I won a suit against a party that sent me an unsolicited text message

https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552148207248896001

by MrDunham • 4 years ago

280 139 4 years ago

toddm• 4 years ago

Not all heroes wear capes.

kemayo• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, all of the text spam I get is of the scammy misrepresentation variety, and is going to fail on the "identify the other party" step.

Edit: for instance https://imgur.com/D780jAX -- after I naïvely responded to the first few like this and got their pivot, I started to recognize the style.

sethjr5rtfgh2• 4 years ago

I get those as well. Did you find out who's sending them?

TonyTrapp• 4 years ago

There was an article about this phenomenon not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731

Just a plain old scam attempt.

splitrocket• 4 years ago

If you spend a few minutes and get them on the phone and say "I want to wire you funds right now!", they will give you a bank account.

sethjr5rtfgh2• 4 years ago

Do you know that or are you guessing?

Because my guess is it won't be that simple.

eli2• 4 years ago

Maybe you’d get a bank account but it wouldn’t actually be theirs.

mistersquid• 4 years ago

The punchline is a link in the last tweet of the thread: a non-affiliate link to OP’s acquaintance’s kit to file a lawsuit of your own. [0]

[0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...

hash872• 4 years ago

I would love to do this, but the few times that I've tried to look up the company, there's no real evidence as to who it is. And I'm fairly sophisticated at that kind of research, I know most of the tricks- however, these companies do successfully hide their identity.

I did, one time, find the likely CEO of one of these companies, and I called his cell phone late on a Friday night to mess with him. However, I didn't really have 'rises to the level of evidence that you could present in court' type certainty

dweekly5• 4 years ago

(OP here) In this case the spam text linked to a legit website that clearly belonged to a CA business, which then I was able to find on the CA SoS business search website. I've also found that Terms of Service & Privacy Policy pages usually have a legal address for a company and email for legal concerns.

300bps3• 4 years ago

This part is actually pretty simple.

You simply keep responding that you’re interested. Click their link. Fill out their form. Eventually you’ll get to a real person at a real company that was benefiting from the illegal spam.

Wowfunhappy• 4 years ago

Could this make the lawsuit more difficult since you've signaled consent? (Yes, they made the first move prior to your consent, but I wonder if that would be a murkier narrative in the courtroom.)

mrex• 4 years ago

It's typically some affiliate-relationship that's conveniently structured to permit plausible deniability on the part of the ultimate recipient of the funds.

thathndude8• 4 years ago

This brings up an interesting point about the TCPA. Individual employees and owners can be personally liable, not just their companies. It’s a vicious angle to TCPA litigation.

d23• 4 years ago

My only question is around the loophole that political organizations can do this if they aren't using "robotexts". How do they prove this? I've received three texts from an organization I'd like to do this to. Every time they've messaged me, I've responded and asked whether this was a human sending the message. No response.

Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and try.

lazzlazzlazz• 4 years ago

This only works for the least common kind of a spammer: a real, registered business that you can identify. Most spammers are con artists, scammers, and phishers who know to keep their identities secret, let alone link you to their corporate website.

ahahahahah2• 4 years ago

Eh, I rarely get any of that spam. I constantly get spam from politicians begging for money.

ahahahahah2• 4 years ago

Though, to be fair, those could be scammers actually, I've never responded or confirmed that they are real.

jonpurdy• 4 years ago

When I lived in Canada, I was very excited when CASL (Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation) came out circa 2013. Having the ability to sue Canadian companies that ignored email opt-outs would have been great. The amounts are limited to $200 per violation, but up to $1 million per day total (in most cases, I'd get a few hundred dollars for 1-3 emails). And very easy to track since I generate unique aliases for each company I interact with.

Unfortunately, the ability for individuals to sue ("private right of action") was delayed in 2017, and delayed once more in 2019, IIRC. Apparently, companies complained that the max $1 million per day could be achieved by sending 5,000 unsolicited emails, which would be too easy to do if there was a mistake in their system or a new sales rep ham-fisted this without realizing the repercussions.

I love to see posts like this though, I'll be sure to attempt this if I ever get SMS spam here in USA.

game-of-throws8• 4 years ago

"We are likely to break this law, therefore we shouldn't be punished when it happens"? Classic.

The US has a similar problem with CAN-SPAM. Ordinary citizens cannot sue.[1] All you can do is complain to the FTC, after which of course nothing will happen.

