23 ms·

I won a suit against a party that sent me an unsolicited text message

280 points by MrDunham 4y ago

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
toddm 4y ago
Not all heroes wear capes.
kemayo 4y ago
Unfortunately, all of the text spam I get is of the scammy misrepresentation variety, and is going to fail on the "identify the other party" step. Edit: for instance https://imgur.com/D780jAX https://imgur.com/D780jAX -- after I naïvely responded to the first few like this and got their pivot, I started to recognize the style.
- sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
  I get those as well. Did you find out who's sending them?
  - TonyTrapp 4y ago
    There was an article about this phenomenon not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 Just a plain old scam attempt.
- splitrocket 4y ago
  If you spend a few minutes and get them on the phone and say "I want to wire you funds right now!", they will give you a bank account.
  - sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
    Do you know that or are you guessing? Because my guess is it won't be that simple.
    - paulgb 4y ago
      Yeah, my guess is they would say “oh, we can just do an ACH debit and save you the trouble. What's your account number?”
      - filoeleven 4y ago
        Spitballing here: You can place ACH blocks on accounts, at some banks anyway. I don’t know if the bank will give you the transaction information if a transfer is attempted. If they will, shouldn’t it be possible to set up a honeypot account in order to get the ACH info? Is that info enough to trace back to the spammers? This opens up other legal questions though. It’s entirely possible that you could then be on the hook for non payment or something.
        paulgb 4y ago
        Oh yeah, I forgot that some banks allow that. Maybe an even easier thing to try is telling the scammer you need their ACH so you can whitelist it with your bank own bank?
  - eli 4y ago
    Maybe you’d get a bank account but it wouldn’t actually be theirs.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Yeah, you’ll get the bank account of some other person who has been scammed into a “no experience necessary work-from-home job” transferring money
mistersquid 4y ago
The punchline is a link in the last tweet of the thread: a non-affiliate link to OP’s acquaintance’s kit to file a lawsuit of your own. [0] [0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay-you-for-having-sent-you-spam/ https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...
hash872 4y ago
I would love to do this, but the few times that I've tried to look up the company, there's no real evidence as to who it is. And I'm fairly sophisticated at that kind of research, I know most of the tricks- however, these companies do successfully hide their identity. I did, one time, find the likely CEO of one of these companies, and I called his cell phone late on a Friday night to mess with him. However, I didn't really have 'rises to the level of evidence that you could present in court' type certainty
- dweekly 4y ago
  (OP here) In this case the spam text linked to a legit website that clearly belonged to a CA business, which then I was able to find on the CA SoS business search website. I've also found that Terms of Service & Privacy Policy pages usually have a legal address for a company and email for legal concerns.
- 300bps 4y ago
  This part is actually pretty simple. You simply keep responding that you’re interested. Click their link. Fill out their form. Eventually you’ll get to a real person at a real company that was benefiting from the illegal spam.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    Could this make the lawsuit more difficult since you've signaled consent? (Yes, they made the first move prior to your consent, but I wonder if that would be a murkier narrative in the courtroom.)
  - mrex 4y ago
    It's typically some affiliate-relationship that's conveniently structured to permit plausible deniability on the part of the ultimate recipient of the funds.
- thathndude 4y ago
  This brings up an interesting point about the TCPA. Individual employees and owners can be personally liable, not just their companies. It’s a vicious angle to TCPA litigation.
d23 4y ago
My only question is around the loophole that political organizations can do this if they aren't using "robotexts". How do they prove this? I've received three texts from an organization I'd like to do this to. Every time they've messaged me, I've responded and asked whether this was a human sending the message. No response. Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and try.
lazzlazzlazz 4y ago
This only works for the least common kind of a spammer: a real, registered business that you can identify. Most spammers are con artists, scammers, and phishers who know to keep their identities secret, let alone link you to their corporate website.
- ahahahahah 4y ago
  Eh, I rarely get any of that spam. I constantly get spam from politicians begging for money.
  - ahahahahah 4y ago
    Though, to be fair, those could be scammers actually, I've never responded or confirmed that they are real.
jonpurdy 4y ago
