this action, Rightscorp has continued to issue dozens of new, legally invalid DMCA subpoenas on this Court’s authority (see, e.g., In re Subpoena Issued to US Internet Corp., C.D. Cal. No. 2:14-mc-864-UA, 10/14/14).

Should be an... interesting lawsuit to pay attention to.

Filed Under: copyright trolling, debt collection, lawsuit, robocalls, shakedown
Companies: rightscorp