Hey gang…
Wanted to have an open dialog about some robocalling that is being done by Spectrum, dba Charter Communications.
As some of you in the USA know, Spectrum is actually a corporate brand of Charter Communications. They are a cable TV company and a broadband ISP.
They are also a big-time TCPA violator:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/facebook-charter-say-robocall-law-violates-free-speech
Spectrum along with Facebook are trying to get the Telephone Consumer Practices Act which stops unsolicited telemarketing calls to USA people shot down on 1st Amendment grounds.
I've had an opportunity to observe Spectrum's behavior when it comes to how they're doing sales leads. They're using both in-house and outside lead generation---I gathered this by listening in the background of their phone center and also listened to managers coming on the line.
Spectrum is a very big fish and has unlimited resources to throw at lawyers. In short, they can go after scammer.info and also BobRTC. On the flip side, Spectrum's behavior with illegal telesales calls they are marking w/o any consumer authorization does meet the BobRTC policy of a valid number to call. Spectrum is harassing consumers on the telephone, stealing their time and prepay minutes and they are clearly violating FCC rules. They're calling consumers who have just activated their numbers (previous courts have ruled that dialing re-activated numbers owned by subscribers is not an excuse to get out of the TCPA, particularly not when the company has been warned that the telephone number no longer belongs to a consumer they are looking for). In Spectrum's case they will talk to any live adult that answers the phone on their outbound lead sales calls, they don't particularly care what it is. They're also calling by geographic areas because cable tv is an oligopoly.
My recommendation with Spectrum is that if you want to scambait them; have at it... but please limit it to just a scambait. Don't flood them with robots. That's likely going to escalate to legal counsel trying to pick apart providers. If you have a good relationship with your VOIP provider you don't want that ruined by Spectrum opening a ticket and then your VOIP being shut off.
The chances of Spectrum overturning the TCPA is close to zero because they're appealing on suits where consumers that they have harassed on the telephone prevailed. It's going to be a tough sell even to the most conservative judge that Spectrum has the right to harass your grandma into a mental breakdown by calling her several times a day trying to hook her up with a cable tv package she doesn't want.
At some point we're going to block them on BobRTC once Spectrum corporate shifts direction after they lose their TCPA appeal and they're forced to pay the victims that they've harassed. That's likely going to curb their telesales operation---and if they do that we will no longer have the legal theory that protects us (we're just returning your trash phone calls you made, what's the problem?).
IIRC Spectrum also does ATA/VOIP so it's kinda weird how they are also a carrier who also handles tickets from their landline customers complaining about unwanted telesales calls--while they themselves make unwanted telesales calls to non-customers that violate the TCPA.
This is just a circle jerk of madness.