Time Warner Cable (Time Warner) is a national cable telecommunication company. Araceli King is a long-time customer of Time Warner. Time Warner uses an “interactive voice response” system (IVR) to advise customers that their accounts are past due. The IVR system automatically identifies past due accounts by referencing billing records and then dials the phone number associated with the account. When the call is answered by a live person or voicemail, the IVR system will play a prerecorded message.
Ms. King provided her cellular telephone number to Time Warner. However, Time Warner had associated Ms. King’s cellular number with an unrelated customer, “Luis Perez”. The IVR system placed 163 calls to Ms. King. Each time the IVR system played a message stating, in part, that is was seeking the unrelated customer, not Ms. King. Ms. King claimed that she had not consented to receive any of the calls. Moreover, the Court found that Ms. King had “revoked consent” when she answered an IVR placed call and instructed Time Warner to stop calling her.
Accordingly, the Court found that the 153 calls that were placed after Ms. King instructed Time Warner to stop, were made without consent and violated the TCPA. Time Warner continued to place calls to Ms. King even after her lawsuit was served on them. The Court found that the 153 calls placed after Ms. King revoked consent were willful violations of the law and that the calls placed after the lawsuit was served were particularly egregious.