It makes these laws rather toothless if they're not actually enforced.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inbox/can-spam_and_consumer_...

adoxyz• 4 years ago

Winning a lawsuit and actually collecting are two different things, and from my experience the legal system does not care at all once they've issued a judgement. It worked out for that person and that's great, but these types of lawsuits tend to take a while to get a hearing, require a bunch of paperwork, and if the other party does not play ball, the odds of you getting any $$ out of it are pretty slim.

dweekly5• 4 years ago

(OP here) I'm learning that in this case I was lucky that the party was A: identifiable, B: also in CA, C: responsive to a suit, and D: willing to settle out-of-court (mailed me a check). I hadn't realized that collections of a small claims judgement could be super-involved but apparently I was simply naive on that topic.

perlgeek• 4 years ago

This is fairly sad state of affairs.

Here in Germany if you have a court order and that isn't payed, the bailiff/marshall visit the recalcitrant party and confiscates cash or valuable items until the order is settled. (At least for companies; there are some regulations that individuals cannot be brought below the poverty line by such actions).

cbron• 4 years ago

Has anyone tried this with real estate solicitors ? I get a message per day about selling my house.

cronix• 4 years ago

Only 1? I get at least 6 unsolicited texts and 3-4 phone calls every damn day.

andrew_• 4 years ago

I get around 60 calls a day, many of them are repeat attempts. T-Mobile's app blocks 99% of them. I get around a dozen texts a day for the real estate nonsense. Messenger does a good job of marking those as spam.

I've tried a number of times to get identifiable information from those folks with little success. Friend of mine went through the process and met with someone on site at the property he was contacted about. He first had to let them send an inspector. The inspector was paid by a proxy which was not linked to the company that wanted to buy the property. The person he met with on site representing the property buyer was a lawyer, and that's who he had to go after. He ended up getting the $1500 after all of that effort, and told me the lawyer laughed and said the cost was just passed onto his client. It was a lot of effort.

1nd1ansumm3r• 4 years ago

So you were able to sue, for example Google or Qualtrics because a spammer sent you one of their links? I'm confused on that part. Or did the legit company reveal the identity of the spammer to you? Seems like the case would get tossed because the entity you're suing didn't send the spam? How did that part work? Thanks

throw8383833jj• 4 years ago

I think a much easier way would be if we just taxed phone calls at 1 cent each. I mean absolutely everything else is already taxed: you pay taxes just to stay alive. the least that could be done is add a 1 cent tax to each phone call, just enough to stop the mass phone calling.

flerchin3• 4 years ago

Yep, and folks could even have a credit of 500 phone calls a month, or whatever a reasonable number would be, so no cost to consumers at all. Instead of a tax, it should be a minimum charge that goes to the carriers. So that they would be incentivized to collect it.

aliqot2• 4 years ago

In a world where we pay for stamps, why didn't bulk unsolicited mail go away? This won't work.

encryptluks2• 4 years ago

And then after it was implemented we'd get political reasons why it still isn't implemented. No thanks. I also don't want people legally spamming me for a penny.

anubiskhan• 4 years ago

"Judge in LOCATION blocks new phone tax"

MarkMarine2• 4 years ago

These calls are already illegal. There is a Do not call list. The gov has just been completely inept at enforcement, I don’t think we need extra tax, just enforce the laws we have.

hannasanarion• 4 years ago

The point is that, if there is a per-call cost that everybody has to pay, it becomes much harder for spammers to justify automatically calling hundreds of thousands of numbers per day, while regular people who make one or two calls a day won't notice.

"enforcing the laws we have" isn't enough because spoofing exists and many of the spammers operate across borders.

vpribish• 4 years ago

clearly the current model doesn't work well enough. US laws don't stop Nigerian scammers abusing weak telecom systems. Adding a tax paid by the carrier incentivises them to collect it from the upstream chain all the way back to the caller.

eli2• 4 years ago

An impractical and difficult to implement idea that would have terrible unintended consequences.

deepsun3• 4 years ago

difficult to implement idea

A lot of carriers has been billing by minute since the dawn of mobile telecom. And it's still in place in many (most?) countries. Only US/Canada/Mexico are used to unlimited phone calls.

Broken_Hippo2• 4 years ago

I mean, great, but that's seriously complicated.

