US court: Dell can't hound debtor with robocalls to her mobile

Embrace automation

I've found a terrific answer to automated dialing systems: the automated answering system built into my cell phone.

1) Create a contact called "Spammer"

2) Under that contact select "Menu" then "All calls to voicemail"

Now when my phone rings with an unknown number and I get the moment of dead air indicating that some company values their time more than mine, I immediately hang up and click "Add to Contact".

E.

Dell's downfall ?

Well, would you buy a second time from a company which behaved like that ?

As for nuisance sales calls, I listen to the stupid message (that's entirely irrelevant to me) and always press 5 or whatever "to speak to one of our agents". Then walk away from phone and maybe put on the radio in the background so the salesman who finally picks up the call is, hopefully, nonplussed. Sometimes they call back later in person -- the result is you have wasted even more of their time than they have of yours.

I don't know where the idea that businesses have some right to randomly call people's homes gained traction, but as children we called that "knock down ginger" (running down a street randomly ringing doorbells and running away).

Surprised they went that way...

I'm surprised her lawyers went that way. Once Dell Financial Services is trying to, well, collect a debt, they are a debt collector and subject to the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act). One clause limits the quantity of calls, which it sounds like Dell was already violating (it is generally 1 per day, 40 in a few weeks is far over this limit). *THERE IS NO SPECIAL PROTECTION BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CELL PHONE!* However, another clause of this is to REQUIRE the debt collector to either quit calling (mail only) or quit both calls *and* mail. They are then permitted one mail to acknowledge receipt of the "no contact" request, and one further mail to inform you they are taking you to court to pay up your debt. They can of course put a negative report on your credit rating.

It feels like her lawyer got her off on a technicality by using the law they did, rather than using FDCPA. Oh well at least the result worked out.

On the broader issue of her paying or not -- yes she should pay. However, once a debt collector starts being abusive as Dell is doing... guess what? My sympathies go 100% to the debtor, Dell can suck a fat one. As a few people have said, they start calling at an abusive rate 1 day after the payment is due, rather than maybe a reminder call then waiting a reasonable time to see if they may pay the past due + late fee a little later. Wit the US's crap economy, a lot of people are month-to-month so having one bill come early, or one paycheck come late, means they will be late on items, but not that they are going to go deadbeat on them.

Shitty business practices

I just had a recent dealing with a local hospital that left a "very bad taste in my mouth".

Since we 'muricans don't have decent single payer medical insurance; you have to deal with the idiocracies of various payment departments.

Many insurance companies negotiate a fixed rate for services, regardless of what the provider bills. Those contracts require the provider to "eat" the difference between the contracted rate and the billed amount. Sometimes hospital office workers get lazy and fail to make the required adjustment; and you, the patient gets robo-called to death. Trying to get some shithead to get it is an exercise in futility; and in my case, after three months of dealing with low-life subordinates; I decided to go to the top. "C" level execs hate it when you interrupt their 'golf game' for petty bullshit, like their hospital's billing department fucking up, and being complete dicks about fixing their mistake.

Once I got through to a "C" level, did the shit hit the fan. Within two hours, I had a supervisor call me and get the issue resolved.

All I can say is this, "If you don't succeed in getting it resolved at the bottom end of the 'food chain', then you have to go to the top, and not give a fuck about whose scalp is about to get burned in the process."

End of story.

Of course the one true way to deal with that is...

Get some telephone number from some VoIP provider, it'll usually cost you nothing for incoming calls. (though some companies will delete your account after it sits around unused for a while and has no money on it, they'll warn you several times)

Then set up an Asterisk or FreeSwitch or whatever VoIP server, configure it to take the call, have some sort of menu system, and then perhaps forward it to your real number.

You can easily add features like certain numbers going to hold directly, or even random forwarding to random numbers in Botswana. You can even make captchas.

Amazing isn't, defaulting.

When you, or I, or this lady, defaults, we get hounded to bits, and dragged through the courts, for basically peanuts.

But when the banks default, the government forces you and I to pay for them to be bailed out, and the bankers open a bottle of bollinger and pat each other on the back over their hard earned billions of pounds bonuses.

Unfortunately, when you point this out to most people, their eyes glaze over and tell me they are too busy getting angry at what Gary Barlow has just said on the X-Factor.

God help us.