DirecTV and Comcast Corp. will pay a total of $3.21 million for violating Do Not Call provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule. DirecTV and Comcast will pay $2.31 million and $900,000, respectively, to settle separate Federal Trade Commission charges claiming they called consumers who told the companies not to call them again. DirecTV paid $5.3 million for the earlier 2005 Do Not Call order, bringing its fines paid for Do Not Call violations to a total $7.6 million. The charges were filed on behalf of the FTC by the U.S. Department of Justice. “In both of these cases, DirecTV and Comcast violated consumers’ privacy by calling people who specifically had asked these companies not to call them again,” Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. “What makes DirecTV’s actions especially troubling is that it is a two-time offender: DirecTV violated not only the FTC’s Do Not Call rules, but also a previous federal court order barring it from exactly this type of conduct. Simply put, we won’t tolerate firms that disregard consumers’ specific requests not to be called, and we will be especially tough on companies that ignore their obligations under prior court orders.” The FTC also issued a complaint against Dish Network and two of its telemarketers last month for calling consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry. Those cases are pending in court.

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Posted Thu, Apr 16 2009 2:59 PM by News