Four telemarketers that repeatedly violated North Carolina’s Do Not Call Registry have entered into a settlement with the state in which they will pay a total of $66,000.
Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office on Tuesday announced court orders and settlements resolving enforcement actions against Warrior Custom Golf of Irvine, Calif.; Communication Concepts of Hermitage, Tenn.; Consumer Credit Counseling Foundation of Orlando, Fla.; and Fax.com of Alizo Viejo, Calif.
Under terms of a consent judgment completed last week, Warrior and its agent, Brendan M. Flaherty, are barred from calling North Carolina consumers on the Do Not Call Registry and from using autodialers and prerecorded messages to make calls in the state.
In a lawsuit filed in November, the Attorney General’s Office alleged that Warrior called at least 10 North Carolina numbers listed on the Registry and used illegal automatic dialers to call consumers who had asked to be placed on the company’s internal no-call list. Some consumers reported getting several prerecorded calls a day from Warrior trying to sell golf equipment and tournament packages. Warrior will make a payment of $10,000 to the state.
A settlement agreement signed Jan. 5 resolves charges that Communication Concepts called North Carolinians listed on the Registry and used autodialers and prerecorded sales messages. Seven consumers filed complaints with the Attorney General’s Office about telemarketing calls from Communication Concepts, which sells DIRECTV satellite equipment. Communication Concepts will pay the state $1,000.
In a consent judgment entered into in December, Consumer Credit Counseling Foundation agreed to stop using automatic dialers and recorded messages and to abide by all state and federal telemarketing laws. As alleged in a complaint filed in November, Consumer Credit Counseling Foundation broke the state Do Not Call law by autodialing consumers and playing a recording about debt consolidation services. The Attorney General’s Office received 17 complaints about Consumer Credit Counseling Foundation, which has agreed to pay $15,000 to the state.
Under an agreement filed in Wake County Superior Court in November, Fax.com and its owners, Kevin Katz and Eric Wilson, paid $40,000 to settle charges that the telemarketers used prerecorded messages to sell Florida vacation deals to North Carolina consumers. As alleged in the complaint filed in May 2002, Fax.com began placing calls to both individual consumers and state employees in the spring 2002. At the N.C. Department of Correction, the main switchboard reported receiving as many as 10 of these sales calls a day. The agreement bars Fax.com from making any calls to North Carolinians using recorded messages.
Since October, the Do Not Call Enforcement Team has received more than 1,700 written complaints from consumers who signed up for the Registry but were still receiving telemarketing calls. The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the complaints. The state also has written to about 650 companies in response to possible Do Not Call violations.
More than 1.8 million North Carolina numbers have been placed on the Do Not Call Registry since it began in July.