Time Warner Cable owes $229K to woman it would not stop calling | Hacker News Reader

Time Warner Cable owes $229K to woman it would not stop calling

reuters.com

158 pointsleephillips96 comments

I find it odd that there's no universal system for blocking calls from specific numbers. I'm guessing you could implement a spam filter, so Harassment/telemarketing wouldn't be a problem.

Consolidation of all of the phone companies would help but then you run into the problem of someone changing their phone number when you block them .

Indeed, our current phone system makes it incumbent upon the person getting harassed to change their number. 25+ years ago there was someone angry at my parents that used to call in the middle of the night until they changed their (unlisted) number, over and over. Not sure why the person eventually stopped, I guess the game got old.

It kind of points to the fact that long before the internet existed, we were bad at building systems that allowed victims of harassment to have any recourse against abusers.

How did they repeatedly obtain the unlisted number?

The caller didn't get the new number, they repeatedly called the old number until it was changed. Or that's how I read it. The wording is a little confusing.

I'm not sure I understand correctly what you mean, but you can either block or send to immediate voicemail individual numbers if you use Google Voice for your phone number.

I don't find it that odd, but what I do find odd is that in these days of smartphones the software dialers don't make it trivially easy to block incoming calls. You have to choose an app if you want to block calls and most people are understandably a bit hesitant to replace the default app that came with the phone with some third-party one of unknown provenance. This is a pity, because if users could easily share telemarketing blocklists and so on you could shut down abusive calling industries very very easily.

Not true for the iPhone: just add the number to a contact, and block the contact.

I have a contact "Blocked Telemarketers" for exactly this purpose. Every time a new one hits me, I just add its number to this contact. Trivially easy.

Same for Android. Add to a contact, in the contact options you can send it straight to Voicemail.

I use a similar feature on Android.

What I really want though is a very simple feature. I don't want my phone to accept phone calls unless the number is in my address book already. Its so straightforward and already implemented in other communication mediums, I do not understand why it is not a feature yet.

Just one vendor including this feature would force all of them to.

My parents do this the old fashioned way. They don't pickup unless they recognize the number.

In fact, my colleagues do the same, and this has actually caused problems for On call if the colleague calling at 4am isn't in the callee's circle of friends.

Android 5+ (or maybe 5.1) includes this - you can set it to priority notifications only, and then turn calls on but say to only include calls from your contacts.

Cyanogenmod, at least in the CM11 (KitKat version) offers this functionality. It also lets you know via notification what the number was.

Windows Phone goes one further: you can explicitly block any number.

Tap and hold on the number in your call history, and "Block caller" is right there!

> Tap and hold

Unfortunately, the "and hold" bit is rather hard to figure out. (And I started out knowing it could be done, but not how.)

There are some serious discoverability problems with the latest wave of pretty interfaces.

You don't even need to add a contact. You can block any number on the iPhone by going into the Recents list in Phone and picking the 'Block this caller' option.

I've got quite a long list of blocked sales numbers, mostly Virgin Media and Three.

I do this on Android. The contact's name is "Asshole" :)

Some custom Android ROMS might have the call blocker feature.

One example is Xiaomi's MIUI [ http://en.miui.com/thread-118672-1-1.html ]: "MIUI Call Blocker - How to Block/Unblock Contacts ?"

This is the best argument against "personal responsibility" ever. I don't want to protect myself from Comcast bothering me, I want them to observe courtesy. We have laws for that.

Good luck with getting bill collectors and salesmen to observer courtesy. Hasn't happened in 5 centuries.

It goes hand in hand with the fact that there's no reliable system for identifying the origin of an incoming call. Telcos won't let Caller ID information be reliable enough to be used for blocking purposes, so there's clearly a lot of money in aiding and abetting the telemarketers/scammers.

Let's assume caller ID info is perfect, that doesn't actually solve the issue. If a telco gives a local business e.g. 100 numbers, and when those numbers call out it says "Whatever business, 123 main street, somecity" you'd just see the VoIP provider's info each time a scammer calls you.

Right now you can often determine the address/owner of a telephone number, but that doesn't tell you who REALLY called because the VoIP company never passes on that info even to the telcos.

