An Ohio Man sued Charter Communications Inc., doing business as Spectrum, for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations late last week. The class action complaint asserts that the nationwide cable and internet service provider uses pre-recorded voice messages as part of its marketing strategy, yet does not respect consumers’ privacy by calling their cell phones without consent and even after being asked not to.
The complaint is not the first Spectrum has received over robocalling violations. Law Street Media previously reported on two 2020 cases, one over voice calls and the other over automated texts.
Last week’s Cincinnati, Ohio lawsuit explains that Spectrum is a Connecticut company that provides television and internet services to more than 31 million customers in 41 states. It reportedly engages vendors to roll out its telemarketing campaigns.
Beginning in March 2021, the plaintiff, not a Spectrum customer, started to receive solicitation calls from the company. The complaint says the calls contained the identical sales pitch, the voice in all calls was monotone and was obviously not the voice of a live representative, and none of the calls identified the plaintiff by name.
The man sought to end the tirade of calls by reaching a live representative and expressing his desire not to receive them any longer. In December 2021, he changed his number, once again began to receive calls, and again asked a live representative to cease calling. Yet, the lawsuit says that the request “fell on deaf ears and Defendant continued to bombard Plaintiff’s new number with solicitation calls.”
The complaint seeks to certify a class of similarly situated people, non-Spectrum customers who received calls without their prior consent. The suit seeks damages of $500 per TCPA violation and triple that per each willful violation.
The plaintiff is represented by Hilton Parker LLC.