Who pays the tax and how are you going to collect? Do you pay to receive a call? (I know this used to be normal practice in the US, but it isn't where I'm located)? If the call begins or ends in a different country, who pays the tax? Would this make calls unaffordable for poor folks - and what about services like google voice? Are some exempt (like non-emergency hospital, school, and police calls?)

Why wouldn't it just be a charge on your phone bill and included in there?

vorpalhex• 4 years ago

An online game, Eve Online, let's you set a fee for anyone not in your contacts to message you, with a default fee. You get some of it and "the government" (the game) gets the rest. The first time you message someone, you get prompted to pay the fee or discard your message.

I want this in real life. Set a default of a $1 or so. Your carrier gets $0.25, you get $0.75. You can adjust the fee to $0 or $1000. Carrier gets 25%.

duckmysick• 4 years ago

Interesting. Would it work per device or would there be a central repository that stores everyone's contact list?

spcebar• 4 years ago

I like the idea, but I suspect the companies doing this make enough from the 1 person that falls for their scam that they can afford to spend 1 cent on everyone who doesn't. I don't know what the monetary tipping point would be where this type of scam stops being worth it for scammers, but I suspect it would be high enough that it would be equally prohibitive for actual consumers.

deepsun3• 4 years ago

There was a similar proposal (cannot find RFC) to add it to Email protocols. Would cut spam immediately.

It was even more advanced -- Recepient could choose how much sender should pay, and sender could agree to that (or do it non-interactively, i.e. send an email message with "Max-To-Pay" header, same as you can do it currently with international SMS).

Unfortunately, the proposal never got any adoption, because us, email users and providers.

wodenokoto• 4 years ago

You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation.

I hope exact violation means that particular unsolicited text message and not the exact violation of sending unsolicited text messages.

cdot2• 4 years ago

yes it means the same text message

thathndude8• 4 years ago

Lawyer here. I do this kind of work for a client. Good for this guy for taking the fight to the spammers. As we head into election season, a lot of us are going to get unsolicited text messages like this. You too can sue for them!

Some of what was said in the tweets regarding your rights and what you have to do to file a claim are, in my experience and opinion, not correct.

The general idea is right, but some of the asides about the law were simply incorrect.

Depending on your jurisdiction, the way you can pursue a case like this is going to vary, so I’m not going to give any hard and fast rules in this comment.

Just a heads up that if you want to try to replicate this, your steps will probably be different.

Not legal advice :)

YeBanKo3• 4 years ago

He mentioned the exact jurisdiction where it happened. Can you point at least one thing, that is wrong?

thathndude8• 4 years ago

Sure, I know of no jurisdiction that requires a pre-suit demand for a TCPA claim.

“Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.)”

You do have to serve them once you file the case, but generally, I’m aware of no pre-suit-demand obligation for a TCPA case in small claims court that prevents you from filing.

not legal advice

dweekly5• 4 years ago

OP here. I'm definitely not a lawyer, so apologies for incorrect statements made in the thread. I'd love to learn more about correct framing / case history / rights here to avoid sharing misinformation. If you'd rather provide the feedback privately / off-the-record, my email is david at weekly dot org. Thank you!

300bps3• 4 years ago

The only thing that I noticed was not 100% correct is:

5. [..] courts will seize from them what you are owed

The process to get a court to do this is extremely difficult. It often starts with Debtor Examination followed by filing a bunch of documents to start the seizing process. If the person really doesn’t want to pay the judgement though, good luck. For example, during the Debtor Examination they have to answer truthfully under oath where their bank accounts and other property are. And then as soon as the meeting is over they can move to a different bank.

Getting a judgement is the easy part. Collecting it is the hard part.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-is-debtor-exami...

game-of-throws8• 4 years ago

As we head into election season, a lot of us are going to get unsolicited text messages like this. You too can sue for them!

Can you elaborate? Every source I've seen says that politicians have exempted themselves from the spam laws. e.g. a random google result: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/202...

That's because the National Do Not Call Registry does not apply to political text messages.

If you know a way around this, please spill the beans!

strongpigeon3• 4 years ago

I saw that as well on the FTC's website [0]. Curious if you can actually prevent them.

[0] https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/national-do-not-call-regis...

cwkoss2• 4 years ago

I would LOVE to be able to sue political spammers. I donated to many candidates in 2016 and have been getting crazy amounts of text spam from pols ive never heard of for the past 5 years.

Politicians shouldn't have zero consequences for selling my personal data.

gnopgnip2• 4 years ago

Political txt, email and calls are (mostly)protected by the first amendment as free speech. It would be unconstitutional for the government to restrict it with very limited exceptions, mostly related to imminent threats of violence.

