breaking news Dish Network hit with $20m telemarketing fine

[bluegras]

A North Carolina jury levied a massive $20.5 million fine on Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network for making 51,000 illegal telemarketing calls to numbers pre-registered on the ‘Do Not Call’ system.
The fine works out at $400 per violation and the scale permitted to the jury ranged from a nominal zero or $1 per violation to as high as $500, and thus suggesting that the jury wanted to make an example of the offences.

Ergen and the Dish legal team say they are considering their options which include appealing the decision.

http://advanced-television.com/2017/01/23/dish-network-hit-with-20m-telemarketing-fine/

 

[JosephB]

Standard Charlie Operating Procedure. Fly as close as possible to the Sun and sometimes you get burned

 

[Claude Greiner]

Big fricken deal. 20 million is a kick in the bucket considering the billions of dollars in profit they made last year.

I'm waiting for the big case that very well could bankrupt the company. The fine was supposed to be in the billions of dollars.

The sad thing is that Dish will probably blame it on their retailers and come down hard on them. They will be the real losers in this deal when it's all said and done.

 

[Claude Greiner]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bl...billions-in-fines-for-telemarketing-robocalls

 

[DishSubLA]

Standard Charlie Operating Procedure. Fly as close as possible to the Sun and sometimes you get burned

Agreed regarding Ergen flyung close to the sun, but it still can't top the DirecTV (Mike White) SOP of decptive and illegal practices that result in a FTC lawsuit! That's the Platinum standard of corporate behavior. Of course, one could argue that it was the worst of the local retailers, and not Dish DBS L.L.C. I don't think we will ever no for sure.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Agreed regarding Ergen flyung close to the sun, but it still can't top the DirecTV (Mike White) SOP of decptive and illegal practices that result in a FTC lawsuit! That's the Platinum standard of corporate behavior. Of course, one could argue that it was the worst of the local retailers, and not Dish DBS L.L.C. I don't think we will ever no for sure.

But Dish knows dam well what their retailers are doing. They just look the other way because they want sales.

They pretend to care but they don't until someone cracks down on them.

I used to be in the top 10 dealers in this country. I know everything on dish networks deceptive business practices

 

[Pepper]

Apparently Dish doesn't even know what Dish is doing. I regularly get a letter offering new subscriber deals from Dish in Englewood CO to "Current Resident" at my home address which is already in their system as a current customer. These are in addition to the normal ads from dealers in other locations. Or are some of these deceptive retailers using Dish Corporate as the return address on their junk mail?

 

[JosephB]

The "Current Resident" ads aren't all that surprising. Those are likely Dish paying for a campaign that just hits every residential address in a zip code. It can be cheaper than trying to target specifically non-customers because there's no sorting at the post office, so the USPS will give them a break on postage, and it takes less processing at the marketing company (dish isn't sending out all that mail, keep that in mind, they are paying marketing firms to do that) so they get a cheaper rate from the marketers too.

 

[Claude Greiner]

C'mon I used to do this for a living..

#1 retailers are not going to use dish networks return address. We don't want the mail getting returned to dish and for them to see what is going out to customers.

Then you risk Dish calling you to bitch about using their name, address and will often say your add doesn't follow coop guidelines.

Dish sometimes pays coop on the ads. Many times we will send out what we want to send to the customer and send Dish a generic pre approved ad that meets all their guidelines. Not doing this to hide anything, but rather so they can't nit pick your ad to find a reason not to pay their coop portion.

#2 both dish and retailers can filter out existing customers. It's mostly done when you send out junk mail specifically addressed to a customer. The problem the 'scrub' costs an extra few cents as we have to use dish networks approved vendor as they do not release our existing customer lists to us.

#3 most of the crap sent to your homes is either based off zip code or carrier route. The savings of blanketing an entire zip or carrier route is often cheaper then doing individually addresses mail.

#4 you can send out direct mail based on if a household has kids, makes a certain income, credit score, or even a credit card. The problem is the data is more expensive and it's usually cheaper to mail to everyone.

Next time you get those wraps with junk mail, look inside. There is usually always a satellite dealer, alarm or air duct cleaning company.