Charter ‘Ratifies’ TCPA Violations of Its Unsupervised ‘Resellers,’ Alleges Complaint

Charter Communications hires call center vendors that it calls “resellers,” based mostly overseas, who run afoul of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when they sell Spectrum cable and internet services to consumers without Charter's supervision, alleged Frank Novak’s complaint Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-10581) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit.

Charter “ostensibly instructs” its resellers “not to unlawfully telemarket to consumers, while at the very same time providing financial incentives for those same resellers to telemarket Spectrum services,” said the complaint. Charter offers the resellers commissions based on sales volume, but “fails to monitor or oversee” them for compliance, it said.

When the resellers successfully sell Spectrum services through their telemarketing robocalls, Charter “substantially profits” from those allegedly prohibited calls, said the complaint. Charter “tacitly encourages” its resellers’ unlawful robocalls by “incentivizing them” to behave aggressively, “while at the same time professing intolerance of such practices to the general public,” it said.

When consumers complain of receiving robocalls for Spectrum cable and internet, Charter “will claim to lack knowledge of any such calls,” and instead suggests the calls were spoofed by “unidentified nefarious actors,” said the complaint. The contracts that Charter enters into with the resellers afford it the ability “to direct and control the resellers’ marketing activities,” it said.

Even if unlawful robocalls are “in contravention” of the language of Charter’s reseller agreements, “an agency relationship exists,” said the complaint. Resellers who make robocalls to sell Charter products and services “are acting in furtherance of that agency relationship by selling Spectrum cable and internet plans, from which Charter profits,” it said. Charter “ratifies TCPA violations” by accepting sales and leads from its resellers who violate the TCPA while marketing Spectrum cable and internet, it said.

Plaintiff Novak listed his cellphone number on the national do not call registry in February 2004, yet beginning in the spring of 2020, he became targeted in a Spectrum telemarketing campaign by Charter’s resellers, said the complaint. The Farmington Hills, Michigan, resident hadn't been a Charter customer for about 15 years, it said. Since the termination of his Spectrum cable plan, Novak never sought information from Charter, nor did he consent to receive telemarketing calls from the company, it said.

Novak's complaint lists 21 prerecorded calls he alleges receiving from Spectrum resellers through Feb. 27. As a result of those calls, Novak feels that his privacy has been "invaded,” said the complaint. He alleges that Charter is both directly and vicariously liable for the TCPA wrongdoing.