Commercial speech can be regulated provided certain requirements are met that are more widely applicable, a four part test is used. See Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission. Also under Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel the government can compel commercial speech, require advertisers to include factual disclaimers.

So laws like the CAN-SPAM act prohibit unsolicited commercial advertising via txt or email if certain requirements are not met.

thathndude8• 4 years ago

But they cant use automated means. That’s what allows them to blast out texts.

Generally, there are two subcategories of TCPA claims: DNC (227(c)) and ATDS/prerecorded voice (227(b)). The latter claims are still available against politicians, last I checked. The latter claims regulate the technology that allows blast calls and messaging with pre-recorded messages.

not legal advice

raldi• 4 years ago

At least in San Francisco, I took my phone number and email off my voter registration years ago and now almost never get any political texts, calls, or email, despite being quite politically active.

j0hnyl• 4 years ago

So, someone hired you to try and monetize their inbound spam? How lucrative is that?

thathndude8• 4 years ago

Very. There’s a whole industry around it. Folks on record is saying that this law has made more millionaires in the plaintiff’s bar than any other law.

Check out TCPAworld.com if you want to go down the rabbit hole!

tptacek3• 4 years ago

Campaign calls and texts are explicitly exempt from the Do Not Call registry, as they must be.

sleepymoose• 4 years ago

as they must be.

Why is there legally allowed spam? Because it's for democracy? I don't care, I don't want to receive calls and texts related to it. Spamming my phone is more likely to make me go out and vote for the opposition out of spite than anything.

thathndude8• 4 years ago

But they cant use automated means. That’s what allows them to blast out texts and calls with a pre-recorded voice.

not legal advice

poofsoda• 4 years ago

Related question I’m hoping you know the answer to: can I use this as a recourse against debt collection calls or texts? I get numerous calls and texts for the prior owner of my cell phone number (to whom I have no relation to be clear) that have persisted for ~6 years despite repeatedly informing them I am not the individual they want to contact and asking to be removed from their records.

thathndude8• 4 years ago

This is actually one of the most common TCPA claims out there these days.

They are sometimes referred to as “wrong number“ claims, or “reassigned number“ claims. You get a cell phone with a new number, and the old owner of that number was, for lack of a better word, a deadbeat. You spend the next 5 years being hounded by the previous owner’s collectors. This can potentially give rise to Claims under the TCPA

andrewljohnson• 4 years ago

To what extent can this be automated? There are apps to fight parking/speeding tickets... could the same be done for little lawsuits to sue spammers?

Maybe a lawyer could comment on feasibility of this.

everforward• 4 years ago

From a technical perspective, I think it would be hard to correctly identify who to sue. Phone numbers can be spoofed, gotten through a 3rd party like Twilio, or come from email to SMS gateways (if those still exist).

For texts, you can probably parse out a link they want you to click, but I would expect them to be using a WHOIS guard.

Phone calls are even worse, because you'd have to interact with the rep enough to get info on who's making the call.

If it starts filing bogus lawsuits, whoever's running it may end up paying a whole bunch of attorney's fees to people defending themselves, get banned from filing lawsuits, and be more annoying to the general populace than the spammers are. I'd rather get a bunch of spam calls than deal with a single unfounded lawsuit.

elliekelly3• 4 years ago

This is not my practice area but I’d guess tracking down the responsible party is a giant pain in the ass even in the best case scenario and nearly impossible in the worst.

fudged71• 4 years ago

A few years ago there was a web service in my region that allowed you to send a traffic ticket, and they would take all the tickets into court to fight as many as possible and give all customers a flat 30% discount off the shared savings.

It was incredible. But somehow they got shut down when judges and cops didn't like what they were doing.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 4 years ago

In Germany, any company telling you that you won something is required to provide that prize. Unfortunately, the scams I get tend to be from abroad, and/or the actors behind them impossible to identify (and they also often use vague language like "potentially won" or "won one of our prizes" vs. "YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK").

kube-system3• 4 years ago

Same in the US. Nearly all of the junk we get originates overseas.

elliekelly3• 4 years ago

Who is ultimately responsible for providing the prize? Let’s say a German marketing employee is fed up with their job and wants to go out in a blaze of glory à la JetBlue slide guy so they text a bunch of people “YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK”. Would the employer or the employee be on the hook to supply the Cybertrucks?

