NEW YORK — Time Warner Cable must pay $229,500 to a Texas woman because it would not stop calling her, a federal judge said Tuesday.
The automated calls –153 of them — kept coming even after Araceli King notified the company that it was calling the wrong person. They were intended for a different customer, who once had King’s cell phone number.
The company “harassed” King, who had to resort to a lawsuit to make them stop, wrote Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
He ordered Time Warner Cable to pay her $1,500 for each unwanted call.
Even after King sued, the company continued to call another 74 times.
“A responsible business in TWC’s position might have dispatched a live agent” after the first several times failed to reach the correct customer, Hellerstein wrote.
The calls were made by an automated system the company uses to contact customers who are more than 30 days late on their payments. It called King 10 times in 2013 before she answered one and, in a seven minute conversation, told a representative that she was not the right person and asked that the calls stop.
According to the judge, Time Warner Cable no longer had consent from King to call her after that point.
When customers sign up with the cable company, they must agree that it can call a number you provide about promotions and services. Time Warner Cable argued in court documents that King had consented to calls under the customer agreement.
On Wednesday, a company spokesman said it was reviewing the ruling before deciding how to proceed.
Time Warner Cable was a unit of Time Warner until 2009. The two companies are no longer related except by name.
