OH COME ON: THOMAS SAMATARO JUST SUED THE RED CROSS IN A TCPA CLASS ACTION AND I’VE HAD ENOUGH

3 Comments

The Red Cross.

The American Flippin’ Red Cross.

The non-profit that provides food and shelter and blood to disaster victims.

Was just sued in a nationwide TCPA class action.

This is just unacceptable. And absurd. And ridiculous.

If you want a poster child for the abuses of the TCPA you’re looking at it.

You’re going to take money from disaster victims guys? Seriously?

THIS is what NCLC advocates for. What the Plaintiff’s bar wants.

To take money away from the Red Cross.

Of all the no good rotten ridiculous…. ugh.

I got nothing.

Eesh.

Now I am in a bad mood.

Whoever takes on this defense I hope you do it for free, or for as close to free as the ethical rules permit.

Complaint here: Red Cross Class Action

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Published by Eric "Czar" 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 do not know the legalities of TRC being covered by TCPA or not… but assuming they are, assuming they are not allowed to send pre recorded messages to those who have not expressed consent. Assume they are not allowed to send messages to someone who has opted out. If that is the case, how is filing a lawsuit against someone who is violating the law and appears to have no intention to stop unacceptable? Why should what they do make them immune from following the law? Who falls on the immune side of the law and who does not and who decides? Would animal shelters be immune? Would religous charities be immune? PETA? Planned Parenthood?

    How about this… if the law says you can not do something and you break that law, be prepared to face the consequences no matter who you are and what you do.

    Reply

  2. Because the legal system isn’t a morality system? Because the people filing these suits aren’t doing it for some grand good cause, but for monetary gain from an organization that has something to lose? I think there may be some confusion here, Steve: you’re in the comment section of a blog, not screenplay.docx with a carefully crafted story about a morally upstanding lawyer (definitely not in it for the money) fighting evil non-profits who exploit consumers for blood donations through text messages. These text-messaging vampires must be stopped!
    Outside of the litigation regime, normal people (that is, people without litigation psychosis) will want to know if a truly reasonable attempt was made to get American Red Cross to stop the alleged conduct or was this another case of ignoring “STOP to opt out” instructions in favor of sending a confusingly written message meant to evade the automated opt out mechanism. Thou shalt at once no longer transmit information of this nature to my mobile telephone!
    Steve, you don’t have any financial interest in American Red Cross losing this case, right?

    Reply

  3. @Steve, the point is that TCPA laws are really, really, really hard to follow. The way its broadly written ends up hurting good actors as well as bad actors. We raised nearly $3MM + spent 2.5 years of R&D as an AI SMS and voice provider (Pitchit.ai) to build the features needed to follow TCPA laws, and we spent nearly all of it before finally being satisfied that we had found solid solutions to mitigate the risks for our clients. I think it’s an impossible task for good actors like American Red Cross, a non-profit, non-technical company, to be expected to invest that kind of time and money outside of their primary focus area of saving lives, just to follow the poorly written TCPA laws.

    Reply

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