Dish Telemarketing Calls: If You Got An Unwanted Call From The Satellite Provider, You May Be Owed $1,200
Nobody likes getting telemarketing calls, but if you got one (or more) from satellite provider Dish Network in 2010-2011, you can turn that years-old frustration into a fat check, CBS News is reporting. Specifically, you could be owed as much as $1,200 per call.
The old adage says “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” And John W. Barrett, an attorney with Bailey Glasser, has learned that the hard way, as his law firm has tried – and failed – to contact thousands of people owed money from Dish for unwanted telemarketing calls. Just about every time he’s tried to call someone to tell them they may be owed money, he’s gotten a not-unexpected response.
“Talking to them firsthand, I learned that they thought that we were, A, telemarketers, or B, trying to scam them.”
It’s not a scam. Dish Network really does owe thousands of people money, and you may be one of them. Simply click this link and enter any and all phone numbers you used in 2010 and 2011. If your number is a match (unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for this writer), you are owed up to $1,200 per call.
You’ve probably gotten more telemarketing calls than you can count, so how is it that Dish Network is into you for over a grand per call?
Are you owed $1,200? Maybe, if you got a Dish Network telemarketing call https://t.co/3erQNlxGoV pic.twitter.com/o5CcISNaRy
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 7, 2018
Long story short: a lawsuit (Krakauer v. DISH Network, LLC, if that type of thing interests you). You see, since 2003, you’ve theoretically been able to block unwanted telemarketing calls thanks to adding your number to the national Do Not Call Registry. That’s the theory, anyway: the registry hasn’t really worked all that well.
And Dish Network is Exhibit A. Between 2010 and 2011, according to the lawsuit, Dish knowingly violated the registry to the tune of 51,000 calls. So incensed was the judge in the case that he awarded $1,200 per call to each person who got unwanted calls – triple the amount the jury awarded to the victims.
“The evidence was that Dish Network knew what was going on,” Barrett said. “It had the ability to put an end to it but didn’t.”
One person who got such unwanted calls from Dish was Chicago woman Deborah Turner. She got not one, not two, but 15 unwanted Dish telemarketing calls in the time period – for which she’s owed $18,000.
Dish, for its part, is appealing the ruling, which means that those owed money, such as Turner, will have to wait for their checks. But by all means, get your name in the hat (so to speak) sooner rather than later, and check your number at the link provided a few paragraphs above. It can’t hurt to try.
And if you get an unwanted telemarketing call, report it by calling 1-888-382-1222.