When I lived in Canada, I was very excited when CASL (Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation) came out circa 2013. Having the ability to sue Canadian companies that ignored email opt-outs would have been great. The amounts are limited to $200 per violation, but up to $1 million per day total (in most cases, I'd get a few hundred dollars for 1-3 emails). And very easy to track since I generate unique aliases for each company I interact with. Unfortunately, the ability for individuals to sue ("private right of action") was delayed in 2017, and delayed once more in 2019, IIRC. Apparently, companies complained that the max $1 million per day could be achieved by sending 5,000 unsolicited emails, which would be too easy to do if there was a mistake in their system or a new sales rep ham-fisted this without realizing the repercussions. I love to see posts like this though, I'll be sure to attempt this if I ever get SMS spam here in USA.
- game-of-throws 4y ago
  "We are likely to break this law, therefore we shouldn't be punished when it happens"? Classic. The US has a similar problem with CAN-SPAM. Ordinary citizens cannot sue.[1] All you can do is complain to the FTC, after which of course nothing will happen. It makes these laws rather toothless if they're not actually enforced. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inbox/can-spam_and_consumer_lawsuits https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inbox/can-spam_and_consumer_...
adoxyz 4y ago
Winning a lawsuit and actually collecting are two different things, and from my experience the legal system does not care at all once they've issued a judgement. It worked out for that person and that's great, but these types of lawsuits tend to take a while to get a hearing, require a bunch of paperwork, and if the other party does not play ball, the odds of you getting any $$ out of it are pretty slim.
- dweekly 4y ago
  (OP here) I'm learning that in this case I was lucky that the party was A: identifiable, B: also in CA, C: responsive to a suit, and D: willing to settle out-of-court (mailed me a check). I hadn't realized that collections of a small claims judgement could be super-involved but apparently I was simply naive on that topic.
- perlgeek 4y ago
  This is fairly sad state of affairs. Here in Germany if you have a court order and that isn't payed, the bailiff/marshall visit the recalcitrant party and confiscates cash or valuable items until the order is settled. (At least for companies; there are some regulations that individuals cannot be brought below the poverty line by such actions).
cbron 4y ago
Has anyone tried this with real estate solicitors ? I get a message per day about selling my house.
- cronix 4y ago
  Only 1? I get at least 6 unsolicited texts and 3-4 phone calls every damn day.
  - andrew_ 4y ago
    I get around 60 calls a day, many of them are repeat attempts. T-Mobile's app blocks 99% of them. I get around a dozen texts a day for the real estate nonsense. Messenger does a good job of marking those as spam. I've tried a number of times to get identifiable information from those folks with little success. Friend of mine went through the process and met with someone on site at the property he was contacted about. He first had to let them send an inspector. The inspector was paid by a proxy which was not linked to the company that wanted to buy the property. The person he met with on site representing the property buyer was a lawyer, and that's who he had to go after. He ended up getting the $1500 after all of that effort, and told me the lawyer laughed and said the cost was just passed onto his client. It was a lot of effort.
1nd1ansumm3r 4y ago
So you were able to sue, for example Google or Qualtrics because a spammer sent you one of their links? I'm confused on that part. Or did the legit company reveal the identity of the spammer to you? Seems like the case would get tossed because the entity you're suing didn't send the spam? How did that part work? Thanks
throw8383833jj 4y ago
I think a much easier way would be if we just taxed phone calls at 1 cent each. I mean absolutely everything else is already taxed: you pay taxes just to stay alive. the least that could be done is add a 1 cent tax to each phone call, just enough to stop the mass phone calling.
- flerchin 4y ago
  Yep, and folks could even have a credit of 500 phone calls a month, or whatever a reasonable number would be, so no cost to consumers at all. Instead of a tax, it should be a minimum charge that goes to the carriers. So that they would be incentivized to collect it.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    In a world where we pay for stamps, why didn't bulk unsolicited mail go away? This won't work.
    - mrcartmeneses 4y ago
      That escalated quickly
    - galdosdi 4y ago
      It's a fair fee though. It pays for my attention as a recipient. It prevents an externality. It's no different than having to deposit a quarter to take a shopping cart, to incentivize you to return it. A tenth of a cent would probably be just as effective btw; the problem is that you can send a million text messages, wasting a million seconds of other people's time assuming they spend an average of 1 second looking at it, all for far less than the value of all that time wasted. Nobody is talking about TSA, what a non sequitur.
      - cwkoss 4y ago
        If only we could get paid by ad companies for trying to steal our attention.
wodenokoto 4y ago
