Time Warner Cable To Pay $230k Over Robo-Calls

A Manhattan judge has ordered Time Warner Cable (Xetra: T3W1.DE - news) to pay $229,500 (£15,000) to a woman after it made 153 automated calls to her mobile in less than a year.

Araceli King, of Irving, Texas, accused Time Warner (Xetra: AOL1.DE - news) of harassing her by leaving messages for a Luiz Perez, who once held her cellphone number, even after she explained to a company representative who she was and asked them to stop.

The calls were made through an "interactive voice response" system which calls customers who are late in paying their bills.

Seventy four of the calls came after Ms King had sued the company in March 2014.

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein awarded triple the $1,500 damages per call and said a "responsible business" would have tried harder to find Perez and address the problem.

He wrote: "Defendant harassed plaintiff with robo-calls until she had to resort to a lawsuit to make the calls stop, and even then TWC could not be bothered to update the information on its IVR system."

He added that the final 74 calls were "particularly egregious violations of the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) and indicate that TWC simple did not take this lawsuit seriously."

Susan Leepson, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable, said the New York-based company is reviewing the decision.

Sergei Lemberg, representing Ms King, said: "Companies are using computers to dial phone numbers. They benefit from efficiency, but there is a cost when they make people's lives miserable.

"This was one such case."

A trial has been set for 27 July.