At it Again: Czar’s Big TCPA Win Featured in Forbes (Again)

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Well, here’s a bit of good news.

Forbes online ran a story yesterday feature some very unsavory (in my opinion) tactics utilized by a certain call blacking application that will not remain nameless—First Orion.

For a time First Orion was offering a “call blocking” service through Metro PCS called BlockIT. While BlockIT purported to be a garden variety call blocker something more lurked beneath the service—a lawyer referral feature that would turn blocked calls into leads for class action lawyers. As highlighted in deposition testimony in my bigin’ in Tillman v. Ally, the consumer was often times unaware that hitting a “complaint” button within the app would trigger contact from a lawyer:

“Did you expect that you would receive a text message in response to pressing the complaint button?” Tillman was asked in his deposition.

“Yeah, but I thought it would be from, like, Ally or whoever was calling,” he responded.

My old website TCPAland focused on this practice in its interview with Hiya CEO Alex Algard. The intrepid Mr. Algard pledged to never cosign his call blocking services to consumer lawyers to turn a quick (and greasy) buck.

Somehow Forbes got wind of the Tillman case that first exposed the unseemly (my opinion) practices being engaged in by First Orion. (I didn’t tip them off, I promise.) Now that it is in the public sphere, however, I am proud to say that my team was able to gather the facts necessary to put an end to First Orion’s conduct in Florida, where it was apparently improperly operating as an undisclosed lawyer referral service. The ultimate victory came when we were able to defeat certification of the wrong number code class in favor of Ally—although not on adequacy grounds but on predominance grounds.

The article is a must read for anyone that wants to better understand the seedy underbelly of TCPA class action referral services and how consumers are often tricked into serving as class representatives. My hat is off to Ally Financial for having the guts to fight this case the way they did and I remain most proud of the result we were able to earn in that case as well as the pound-the-pavement sleuthing and discovery work that got it done.

Notably, this is my second big TCPA win to be featured in Forbes.  The first involved the famous case of Melody Stoops, who acquired over 80 cell phones and kept them in a shoe box in a bid to sue unsuspecting callers trying to reach former subscribers to the phone. “It’s my business,” she told us in deposition. Not anymore. We shut that scam down in Stoops v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 197 F. Supp.3d 782 (W.D. Pa. 2016), and Forbes gave us a little love for doing so.

Just another day serving as the Czar of a strange place called TCPAWorld. I love my job.

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Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.