So yesterday I did a quick story about all the BIASED journalism out there on robocalls. Essentially the narrative–which you’ve all heard–is that greedy businesses just blast people with calls without consent.
Most of the time that is far from the truth. Callers–at least legitimate companies– virtually always have consent when they place calls, and most have carefully crafted TCPA compliance policies.
The proliferation of robocalls is largely due to actions of offshore scammers, and–unfortunately–bad actors in the lead generation space (which my friends at R.E.A.C.H. are going to put a stop to.)
In this environment, however, the media is quick to make folk heroes out of TCPA litigators that they envision as robin hood style actors that steal from those who are harassing American consumers. What they miss, of course, is that the companies aught up in these cases are usually (largely) innocent and that many (most?) of these cases are completely manufactured by individuals who actually REQUEST the calls at issue, or otherwise engineer a lawsuit.
The good folks at NPR tried to get both sides of the story for their new planet money podcast, and while there’s still a bit of a slant here at least they brought in the Czar to discuss the issue a bit.
Check it out if you have time:
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/07/1141358550/spam-call-bounty-hunter-telemarketing
And yes, I am everywhere all at once. 😉
But, but, but … Nathaniel Barton’s kids were opting in on various random sites so they could get calls and manufacture lawsuits, because there’s no such thing as a telemarketer breaking the law, right Troutman?
Since Troutman knows that there are a lot of bad actors in the lead generation space, then why would Troutman just blame the consumer for “opting in” for the call?