What we need is a law that forces VoIP providers (inc. Skype) to forward some real caller ID info onto the telcos, and then the telcos need to forward that info to the end user.

The insecurity of the caller ID system (i.e. it is trivially spoofed) is a legitimate problem however, since even if the VoIP provider did pass on the info, the scammer could override it.

> you'd just see the VoIP provider's info each time a scammer calls you

Then we could blacklist VoIP providers that act as a haven for scammers, as we do with hosting providers that offer the same to email spammers.

It seems it would be better just to outlaw spoofing the identity of another entity (to prevent SWATting), but still allow blocked number calls. Spoofing numbers for fraud should also be deterred somehow.

Even without this, one could develop Bayesian filters to detect likely spam calls and run them through a captcha first.

> It goes hand in hand with the fact that there's no reliable system for identifying the origin of an incoming call.

Probably because of legacy issues

In the same way you don't know the internal IP of a connection to a webserver

Caller ID is sent by the initiating exchange, and it is not used for the backwards connection

See the ISDN specs for more details

Whitelist filtering. Known contacts are allowed, preferably on a time of day basis. Eg your auto repair shop can't call during dinner. Family and boss, 24/7. Blocks when you need to go heads-down dark.

I think most VoIP providers let you block calls. Google voice does as well. As do most Cell providers, plus you can install apps on jailbroken cell phones that will do that.

It's really only POTS that doesn't have such functionality.

This can be implemented on a PSTN, but I doubt any providers would bother to do it for a single, private customer. Shame really.

This is precisely why I moved to VoIP.

At least a couple of times a month for about a year, we'd get a fax call at around 2am. The phone company refused to do anything about it, saying that if it wasn't explicitly harassing, it was OK. That makes me not want to be their customer anymore.

So we switched to a VoIP service, which we can set up blacklists or whitelists for as we like. No more problems.

I think the underlying problem is that the TelCo just doesn't care: they're happy to lose you as a POTS customer. They lose money on residential service, so if they can go by the book for regulatory purposes and still shed those unprofitable customers, they're winning.

My phone has a call-blocking feature, and I even use a service that routes private callers through an 800-number to get their unspoofed ANI. Yet one debt collector calls me from 200 different numbers. They change the number every 2-3 days. (it's for a debt I consider invalid, and beyond the 10 year statute of limitations anyway, so I won't ever pay it.)

I think what we need is an Adblock for phone numbers that categorizes all spammers, debt collectors, etc and blocks them instantly on everyone's phones.

With this ruling by the FCC, you might not need to anymore... http://www.autodialerauthority.com/fcc-approves-new-autodial...

I'm guessing you're talking about Trapcall?

TelAPI has such neat features.

Yep, didn't want to seem like I was advertising. It's a bit pricey, and annoying that we have to use such tricks to unmask private callers.

Sounds like the practical near-term solution would be a white list: only allow calls from a list of known callers.

If you mean what I think you mean I think that is unworkable for most of us. Drop your car off at the shop for some work. Mechanic calls you from his cell phone because it's handy and the shop line is tied up. You never get it. Or school nurse calls you about an emergency. Neighbor calls you to tell you your dog got out from the back yard. That kind of stuff is about the only reason I have voice service - I don't use the damn thing to talk for the most part.

I do mean what you think I mean, and I understand what you're saying, but if the sort of volume of spam people are talking about became the norm, for me it would be either white list or stop owning a phone at all. Between those two options, white list seems the better one.

This story came to mind: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462

I was unaware of trapcall but will have to investigate.

Callcentric's whitelisting + call routing rules combined with a download of your android phonebook makes an effective whitelist filter. Anyone not in your address book is just sent to voicemail.

You can make that debt collector pay you with small effort.

Patio11s comment on debt collectors and how to pown them (sadly still requires paper mails and letters):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7135833

In Australia, there's not even a useful national system for registering to not receive unsolicited commercial calls.

I can register a personal number on a Do Not Call list, but there are exemptions for political parties, charities, religious organisations and market researchers. Market researchers and charities make a lot of calls.

There is no equivalent for business numbers.

And then on top of that, there are countless telemarketing calls from overseas. The latest frustration on my business number is outsourcing spammers calling to explain that they will be sending me (spam) email in a moment and telling me the title of the attachment, etc. So, spam plus an interrupting phone call - fantastic! Thanks subcontinent!

There is a danish guy who started answering all business spam calls with "we do not use X" here - so they would call up and ask for whomever was in charge of lighting and he would say "we do not use lighting here", then spin a story about how they just used very bright monitors etc.

You might be able to have some fun with them at least - or just abuse the heck out of them (unfortunately telemarketers seem pretty blasee about it).

As for your private line, if you don't recognize the number just don't answer it? My cellphone blocks all calls during the night (with an exception for families) but I think it can block all numbers not in my contacts.

My co-tenant pays various utility bills so I already respond that I don't pay an electricity bill, water bill, etc - that usually leaves callers quite puzzled.

It's the pointless interruption I can't stand.

I've been using an Android app called "Mr Number" [1] for a few years now to help block nuisance calls. One of it's more useful features is its use of crowdsourcing to identify spam numbers and automatically block them right from the first time they try to call you. There's a bunch of other similar Android apps (presumably for iOS too?) that are worth a look too, depending on your particular needs. See the "Similar" section on the link below.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.b...

iOS doesn't expose the necessary APIs to be able to filter calls.

Huh? What does Phone / Recents / ⓘ by the number that called you / Block this Caller do then?

Edit: oh, API for use by another app. Gotcha.

iOS has that capability internally, obviously. But there's no API for 3:rd party apps to access that data, or to intercept calls.

I'd used Mr. Number for a while, and even recommended it at one point. Its increasingly overreaching permissions demands, especially over contacts, lead me to drop it. I've since switched to a feature phone due to concerns with Android privacy generally, though my frustrations in not being able to screen or filter calls, on a whitelist basis, are high. Telephony generally is in desperate need of radical updating, with both control and privacy as major concerns.

Out of interest, what feature phone did you switch to?

There's a new device in the UK, "BT Call Guardian" which basically has a whitelist/blacklist system and then anyone else gets answered by the device, without your phone ringing. The device explains what is going on and asks the caller to say their name. The phone then rings and the device says who is calling and you then decide whether to answer, ignore or add to blacklist.

One of my colleagues absolutely swears by it.

I'm sure this is a rebadged thing as I've heard of something similar a few years ago, so it should be better than BT doing it themselves.

iOS has that, for numbers in your address book.

There is a lawyer who makes a nice amount every year (more than an average Silicon Valley salary) suing the telemarketers that call him.

I was wondering if such a lawyer would partner with others -- but anyway he released a book on how to be a parasite on parasites and get paid doing a service to society. Does anyone have a link?

http://www.amazon.com/How-Sue-Telemarketer-Stephen-Ostrow/dp...

I sued a telemarketer once and got a few thousand dollars: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4023834

That was a great read! And thank you for providing sources on the laws.

I've been getting cell phone calls for years now, several times a week, from companies asking for someone who isn't me, mostly debt collectors, but also home security sales. It's always the same name, and I'm pretty sure this person is using my phone number as a fake number for themselves (or maybe it's just an area code mistake or something). I've told them many times they have a wrong number and to stop calling.

Do you know if this still applies when someone else has a relationship with the business but is providing false information?

I'm not great at reading legal documents, but it seems like the definition of telemarketer only applies to sales and charitable donations (so it won't apply to the creditors)?

I have an old analogue modem hooked to our phone line, so when we receive an incoming call the number pops up on my computer screen (and the lounge TV screen if XMBC is being used at the time.) It is also cross-referenced with my address book so if it is a known number, it also displays the name of the caller.

One problem though is here in Australia, a lot of telemarketers, etc., have the caller ID comes up as private. Also, my mum, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and one of my clients all have private numbers, so that’s five likely sources when I see a private number. The problem is there’s only one of those sources I actually want to talk to (not saying which one, but it aint the telemaketers.)

Would love a device similar to the one cmdkeen mentioned available in the UK that will screen unknown numbers and voice prompt them.

