Southern California Telephone Company Illegally Placed Calls to Numbers on Do-Not-Call Registry, Class Action Claims

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims that Southern California Telephone Company illegally placed telemarketing calls to numbers on the national and its own internal Do-Not-Call (DNC) lists in violation of Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulations.

According to the case out of California, the defendant is a residential telecommunications service provider that places telemarketing calls en masse to advertise its products. The suit states that as part of its overall customer generation strategy, Southern California Telephone Company purchases phone numbers off the Internet and then places telemarketing calls to those numbers without the consent of the called party.

The lead plaintiff claims that his number has been listed with the National DNC Registry since 2003 yet he still received unsolicited calls from the defendant in July and August 2019. According to the complaint, the plaintiff made requests for the defendant to stop calling him on multiple occasions, which the communications service claimed it would honor only to later fall short on its promise. As a result, the lead plaintiff allegedly lodged a complaint online, after which the defendant apologized – and continued to call. The case claims that other customers have made similar complaints against Southern California Telephone Company.

The TCPA was passed by Congress in 1991 to curb unwanted telemarketing calls. The complaint states that the TCPA required the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to draft new rules and regulations to protect customers from unsolicited marketing calls. Pursuant to this mandate, the FCC “established company-specific ‘do not call’ rules,” the suit states, which placed the onus on companies to maintain and enforce their own do-not-call lists.

Moreover, telemarketing companies are required by the FCC to keep a written policy for maintaining do-not-call lists, training callers on the use of such lists, and recording and honoring requests from consumers to be placed on these lists, according to the complaint. The case contends that Southern California Telephone Company’s conduct shows it does not meet any of these requirements.

The suit seeks to represent a class of everyone on the National Do-Not-Call list who received more than one telemarketing call from the defendant in a 12-month span over the past four years, and a separate class for those on the defendant’s no-call list who received similar calls.