> You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation. I hope exact violation means that particular unsolicited text message and not the exact violation of sending unsolicited text messages.
- cdot2 4y ago
  yes it means the same text message
thathndude 4y ago
Lawyer here. I do this kind of work for a client. Good for this guy for taking the fight to the spammers. As we head into election season, a lot of us are going to get unsolicited text messages like this. You too can sue for them! Some of what was said in the tweets regarding your rights and what you have to do to file a claim are, in my experience and opinion, not correct. The general idea is right, but some of the asides about the law were simply incorrect. Depending on your jurisdiction, the way you can pursue a case like this is going to vary, so I’m not going to give any hard and fast rules in this comment. Just a heads up that if you want to try to replicate this, your steps will probably be different. Not legal advice :)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- YeBanKo 4y ago
  He mentioned the exact jurisdiction where it happened. Can you point at least one thing, that is wrong?
  - thathndude 4y ago
    Sure, I know of no jurisdiction that requires a pre-suit demand for a TCPA claim. “Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.)” You do have to serve them once you file the case, but generally, I’m aware of no pre-suit-demand obligation for a TCPA case in small claims court that prevents you from filing. not legal advice
    - YeBanKo 4y ago
      Well, there is an article on this on Californian Court website: https://www.courts.ca.gov/9739.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=en https://www.courts.ca.gov/9739.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=en "Small claims cases require that you ask the other side for payment before you go to court (unless there is a good reason why you cannot). You can ask in person, by phone, or in writing. You will have to tell the court you did this and how on your court form." It does not specifically exclude TCPA statutory damage, so I think it does apply in this case. And it does logically apply here too, small claims court is somewhere between an actual court and mediation and it is in place to save cost when possible. So it is reasonable to expect they want an attempt to resolve it before even before to file. Anything else?
andrewljohnson 4y ago
To what extent can this be automated? There are apps to fight parking/speeding tickets... could the same be done for little lawsuits to sue spammers? Maybe a lawyer could comment on feasibility of this.
- everforward 4y ago
  From a technical perspective, I think it would be hard to correctly identify who to sue. Phone numbers can be spoofed, gotten through a 3rd party like Twilio, or come from email to SMS gateways (if those still exist). For texts, you can probably parse out a link they want you to click, but I would expect them to be using a WHOIS guard. Phone calls are even worse, because you'd have to interact with the rep enough to get info on who's making the call. If it starts filing bogus lawsuits, whoever's running it may end up paying a whole bunch of attorney's fees to people defending themselves, get banned from filing lawsuits, and be more annoying to the general populace than the spammers are. I'd rather get a bunch of spam calls than deal with a single unfounded lawsuit.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- elliekelly 4y ago
  This is not my practice area but I’d guess tracking down the responsible party is a giant pain in the ass even in the best case scenario and nearly impossible in the worst.
- fudged71 4y ago
  A few years ago there was a web service in my region that allowed you to send a traffic ticket, and they would take all the tickets into court to fight as many as possible and give all customers a flat 30% discount off the shared savings. It was incredible. But somehow they got shut down when judges and cops didn't like what they were doing.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
In Germany, any company telling you that you won something is required to provide that prize. Unfortunately, the scams I get tend to be from abroad, and/or the actors behind them impossible to identify (and they also often use vague language like "potentially won" or "won one of our prizes" vs. "YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK").
- kube-system 4y ago
  Same in the US. Nearly all of the junk we get originates overseas.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  Who is ultimately responsible for providing the prize? Let’s say a German marketing employee is fed up with their job and wants to go out in a blaze of glory à la JetBlue slide guy so they text a bunch of people “YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK”. Would the employer or the employee be on the hook to supply the Cybertrucks?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    Whoever sends the message. Remember, these cases get decided by human judges, not robots looking at e-mail headers. I assume in your example a court would consider the employee to be the one sending the message. Edit: And looking at the wording, this may mean no cybertrucks for anyone because the sender has to be a business (simplified) for the law to apply.
- muttled 4y ago
