Time Warner Cable hit with $229,500 judgement for 153 robocalls to Texas woman

A federal judge leveled a $229,500 judgement against Time Warner Cable on Tuesday for robocalling a Texas woman 153 times, even after she told the company the calls were meant for someone else.

Araceli King alleged that Time Warner Cable called her number 163 times over the course of a little more than a year while trying to reach a customer who had previously held her phone number. The system making the calls is used by Time Warner Cable to reach customers who have not paid their bills, as well as for other purposes.

{mosads}One hundred and fifty-three of those allegedly came after she answered one of them and had a seven minute conversation with a Time Warner Cable employee, informing them that she was not the intended recipient of the calls.

But she says they kept coming. In total, she alleges 153 calls were made after her conversation with the representative. The calls even continued, she said, after she filed the lawsuit against the company.

Time Warner Cable claimed that the anti-robocalling law in question did not apply to the case and that they had not had knowledge of King’s revocation of consent.

Federal District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein rejected the latter argument.

“TWC’s assertion that it lacked such knowledge of non-consent after that date is incredible. Defendant harassed Plaintiff with robo-calls until she had to resort to a lawsuit to make the calls stop, and even then TWC could not be bothered to update the information in its IVR system,” he said in the ruling.

He awarded $229,500 to King for the 153 calls — $1,500 for each call — that came after she spoke with the Time Warner representative and ruled in favor of Time Warner for the calls that came before her conversation.

A Time Warner Cable spokesperson said the company is “reviewing the ruling and our options to determine how we are going to proceed.”

Unwanted robocalls are the number one reason that consumers file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission, the agency has said. Last month, the agency adopted rules aimed at cracking down on robocalls and spam text messages, including calls made to reassigned numbers.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced legislation on Monday that would institute stiffer penalties for people or firms who make calls to individuals without their written consent.