Dish Network Liable For Millions Of Telemarketing Violations, Rules Court

In a recent court ruling, Dish Network was found to be liable for millions of telemarketing violations, including failure to honor Do Not Call requests. The ruling was made by the Central District of Illinois' district court, which says that Dish has "tens of millions" of calls under its belt that weren't made in line with the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule. This is a partial summary judgement victory for the FTC, which had a case filed on its behalf by the Justice Department back in early 2009.

The ruling was announced on Wednesday. According to the complaint filed against Dish, the company's own internal Do Not Call list was violated many times, with more than a million people on it being called anyway.

Nearly 50 million abandoned calls were also claimed in the complaint, which is when someone is not connected with a representative within a couple seconds of a call being answered. Finally, Dish was found liable for making calls to numbers in the Do Not Call Registry.

California, Ohio, North Carolina, and Illinois were all state co-plaintiffs on the complaint. Though the case has been on-going for several years, it still isn't over, and a trial is currently scheduled to take place this upcoming July.

SOURCE: FTC