The Columbia House Co. will pay $300,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the federal Do-Not-Call rule by telemarketing existing or past subscribers after they had placed their phone numbers on the national do not call registry and requested the company not call them.
The stipulated judgment and order requires continuity club marketer to pay a $300,000 civil fine and bars the company from calling any consumer who has previously asked not to be called and/or has registered their numbers on the DNC list. That is unless the company has received a written notice from the consumer permitting future calls or the company has an established business.
From Oct. 2003 to March 2004, Columbia called tens of thousands former members whose phone numbers were registered on the national registry, after the company no longer had an established business relationship with those members as defined by the law, according to the FTC.
The complaint further alleged that, since Dec.1995, Columbia violated the company-specific do not call provision of the Telephone Sales Rule by calling consumers who had previously asked that they not be called.
The complaint further stated that although Columbia had implemented procedures to attempt to prevent future calls to such consumers, those procedures had proven ineffective in preventing the alleged calls.
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