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 4 years ago

Whoever sends the message. Remember, these cases get decided by human judges, not robots looking at e-mail headers.

I assume in your example a court would consider the employee to be the one sending the message.

Edit: And looking at the wording, this may mean no cybertrucks for anyone because the sender has to be a business (simplified) for the law to apply.

muttled• 4 years ago

Telling someone they won a Toy Yoda in text form just wouldn't work as well

devmunchies• 4 years ago

If I receive spam message almost daily for 2 years, and I've contacted the platform (competitor to Twilio) and they said they took care of it (nope!), then I assume the platform could be liable too, no?

strongpigeon3• 4 years ago

Something worth highlighting is that you need to be on the Federal Do Not Call registry for that.

https://www.donotcall.gov/

andrewla• 4 years ago

The thread claims that not to be the case [1]:

2. Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.) $500 damages, treble if you're on the Do Not Call registry.

[1] https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552151905433923585

strongpigeon3• 4 years ago

I'd be curious if OP could chime in about that, since the service they posted claims they don't need you permission if you aren't on the Do Not Call list [0]

Note: They don’t need your permission if you haven’t put your mobile number on the Federal Do Not Call list, but don’t worry, if you haven’t we tell you how to do that too!

[0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...

webmobdev• 4 years ago

India created a similar system (that is somewhat better) when one of the law minister in the government started getting unsolicited calls for loans. :)

Phone users can activate Do-Not-Disturb by calling or SMSing their provider. Users can opt for complete blackout of marketing messages or opt into "categories" where they would be open to marketing (like Real Estate, Auto etc). Marketers have to register themselves and the phone numbers / id they use to do the marketing. If a marketer contacts someone on the DnD list, a 3 strikes rule applies - warning, fine, ban. A marketer who uses an unregistered number (a business phone or their own personal number) to make a marketing call will be warned, fined and will face disconnection of service on repeated violations.

Users can file a complain by calling or sending a simple SMS to 1909 in the following format: complaint / nature of call, phone number or SMS id, date as dd/mm/yy. The service provider will then take the action. E.g. - https://imgur.com/uPO1HQS (screenshot of a list of complaints filed by me and the action taken by the service provider).

chrisweekly• 4 years ago

Way to go, lil brother! :)

andai• 4 years ago

Can someone explain why this part is necessary?

7. Cash the check and dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. (You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation.)

BizarroLand• 4 years ago

I would assume that it is legalese to put their minds at ease.

kube-system3• 4 years ago

Part of settling a case is you ending your legal action. That’s your end of the bargain. Their end is cutting the check, (or whatever other terms you’ve agreed to.)

squarefoot• 4 years ago

Being a non native English speaker I also found that wording a bit odd. To me reads like you don't sue them in the future if they commit the same exact type of violation, that is, if they spam you again, while it now seems clear that the purpose is to avoid being sued twice or more for one violation.

biggc• 4 years ago

Would this apply to unsolicited reachouts from recruiting firms?

SMAAART• 4 years ago

Someone should make an app for that, LSaaS (Law Suite as a Service).

fred_is_fred• 4 years ago

Law suit would just be one part of a Law suite.

notananthem• 4 years ago

This tweet is just linking to an expensive PDF from a lawyer, this is basically an ad

gaws• 4 years ago

expensive PDF
$60
"expensive"

exabrial4• 4 years ago

I would love the same sort of "kit" available for CANSPAM.

exabrial4• 4 years ago

Settling for $1200 with predjudice is a mistake... get a lawyer experienced in the area. You should be able to get roughly 2x the statutory amount by playing hardball!

advisedwang2• 4 years ago

$1500 is already triple damages. Why would they settle for more than that, when they could just default and $1500 would be the amount they owe with no further legal costs.

exabrial4• 4 years ago

$1500 is actually the amount if the person is on the DNC list and has told you to stop. I'll try to find a source

w_for_wumbo• 4 years ago

Y'all are getting texts from political parties? That sounds like a nightmare

kderbyma• 4 years ago

isn't there a possibility for constant unsolicited text message after the lawsuit??

if he agrees to not sure them for it....they can just keep sending them and probably increase the frequency? I mean. he could just block the number....but I guess he wanted 1k for his time and to prove it was doable.

cyanydeez• 4 years ago

Tell us when you collect

I won a suit against a party that sent me an unsolicited text message

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