  Telling someone they won a Toy Yoda in text form just wouldn't work as well
devmunchies 4y ago
If I receive spam message almost daily for 2 years, and I've contacted the platform (competitor to Twilio) and they said they took care of it (nope!), then I assume the platform could be liable too, no?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
strongpigeon 4y ago
Something worth highlighting is that you need to be on the Federal Do Not Call registry for that. https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/
- andrewla 4y ago
  The thread claims that not to be the case [1]: > 2. Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.) $500 damages, treble if you're on the Do Not Call registry. [1] https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552151905433923585 https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552151905433923585
  - strongpigeon 4y ago
    I'd be curious if OP could chime in about that, since the service they posted claims they don't need you permission if you aren't on the Do Not Call list [0] > Note: They don’t need your permission if you haven’t put your mobile number on the Federal Do Not Call list, but don’t worry, if you haven’t we tell you how to do that too! [0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay-you-for-having-sent-you-spam/ https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      Yeah I'm with you, I trust the lawyer over David.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  India created a similar system (that is somewhat better) when one of the law minister in the government started getting unsolicited calls for loans. :) Phone users can activate Do-Not-Disturb by calling or SMSing their provider. Users can opt for complete blackout of marketing messages or opt into "categories" where they would be open to marketing (like Real Estate, Auto etc). Marketers have to register themselves and the phone numbers / id they use to do the marketing. If a marketer contacts someone on the DnD list, a 3 strikes rule applies - warning, fine, ban. A marketer who uses an unregistered number (a business phone or their own personal number) to make a marketing call will be warned, fined and will face disconnection of service on repeated violations. Users can file a complain by calling or sending a simple SMS to 1909 in the following format: complaint / nature of call, phone number or SMS id, date as dd/mm/yy. The service provider will then take the action. E.g. - https://imgur.com/uPO1HQS https://imgur.com/uPO1HQS (screenshot of a list of complaints filed by me and the action taken by the service provider).
chrisweekly 4y ago
Way to go, lil brother! :)
andai 4y ago
Can someone explain why this part is necessary? >7. Cash the check and dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. (You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation.)
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  I would assume that it is legalese to put their minds at ease.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Part of settling a case is you ending your legal action. That’s your end of the bargain. Their end is cutting the check, (or whatever other terms you’ve agreed to.)
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    Being a non native English speaker I also found that wording a bit odd. To me reads like you don't sue them in the future if they commit the same exact type of violation, that is, if they spam you again, while it now seems clear that the purpose is to avoid being sued twice or more for one violation.
biggc 4y ago
Would this apply to unsolicited reachouts from recruiting firms?
SMAAART 4y ago
Someone should make an app for that, LSaaS (Law Suite as a Service).
- fred_is_fred 4y ago
  Law suit would just be one part of a Law suite.
notananthem 4y ago
This tweet is just linking to an expensive PDF from a lawyer, this is basically an ad
- gaws 4y ago
  > expensive PDF > $60 > "expensive"
exabrial 4y ago
I would love the same sort of "kit" available for CANSPAM.
exabrial 4y ago
Settling for $1200 with predjudice is a mistake... get a lawyer experienced in the area. You should be able to get roughly 2x the statutory amount by playing hardball!
- advisedwang 4y ago
  $1500 is already triple damages. Why would they settle for more than that, when they could just default and $1500 would be the amount they owe with no further legal costs.
  - exabrial 4y ago
    $1500 is actually the amount if the person is on the DNC list and has told you to stop. I'll try to find a source
    - advisedwang 4y ago
      I guess what the cap on damages is not really what I was curious about. I mean if there is a statutory limit of $X, what is the motivation for a company to settle for 2*$X?
      - exabrial 4y ago
        The sued party has legal hours. Settling for more than the damages for the promise of not incurring additional fees from their own lawyers.
w_for_wumbo 4y ago
Y'all are getting texts from political parties? That sounds like a nightmare
kderbyma 4y ago
isn't there a possibility for constant unsolicited text message after the lawsuit?? if he agrees to not sure them for it....they can just keep sending them and probably increase the frequency? I mean. he could just block the number....but I guess he wanted 1k for his time and to prove it was doable.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Tell us when you collect

