February 2, 2007
A "voice broadcaster" charged with making tens of millions of illegal automated telemarketing calls has agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty under a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
A federal district court action brought by DOJ on behalf of the Commission alleges that the Florida-based telemarketer's automated phone dialing service called and then illegally hung up on more than 64 million people -- and called more than a million numbers that were listed on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.
To settle this action, the telemarketer and its owners have agreed to a proposed court order that will prohibit them from making similar calls in the future and require them to pay the $1 million penalty.
According to the Commission, The Broadcast Team (TBT) and its two principals, Robert J. Tuttle and Mark S. Edwards, violated the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) in the course of using "voice broadcasting" to call millions of U.S. consumers using automated dialers and prerecorded messages.
Many of the numbers TBT called were on the DNC Registry, making the calls themselves unlawful. The FTC also charged that TBT failed to pay for access to the DNC Registry's numbers in numerous instances.
Furthermore, the FTC alleged that when the calls TBT made were answered by people, instead of voice mail or answering machines, TBT ended the call or hung up after playing a recording.
The proposed settlement announced today resolves the civil penalty action brought by DOJ against TBT and its owners based on these alleged "abandoned calls" in which TBT hung-up or played a recording, and violations of the TSR's Do Not Call provisions.
