fines telemarketing communications-law
How does The Warranty Department afford (or avoid) the FTC Do Not Call fines?
<p><a href="https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0108-national-do-not-call-registry#:%7E:text=be%20fined%20-,up%20to,per%20call%2E" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Supposedly</a>, there are fines associated with violating the Do Not Call list — these fines may be, <em>per call</em>, greater than the US median <em>yearly</em> income — yet this ubiquitous script plagues <em>most</em> peoples' voicemails:</p>
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<p>Hi, this is (Lisa|Anne|…) with The Warranty Department… this is the <strong>final call</strong> for you to renew [your car's extended] warranty before we close the file.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How has this universally-hated company kept getting away with it, for <em>so long</em>? Is it incorporated outside US jurisdiction? Do they just declare bankruptcy and re-form yearly? Are they, like so many other companies, getting duplicitous &quot;consent&quot; to do what they do vis-a-vis some professional relationship with payment processors or credit bureaus?</p>
<p>Even if we assume that as many as 1 in 1000 people take them up on the incoming offers, I cannot imagine that they pull an average of 1,000 years' wages <em>per victim</em> to remain in the black after the FTC fees… so <em>how</em> are these calls still coming? Is TWD an off-shore corporation? Is the FTC unable to identify them? Are they simply choosing not to enforce the fines?</p>
<p>Or are these calls merely a perennial scam, a Sybil attack perpetrated by people <em>unrelated to each other</em>, who are just using the same stock audio recording for their telemarketing outreach?</p>

<p>Outgoing phone numbers are often spoofed, making it harder to know where the calls come from, and they are often sent through a call center outside the US where the FTC has no authority. This makes  enforcement hard, adn if a given case does not involve large losses, the FTC is not likely to try to persue the issue.</p>

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<p>Is it incorporated outside US jurisdiction?</p>
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<p>I suspect it's not incorporated -- criminal enterprises often aren't -- but if it is, it's almost certainly not under the name &quot;The Warranty Department,&quot; and it's almost certainly not a US corporation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I cannot imagine that they pull an average of 1,000 years' wages per victim to remain in the black after the FTC fees… so how are these calls still coming?</p>
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<p>Most likely, nobody is paying fines for those calls.</p>
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<p>Is TWD an off-shore corporation?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most likely.</p>
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<p>Is the FTC unable to identify them?</p>
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<p>Most likely.</p>
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<p>Are they simply choosing not to enforce the fines?</p>
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<p>Unlikely.  It's also possible that some people <em>are</em> getting caught, but that they fail to identify the organizers of the operation.  It's also possible that the outfits that get caught are indeed put out of business, but others take their place.  Both phenomena are common in organized crime.</p>
