So there’s a lot of really good stuff about TCPAWorld.com becoming one of the most powerful and best-read legal blogs in the nation.
I can share lots of important information with lots of people extremely quickly, and engage with an entire telecom community. I can help defense lawyers get better. I can remind Plaintiff’s lawyers to stay ethical. Plus I can impact policy decisions, help clean up legislative errors and put an end to unfair practices with a mere whisper on my blog.
Its pretty cool to be the Czar.
But there’s a downside too. The blog has become so powerful that when a company gets negative press on TCPAWorld.com it might really damage them. So I always try to be really cautious and stick carefully to the wording of legal decisions, and never just throw mud on a company needlessly.
Nonetheless, sometimes a decision will be titled in a way that a company really doesn’t look great when I cover a story.
For instance on Monday I covered the ruling in Schick v. Caliber Home Loans, Case No. 20-cv-00617-VC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176765 (N.D. Cal. September 14, 2021) where a mortgage lender was able to escape liability for calls made by a subvendor.
While the ruling was great substantively for both defendants, the Court’s ruling put much of the blame for the calls on NexLevel and suggested that the company was less than forthright in its dealings with Caliber.
This didn’t sit well with the CEO of NexLevel Direct who reached out to me and wanted to emphasize that his company is not a bad actor. He acknowledged mistakes were made in the past but that they’ve really cleaned up their act and are dedicated to doing things the right way and being a responsible member of the lead gen community.
I thought it was a pretty nice message–especially the part where he acknowledged his company had screwed up a bit in the past but wanted to use that as a jumping off point to assure better compliance moving forward.
Now, I don’t know these guys–and I’m certainly not promoting or endorsing them– but since NexLevel was hammered pretty bad in my post Monday I figured I’d give them a chance to explain themselves. Here’s what they had to say:
NexLevel Direct was founded in 2017 and is now one of the nation’s premier customer acquisition marketing agencies focused on the insurance and financial industries. Our team is trusted to deliver millions of the most qualified, high-intent customers to many of the world’s largest brands
“We were fairly new to the lead gen world back when this happened” says NexLevel Direct CEO Bill Borneman in reference to the Caliber suit “and we used it as a catalyst to build a safer more compliant system. We retained a top-level compliance consultant to come in and fully audit our system and make recommendations on how to best protect our clients. [We] built a very dynamic internal system for filtering leads such as incorporating the Blacklist Alliance API and Ringa platforms to further deter leads getting thru our system that are not fully opted in, and confirming legitimate Jornaya and Trusted Form certificates. We also narrowed our use of affiliates and require a more stringent onboarding process to avoid any bad actors. We take this very very seriously and have taken all the necessary steps (and more) to make sure all our leads are properly opted in and fully compliant as per the rules and laws to protect our clients.”
Like I said, I’m not endorsing these folks. But this seems pretty sincere. I hope they stay true to their word and enjoy good–compliant–success in the future.
Do things the right way, and stay redemptive TCPAWorld.