I’ve occasionally pondered using Asterisk or similar open-source PBX to create a system like that. However it is in the queue behind about four other pet projects…

My mom used to have a private number for work reasons, and I told her if she called me to leave a voicemail and I would call her back. I don't pick up private numbers for any reason.

Telstra are selling the "Call Guardian 301" as well now which sounds like the same device as cmdkeen mentioned: https://www.telstra.com.au/home-phone/handsets

Hey thanks for that! I'll check it out.

It seems the solution here is to get your mother-in-law to stop calling you from a private number. Really private numbers are like slapping people in the face - you need to pick up on telemarketers just so that you will pick up on if I happen to call.

Better yet, encourage nuisance callers! If you're in the UK, it's possible to set up a 'premium rate' phone number - which means the caller has to pay to call you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462

Is there anything I could do in a similar situation? I receive robocalls from several sketchy locations multiple times a day. I installed a call blocker on my phone which sometimes works, but would love to make it stop.

I use Google Voice. It picks up the spam pretty efficiently.

It is refreshing to see the common person prevailing against Big Corp.

$229K for 150+ calls? Please tell TWC to call me! Unfortunately for me though, there is never such crazy amounts when suing in the country where I reside.

It seems reasonable. The article states that almost half the calls occurred after she had sued them and well after she had objected to the calls and corrected her identity with the company.

A payout of $229k is a terribly large payout for a minor irritation caused by sheer incompetence on the part of the defendant. Lives and limbs are frequently valued lower.

I mean, the average British mobile phone owner probably receives 100 or so irritating automated telemarketing calls a year, all of them worthless spam and many of them originating from the same party - can we all have $229k too?

Attacking a bank account is really the only thing that makes a difference.

Also, by all means, make an example out of a few of these organizations. Adhere to the law or suffer.

It's a punitive charge, designed to get the company to realize the cost of their gross negligence. Besides, I'd be willing to bet that 90% of it went to the plaintiff's lawyers.

I'd settle for £22.90 actually, I've had to change number to get away from the spam calls but my investment in the old number was really low.

Part of the reason it's so high is due to contempt-of-court issues

I miss clicked. How do I un-down vote you?

You can't, but I sent an upvote to balance it out.

Swings and roundabouts, no worries. If a comment seems unfairly 'greyed out', usually someone else will come along and at least nudge it back to neutral.

If an individual did this, they wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt that it was simply due to incompetence, given an affordable fine, and otherwise left to go about their lives. They'd be put in jail. TWC got off lightly.

There is a large fine per call because robocallers are relentless at skirting and flat out breaking the law. This is so common. Each time I moved I ended up getting endless debt collection calls on the new line. If you can even talk to a real human (so many hang ups, or "call this number" with no option to speak), they argue with you, scream at you, hang up quickly before you can finish with what you are saying. I was shocked a year or so ago when the person actually talked with me, asked if I knew about the person they were looking for, gave me a number to call if I ever did have contact or learn anything, and the calls from them stopped from then on. I shouldn't have to be shocked about what is normal behavior, but I was.

229K is a pittance. It won't stop anything - an out of the blue one time 229K hit is nothing compared to the millions they are making by acting this way. Sure, that particular woman hit the lottery, but for fines to have any meaning whatsoever they need be large enough for deterrence (because obviously things like having a conscience or being good actors is right out).

edit: I upvoted you. I don't understand why people down vote people for having what they perceive as an incorrect opinion or thought.

She won the lottery.

$229K? Time Warner won't even notice that's gone. Should have been $229 million otherwise they won't learn anything from this.

Why should business units that are part of a large company be punished harder than those who are part of a small company? Do you also believe that people with high life expectancy should stay longer in prison?

A fine should be based on the damage done. The 1500$ per phone call in this case already seem excessive to me. What's the damage of getting distracted by an unwanted phone call? 2$? 10$? 15$?`Certainly not 1500$.

That is one way to do it, but not the only way. Scandinavia, for example, bases fines on income:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-...

The theory here is that punishment is meant to change behavior, so the impact has to be proportional.

> What's the damage of getting distracted by an unwanted phone call?

