BILL TO ADD JAIL TIME TO TCPA GATHERS STEAM!: Bi-Partisan House Bill Introduced to Send Robocallers to Jail

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So the TCPA is an unconstitutional mess and now Congress wants to send people to jail for violating it. Cool.

As we reported back in June, a Democratic Senator had proposed a Senate bill that would send folks that willfully violate the TCPA to jail for up to three years. That means people who send COMPLETELY LEGITMATE calls using the same technology the bad guys use to send scam calls might be thrown in jail for a misread of the massive, incredibly vague, shifting and at times incomprehensible patchwork of TCPA jurisprudence.

That makes sense. Or, its the worst possible idea. One or the other.

Either way, TCPAWorld.com just keeps becoming more and more valuable.

In any event, the house bill (HR 4919) maintains the same odious name as the Senate bill–the “Deter Obnoxious, Nefarious, and Outrageous Telephone Calls” Act (shoot me now)–and was introduced by both a Republican and a Democratic house member.

Given the temperature of partisan bickering in this nation (side note, political parties are unconstitutional and ought to be banned) it is remarkable that the two sides can agree upon anything these days. Of course the one thing they can agree on–adding criminal penalties to the impossible-to-comply-with TCPA that doesn’t work to prevent robocalls to begin with–is, well, pretty dumb.

So to recap: there is now bipartisan support in the House for a bill that tracks a Senate version by the same name that will (likely) soon make violating the TCPA a CRIMINAL offense.

People are literally already pleading the fifth in responding to discovery in civil case. This is happening. Its real. Right now.

Hope you’re paying attention.

Unrelated–if you’re not following TCPAWorld.com right now, you should be.

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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.

3 Comments

    1. I have a better idea—Instead of sending these telemarketers to prison, the government should sentence them to a sentence that goes something like this: I sentence you to 3 years in telephone jail–you will be required to provide your phone number to us and we have the right to send telemarketing calls to you which you must answer and interact with. Fail to respond constitutes escaping from jail, at which time you will be incarcerated for the remaining time in a Federal Institution, in a special cell which has telemarketing calls played to you every 10 minutes.

      Now THAT would stop them!

      Reply
  2. Pingback: MATCHING “DO NOT CALL ACT” PROPOSALS – TCPAWorld

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