280 points by MrDunham 4y ago

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago

toddm 4y ago

Not all heroes wear capes.

kemayo 4y ago

Unfortunately, all of the text spam I get is of the scammy misrepresentation variety, and is going to fail on the "identify the other party" step. Edit: for instance https://imgur.com/D780jAX https://imgur.com/D780jAX -- after I naïvely responded to the first few like this and got their pivot, I started to recognize the style.

sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
I get those as well. Did you find out who's sending them?
- TonyTrapp 4y ago
  There was an article about this phenomenon not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31949731 Just a plain old scam attempt.
splitrocket 4y ago
If you spend a few minutes and get them on the phone and say "I want to wire you funds right now!", they will give you a bank account.
- sethjr5rtfgh 4y ago
  Do you know that or are you guessing? Because my guess is it won't be that simple.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    Yeah, my guess is they would say “oh, we can just do an ACH debit and save you the trouble. What's your account number?”
    - filoeleven 4y ago
      Spitballing here: You can place ACH blocks on accounts, at some banks anyway. I don’t know if the bank will give you the transaction information if a transfer is attempted. If they will, shouldn’t it be possible to set up a honeypot account in order to get the ACH info? Is that info enough to trace back to the spammers? This opens up other legal questions though. It’s entirely possible that you could then be on the hook for non payment or something.
      - paulgb 4y ago
        Oh yeah, I forgot that some banks allow that. Maybe an even easier thing to try is telling the scammer you need their ACH so you can whitelist it with your bank own bank?
- eli 4y ago
  Maybe you’d get a bank account but it wouldn’t actually be theirs.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Yeah, you’ll get the bank account of some other person who has been scammed into a “no experience necessary work-from-home job” transferring money

mistersquid 4y ago

The punchline is a link in the last tweet of the thread: a non-affiliate link to OP’s acquaintance’s kit to file a lawsuit of your own. [0] [0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay-you-for-having-sent-you-spam/ https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...

hash872 4y ago

I would love to do this, but the few times that I've tried to look up the company, there's no real evidence as to who it is. And I'm fairly sophisticated at that kind of research, I know most of the tricks- however, these companies do successfully hide their identity. I did, one time, find the likely CEO of one of these companies, and I called his cell phone late on a Friday night to mess with him. However, I didn't really have 'rises to the level of evidence that you could present in court' type certainty

dweekly 4y ago
(OP here) In this case the spam text linked to a legit website that clearly belonged to a CA business, which then I was able to find on the CA SoS business search website. I've also found that Terms of Service & Privacy Policy pages usually have a legal address for a company and email for legal concerns.
300bps 4y ago
This part is actually pretty simple. You simply keep responding that you’re interested. Click their link. Fill out their form. Eventually you’ll get to a real person at a real company that was benefiting from the illegal spam.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  Could this make the lawsuit more difficult since you've signaled consent? (Yes, they made the first move prior to your consent, but I wonder if that would be a murkier narrative in the courtroom.)
- mrex 4y ago
  It's typically some affiliate-relationship that's conveniently structured to permit plausible deniability on the part of the ultimate recipient of the funds.
thathndude 4y ago
This brings up an interesting point about the TCPA. Individual employees and owners can be personally liable, not just their companies. It’s a vicious angle to TCPA litigation.

d23 4y ago

My only question is around the loophole that political organizations can do this if they aren't using "robotexts". How do they prove this? I've received three texts from an organization I'd like to do this to. Every time they've messaged me, I've responded and asked whether this was a human sending the message. No response. Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and try.

lazzlazzlazz 4y ago

This only works for the least common kind of a spammer: a real, registered business that you can identify. Most spammers are con artists, scammers, and phishers who know to keep their identities secret, let alone link you to their corporate website.

ahahahahah 4y ago
Eh, I rarely get any of that spam. I constantly get spam from politicians begging for money.
- ahahahahah 4y ago
  Though, to be fair, those could be scammers actually, I've never responded or confirmed that they are real.

jonpurdy 4y ago

When I lived in Canada, I was very excited when CASL (Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation) came out circa 2013. Having the ability to sue Canadian companies that ignored email opt-outs would have been great. The amounts are limited to $200 per violation, but up to $1 million per day total (in most cases, I'd get a few hundred dollars for 1-3 emails). And very easy to track since I generate unique aliases for each company I interact with. Unfortunately, the ability for individuals to sue ("private right of action") was delayed in 2017, and delayed once more in 2019, IIRC. Apparently, companies complained that the max $1 million per day could be achieved by sending 5,000 unsolicited emails, which would be too easy to do if there was a mistake in their system or a new sales rep ham-fisted this without realizing the repercussions. I love to see posts like this though, I'll be sure to attempt this if I ever get SMS spam here in USA.

game-of-throws 4y ago
"We are likely to break this law, therefore we shouldn't be punished when it happens"? Classic. The US has a similar problem with CAN-SPAM. Ordinary citizens cannot sue.[1] All you can do is complain to the FTC, after which of course nothing will happen. It makes these laws rather toothless if they're not actually enforced. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inbox/can-spam_and_consumer_lawsuits https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inbox/can-spam_and_consumer_...

adoxyz 4y ago

Winning a lawsuit and actually collecting are two different things, and from my experience the legal system does not care at all once they've issued a judgement. It worked out for that person and that's great, but these types of lawsuits tend to take a while to get a hearing, require a bunch of paperwork, and if the other party does not play ball, the odds of you getting any $$ out of it are pretty slim.

dweekly 4y ago
(OP here) I'm learning that in this case I was lucky that the party was A: identifiable, B: also in CA, C: responsive to a suit, and D: willing to settle out-of-court (mailed me a check). I hadn't realized that collections of a small claims judgement could be super-involved but apparently I was simply naive on that topic.
perlgeek 4y ago
This is fairly sad state of affairs. Here in Germany if you have a court order and that isn't payed, the bailiff/marshall visit the recalcitrant party and confiscates cash or valuable items until the order is settled. (At least for companies; there are some regulations that individuals cannot be brought below the poverty line by such actions).

cbron 4y ago

Has anyone tried this with real estate solicitors ? I get a message per day about selling my house.

cronix 4y ago
Only 1? I get at least 6 unsolicited texts and 3-4 phone calls every damn day.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  I get around 60 calls a day, many of them are repeat attempts. T-Mobile's app blocks 99% of them. I get around a dozen texts a day for the real estate nonsense. Messenger does a good job of marking those as spam. I've tried a number of times to get identifiable information from those folks with little success. Friend of mine went through the process and met with someone on site at the property he was contacted about. He first had to let them send an inspector. The inspector was paid by a proxy which was not linked to the company that wanted to buy the property. The person he met with on site representing the property buyer was a lawyer, and that's who he had to go after. He ended up getting the $1500 after all of that effort, and told me the lawyer laughed and said the cost was just passed onto his client. It was a lot of effort.

1nd1ansumm3r 4y ago

So you were able to sue, for example Google or Qualtrics because a spammer sent you one of their links? I'm confused on that part. Or did the legit company reveal the identity of the spammer to you? Seems like the case would get tossed because the entity you're suing didn't send the spam? How did that part work? Thanks

throw8383833jj 4y ago

I think a much easier way would be if we just taxed phone calls at 1 cent each. I mean absolutely everything else is already taxed: you pay taxes just to stay alive. the least that could be done is add a 1 cent tax to each phone call, just enough to stop the mass phone calling.

flerchin 4y ago
Yep, and folks could even have a credit of 500 phone calls a month, or whatever a reasonable number would be, so no cost to consumers at all. Instead of a tax, it should be a minimum charge that goes to the carriers. So that they would be incentivized to collect it.
- aliqot 4y ago
  In a world where we pay for stamps, why didn't bulk unsolicited mail go away? This won't work.
  - mrcartmeneses 4y ago
    That escalated quickly
  - galdosdi 4y ago
    It's a fair fee though. It pays for my attention as a recipient. It prevents an externality. It's no different than having to deposit a quarter to take a shopping cart, to incentivize you to return it. A tenth of a cent would probably be just as effective btw; the problem is that you can send a million text messages, wasting a million seconds of other people's time assuming they spend an average of 1 second looking at it, all for far less than the value of all that time wasted. Nobody is talking about TSA, what a non sequitur.
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      If only we could get paid by ad companies for trying to steal our attention.

wodenokoto 4y ago

> You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation. I hope exact violation means that particular unsolicited text message and not the exact violation of sending unsolicited text messages.

