Earlier today I questioned the relatively low ~$10MM TCPA settlement in a case involving Gen Digital’s robocalls to wrong numbers. I suggested the company was getting off easy given the exposure it was facing topped $150MM.
Almost immediately one of the lawyers involved with the case reached out to me and clarified that the calls at issue were NOT marketing calls– instead Gen Digital sent the calls to its own customers regarding potential identity theft events:
Gen makes these calls to its LifeLock customers for the purpose
of delivering time-sensitive alerts regarding financial activity that may pose a
risk to the customer, such as the appearance of the customer’s personal
information on the dark web, data breaches involving the customer’s personal
information, unusual credit card charges, the opening of a new credit account
under the customer’s name, opening of a new buy-now-pay-later loan in the
customer’s name, and a change in the customer’s credit score—all of which
may be signs of identity theft.
Ok. Weird that Gen Digital would make robocalls to customers–why not just shoot a text?–but this is a MUCH different case than a spam marketing case. So I was dead on that the settlement looked out of market range–isn’t it crazy that I always know when something doesn’t add up?– but there was a reason for it.
Notably Gen Digital is now also being forced to use the FCC’s Reassigned Numbers Database as part of the settlement:
In addition, Gen will institute practice changes to help it avoid placing
prerecorded calls to persons who are not its customers in the future. To that end, Gen will
utilize the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) Reassigned Numbers
Database3 to help it avoid placing calls with an artificial or prerecorded voice to cellular
telephone numbers that are permanently disconnected and made available for
reassignment after Gen obtained consent to call the numbers.
Awesome!
I love the Reassigned Numbers Database– in fact the RND is a sponsor of this year’s Law Conference of Champions! They are a very smart company to sponsor. Can’t wait to see you all there in May!
Gen Digital if you guys want to come out to the show we’d be happy to put you on a panel since you obviously have an interesting TCPA tale to tell.
Chat soon.