Cooper
RALEIGH, N.C. (Legal Newsline) - North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced on Wednesday that a California telemarketing company must pay $40,000 for allegedly contacting people in North Carolina who were on the Do Not Call Registry.
Cooper filed a lawsuit against Warrior Custom Golf and Brendan M. Flaherty, its owner, in 2010 for allegedly violating a 2004 court order concerning telemarketing tactics.
Under a consent order signed this week, the company has agreed to end all unlawful calls and will pay civil penalties of $40,000 that will benefit North Carolina public schools.
"My office will continue to fight those who ignore the Do Not Call Registry," Cooper said. "You've said loud and clear that you don't want telemarketers calling you at home."
The Do Not Call law was enacted in October 2003. Over the past seven-plus years, more than 30 companies have been fined a total of over $1 million for violations of the law.
Cooper won a court order against Warrior Custom Golf in 2003, banning the company from making telemarketing calls to consumers who had registered for the Do Not Call list. When Cooper's office began receiving complaints about the company again in 2009, he filed the new suit.
The company argued that it believed it was allowed to call people on the list due to their responses to a mailing it had sent out. The law does make an exception for existing business relationships, however, telemarketers must still comply with direct requests from consumers to stop calls.