cdot2 4y ago
yes it means the same text message

thathndude 4y ago

Lawyer here. I do this kind of work for a client. Good for this guy for taking the fight to the spammers. As we head into election season, a lot of us are going to get unsolicited text messages like this. You too can sue for them! Some of what was said in the tweets regarding your rights and what you have to do to file a claim are, in my experience and opinion, not correct. The general idea is right, but some of the asides about the law were simply incorrect. Depending on your jurisdiction, the way you can pursue a case like this is going to vary, so I’m not going to give any hard and fast rules in this comment. Just a heads up that if you want to try to replicate this, your steps will probably be different. Not legal advice :)

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YeBanKo 4y ago
He mentioned the exact jurisdiction where it happened. Can you point at least one thing, that is wrong?
- thathndude 4y ago
  Sure, I know of no jurisdiction that requires a pre-suit demand for a TCPA claim. “Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.)” You do have to serve them once you file the case, but generally, I’m aware of no pre-suit-demand obligation for a TCPA case in small claims court that prevents you from filing. not legal advice
  - YeBanKo 4y ago
    Well, there is an article on this on Californian Court website: https://www.courts.ca.gov/9739.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=en https://www.courts.ca.gov/9739.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=en "Small claims cases require that you ask the other side for payment before you go to court (unless there is a good reason why you cannot). You can ask in person, by phone, or in writing. You will have to tell the court you did this and how on your court form." It does not specifically exclude TCPA statutory damage, so I think it does apply in this case. And it does logically apply here too, small claims court is somewhere between an actual court and mediation and it is in place to save cost when possible. So it is reasonable to expect they want an attempt to resolve it before even before to file. Anything else?

andrewljohnson 4y ago

To what extent can this be automated? There are apps to fight parking/speeding tickets... could the same be done for little lawsuits to sue spammers? Maybe a lawyer could comment on feasibility of this.

everforward 4y ago
From a technical perspective, I think it would be hard to correctly identify who to sue. Phone numbers can be spoofed, gotten through a 3rd party like Twilio, or come from email to SMS gateways (if those still exist). For texts, you can probably parse out a link they want you to click, but I would expect them to be using a WHOIS guard. Phone calls are even worse, because you'd have to interact with the rep enough to get info on who's making the call. If it starts filing bogus lawsuits, whoever's running it may end up paying a whole bunch of attorney's fees to people defending themselves, get banned from filing lawsuits, and be more annoying to the general populace than the spammers are. I'd rather get a bunch of spam calls than deal with a single unfounded lawsuit.
- deleted 4y ago
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elliekelly 4y ago
This is not my practice area but I’d guess tracking down the responsible party is a giant pain in the ass even in the best case scenario and nearly impossible in the worst.
fudged71 4y ago
A few years ago there was a web service in my region that allowed you to send a traffic ticket, and they would take all the tickets into court to fight as many as possible and give all customers a flat 30% discount off the shared savings. It was incredible. But somehow they got shut down when judges and cops didn't like what they were doing.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

In Germany, any company telling you that you won something is required to provide that prize. Unfortunately, the scams I get tend to be from abroad, and/or the actors behind them impossible to identify (and they also often use vague language like "potentially won" or "won one of our prizes" vs. "YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK").

kube-system 4y ago
Same in the US. Nearly all of the junk we get originates overseas.
elliekelly 4y ago
Who is ultimately responsible for providing the prize? Let’s say a German marketing employee is fed up with their job and wants to go out in a blaze of glory à la JetBlue slide guy so they text a bunch of people “YOU WON A BRAND NEW TESLA CYBERTRUCK”. Would the employer or the employee be on the hook to supply the Cybertrucks?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Whoever sends the message. Remember, these cases get decided by human judges, not robots looking at e-mail headers. I assume in your example a court would consider the employee to be the one sending the message. Edit: And looking at the wording, this may mean no cybertrucks for anyone because the sender has to be a business (simplified) for the law to apply.
muttled 4y ago
Telling someone they won a Toy Yoda in text form just wouldn't work as well

devmunchies 4y ago

If I receive spam message almost daily for 2 years, and I've contacted the platform (competitor to Twilio) and they said they took care of it (nope!), then I assume the platform could be liable too, no?

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strongpigeon 4y ago

Something worth highlighting is that you need to be on the Federal Do Not Call registry for that. https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/

andrewla 4y ago
The thread claims that not to be the case [1]: > 2. Issue a notice of demand explaining that you are seeking payment for TCPA violation and give them 10 days to respond. Send mail with signature delivery. (You can't sue without having issued a notice of demand.) $500 damages, treble if you're on the Do Not Call registry. [1] https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552151905433923585 https://twitter.com/dweekly/status/1552151905433923585
- strongpigeon 4y ago
  I'd be curious if OP could chime in about that, since the service they posted claims they don't need you permission if you aren't on the Do Not Call list [0] > Note: They don’t need your permission if you haven’t put your mobile number on the Federal Do Not Call list, but don’t worry, if you haven’t we tell you how to do that too! [0] https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay-you-for-having-sent-you-spam/ https://www.isipp.com/how-to-make-phone-and-sms-spammers-pay...
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    Yeah I'm with you, I trust the lawyer over David.
webmobdev 4y ago
India created a similar system (that is somewhat better) when one of the law minister in the government started getting unsolicited calls for loans. :) Phone users can activate Do-Not-Disturb by calling or SMSing their provider. Users can opt for complete blackout of marketing messages or opt into "categories" where they would be open to marketing (like Real Estate, Auto etc). Marketers have to register themselves and the phone numbers / id they use to do the marketing. If a marketer contacts someone on the DnD list, a 3 strikes rule applies - warning, fine, ban. A marketer who uses an unregistered number (a business phone or their own personal number) to make a marketing call will be warned, fined and will face disconnection of service on repeated violations. Users can file a complain by calling or sending a simple SMS to 1909 in the following format: complaint / nature of call, phone number or SMS id, date as dd/mm/yy. The service provider will then take the action. E.g. - https://imgur.com/uPO1HQS https://imgur.com/uPO1HQS (screenshot of a list of complaints filed by me and the action taken by the service provider).

chrisweekly 4y ago

Way to go, lil brother! :)

andai 4y ago

Can someone explain why this part is necessary? >7. Cash the check and dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. (You're agreeing to not sue them again for the exact same violation.)

BizarroLand 4y ago
I would assume that it is legalese to put their minds at ease.
kube-system 4y ago
Part of settling a case is you ending your legal action. That’s your end of the bargain. Their end is cutting the check, (or whatever other terms you’ve agreed to.)
- squarefoot 4y ago
  Being a non native English speaker I also found that wording a bit odd. To me reads like you don't sue them in the future if they commit the same exact type of violation, that is, if they spam you again, while it now seems clear that the purpose is to avoid being sued twice or more for one violation.

biggc 4y ago

Would this apply to unsolicited reachouts from recruiting firms?

SMAAART 4y ago

Someone should make an app for that, LSaaS (Law Suite as a Service).

fred_is_fred 4y ago
Law suit would just be one part of a Law suite.

notananthem 4y ago

This tweet is just linking to an expensive PDF from a lawyer, this is basically an ad

gaws 4y ago
> expensive PDF > $60 > "expensive"

exabrial 4y ago

I would love the same sort of "kit" available for CANSPAM.

exabrial 4y ago

Settling for $1200 with predjudice is a mistake... get a lawyer experienced in the area. You should be able to get roughly 2x the statutory amount by playing hardball!

advisedwang 4y ago
$1500 is already triple damages. Why would they settle for more than that, when they could just default and $1500 would be the amount they owe with no further legal costs.
- exabrial 4y ago
  $1500 is actually the amount if the person is on the DNC list and has told you to stop. I'll try to find a source
  - advisedwang 4y ago
    I guess what the cap on damages is not really what I was curious about. I mean if there is a statutory limit of $X, what is the motivation for a company to settle for 2*$X?
    - exabrial 4y ago
      The sued party has legal hours. Settling for more than the damages for the promise of not incurring additional fees from their own lawyers.

w_for_wumbo 4y ago

Y'all are getting texts from political parties? That sounds like a nightmare

kderbyma 4y ago

isn't there a possibility for constant unsolicited text message after the lawsuit?? if he agrees to not sure them for it....they can just keep sending them and probably increase the frequency? I mean. he could just block the number....but I guess he wanted 1k for his time and to prove it was doable.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Tell us when you collect