Even on this theory, you have to scale the damages in relation to the odds of getting away with it. Suppose I run a store and steal a dollar from each customer. Let's say only 1 in 1000 notices and cares enough to talk to the police. Should my fine be $1, which is negligible? $1,000, so I break even? Or greater, so that there's an actual penalty?

The public transport system in my hometown of Melbourne has a two-tiered fine system if you're caught travelling without a ticket. ~$75 if you pay on the spot (but you forfeit the right to contest in court) or $250 if you don't. They were actually losing a few court cases, so brought in the two-tiered system.

I call it the 'fuck the poor' system, because poor people generally don't have the ability to pay $75 on demand. Paying $75 is a lot more convenient than having to find time and the know-how to contest things in court. For comparison, a day's travel costs ~$7.50.

I'd heartily welcome an income-scaled penalty system, even though I am not poor myself. A fine that is crushing to poor people is a mere momentary inconvenience for wealthy people, which isn't the point of being penalised.

Or you could buy a ticket, like the rest of us do.

Frankly, that's a pissweak argument against significantly harsher penalties for poor people vs wealthy people. The transgression committed is the same, so the punitive impact should be the same. Instead we get a much reduced penalty for wealthy folks (both relative and absolute) - and the difference has zero to do with the nature of the transgression.

This particular penalty is 25% of the full amount if you happen to be decently monied at the point of being fined - it's almost explicitly a 'poor tax'. Almost.

Hmm... if you get caught more seldom than every 10 travel days, it would pay to keep $75 with you and never buy a ticket.

And poor people do not have an excuse to steal anymore than the rich have.

> And poor people do not have an excuse to steal anymore than the rich have.

Where did I suggest that?

Poor person steals -> penalty $250. Rich person steals -> penalty $75

Same crime, lesser penalty simply for having money.

It beggars belief how people continue to support this ridiculous favouritism of the well-off with "well, shouldn't be doing that anyway" handwave.

I could be considered rich in the global scale and I hardly ever carry $75 in cash. And in contrast, are the poor physically unable to carry $75 with them in Australia?

If you harmed 1000 people by taking a dollar from each, to me you've robbed 1000 people. But, there has to be room for lenience in every law.

Was it intentional, was it a computer error, did each person just forget to pickup their change on the counter before leaving? What is the cause? You better have a damn good explanation or if I was the investigating officer I'd book you.

I live in Sweden and while it bases fines on income, I've yet to see it being applied to a large company. I've never heard of any case like this in Sweden where a person gets a large sum for such a minor offense.

Sure, if individuals do stuff to companies we can be harassed and prosecuted with incredible sums (look at the guys behind TPB) while companies often goes unpunished.

Whether I agree with the number or not is irrelevant, but the implication I get from the article is that the judge is more upset that after TWC was sued, they still made 74 calls. I assume that the per-call fine was upped because of that.

The article states that the normal fine was tripled due to TWC effectively being in contempt of court. $500/call is reasonable, given that the situation has to be taken to court to be resolved - if you're already in the situation where the problem gets to court, a smaller fine is meaningless compared to the time a court case takes and the lawyers fees (and court costs, if you have to pay those).

The point of punitive damages is to make it uneconomical to play 'court lottery'. At $2/call, it's not worth anyone's time to take a bad player to court, and the law becomes toothless.

>>A fine should be based on the damage done.

That's one reason fines exist. The other reason is to act as a deterrent, and $229,000 is not much of one.

Still, a lot to pay for just refusing to remove a number from your IVR system.

It quickly becomes a deterrent if there are many victims that feel inspired by this decision.

> Why should business units that are part of a large company be punished harder than those who are part of a small company?

Because large companies are bad for society? They're inherently anticompetitive and risk large societal impact when they fail (which in turn leads to the "too big to fail" problem).

If you or I did this, we'd probably be put in jail. An affordable fine is pretty minor by comparison. Why should TWC get better treatment than we would?

$229 million would probably be exceedingly punitive, despite their ineptitude. $229,000 in compensatory damages, seem to me at least, to be more than a suitable remedy.

Normally I would agree with you, but this is TW and they need to go out of business.

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