Dish Network found liable for tens of millions of telemarketing calls, including ‘do not call’ violations

A federal court has found Dish Network liable for tens of millions of calls that violated the Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule or TSR, including “do not call” violations.

The opinion is a partial judgment in a case the Department of Justice filed on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission against Dish in March 2009.

The FTC’s lawsuit alleges that Dish or its telemarketer made telephone calls to phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, in violation of the TSR. In the ruling, the court found Dish liable for more than 4 million calls it or its vendors made to numbers on the Registry and for nearly 3 million calls its retailers made to those numbers.

The lawsuit also alleges that Dish or its telemarketers made calls to consumers who had previously said that they didn’t want to receive calls. The court ruled that Dish is liable for more than 1 million calls to consumers whose telephone numbers were on Dish’s internal do-not-call list or were marked “DNC” by Dish’s telemarketing vendor.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Dish or its telemarketers abandon telephone calls, calls that end before a conversation begins. The court ruled that Dish is liable for nearly a half a million abandoned calls that Dish and three of its retailers made.

The court also issued several findings in favor of four state co-plaintiffs in the case against Dish - California, Illinois, Ohio, and North Carolina.

Several other issues will be resolved at a trial, which is scheduled to start in July.