Pa. AG Sues 5 N.Y. Entities to Curb ‘Invasive’ Unwanted Robocalls

Five telemarketing entities operating out of the same lower Manhattan address are responsible for causing hundreds of thousands of unwanted robocalls to be placed to Pennsylvania consumers, alleged Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) in a complaint Wednesday (docket 2:22-cv-01551) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania. The complaint alleges violations of the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), plus state and federal unfair competition laws, but not the Telephone Consumer Protection Act because the five entities are not alleged to have placed the calls themselves.

Defendant Fluent and its subsidiaries American Prize Center, Deliver Technology, RewardZone USA and Samples & Savings operate websites that trick consumers “into believing they are confirming their contact information in order to register to receive a promotional offering,” said the complaint. “In fact they are entering their contact information for purposes of lead generation,” it said.

The defendants sell the generated leads to third parties, and the websites use surreptitious means to coax consumers into giving their “purported consent to be contacted for purposes of telemarketing,” said the complaint. After consumers submit their contact information, they are “prompted through several sequential webpages to answer survey questions and view marketing offers,” it said.

The survey questions “are designed to gather more information about the consumers for purposes of lead generation,” said the complaint. “These particular survey questions fail to clearly and conspicuously disclose to consumers that if they select a certain answer to the survey question, they are in turn purportedly consenting to be contacted for purposes of telemarketing.”

By obtaining and selling telemarketing leads to their third-party “marketing partners,” the defendants “provided substantial assistance or support to sellers and telemarketers, engaged in telemarketing,” said the complaint. As a result of that substantial assistance or support, the defendants’ marketing partners “initiated or caused the initiation of outbound telephone calls to Pennsylvania telephone numbers to induce the purchase of goods or services, it said. The calls, without consumers’ “valid consent,” were made to numbers on the national do not call registry, in violation of the TSR, it said. Efforts to reach Fluent and its subsidiaries for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

Every company “is obligated to comply with state and federal telemarketing laws, and Fluent failed to comply,” said Shapiro in a statement Thursday. “These invasive robocalls are a growing problem -- Fluent’s phony actions cannot be used to obtain consumer’s consent to receive unwanted calls.” Shapiro is running for Pennsylvania governor against Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano.