Brickbat: Wrong Number

Erik Reis / Dreamstime.com

Willie Willis has sued Florida's Broward County school system claiming the dozens of robocalls he has received from Miramar High School have been annoying and frustrating. The school keeps calling to tell him a student is missing classes. But Willis does not have a child attending that school. He says the calls continued even after he informed officials of that fact and asked that his name and number be taken out of the school's system.

Comments

[straffinrun]

Cause Willie Willie Willis ain't home
But you can't push Willie round
Willie won't phone, try telling every school board,
But, Oh no
Little Willie Willis won't phone.

[Ted S.]

Sweet.

[WTF]

Thanks for earworm, you bastard.

[Lord_at_War]

It gets crazy... I've been getting numerous calls from health insurance companies since I argued against the ACA w/ my brother at Thanksgiving. I think he signed my name and number up somewhere just to "troll" me.

I had one that called- who I specifically told I was in no way interested in their product (I'm not interested- Please take me off your caller list.).- - and she actually called me back 2 minutes later.

She said that they had only called because I was on her list- I then asked her "What part of 'Fuck you' was not understood"?, and "Ask your manager about the penalties for 'telephone sales harassment' in Ohio".

They haven't called back yet...

[Ted S.]

Robocalls from politicians, however, those are apparently perfectly fucking legal.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

They're required.

[gaoxiaen]

I liked it better when people called. I'd just set the phone down and let them continue talking until they realized that I'm not listening. Same thing with telemarketing.

[Longtobefree]

Remember that telemarketers have quotas not only for sales, but for number of calls, and average call length. The longer you keep them on the line without buying anything, the less money they make. The more ways you can think of to say no, the more of their script they have to read through, and the worse their performance review.
On the other hand, I still get calls about "free vacations" from taking one three years ago. The fun part is to let them go on about how wonderful it is to vacation in Florida during the winter. Then I tell them I retired to Florida two years ago, and my home is in a better place than their condos. Then I tell them how old their lead list is, and suggest they find a better telemarketing company to work for.

[Rich]

Jolly Roger FTW.

[Cynical Asshole]

I've been getting numerous calls from health insurance companies since I argued against the ACA w/ my brother at Thanksgiving. I think he signed my name and number up somewhere just to "troll" me.

With all do respect, your brother sounds like kind of a douchebag (if he did in fact sign your name and number for a bunch of insurance company robocalls).

[Fist of Etiquette]

If I was the school district's truancy office, I would give this guy 90 days to have a child and enroll it in school or face imprisonment.

[Cyto]

Winner, winner.... Chicken dinner!

[Radioactive]

always obey the state mandate to produce new serfs

[gaoxiaen]

He should get nine months at the very least.

[Drave Robber]

*walks into principal's office* I'm terribly sorry but my kid is still here... *reaches for the zipper*

[Monty Crisco]

What they didn't say in the article was....

THE CALLS WERE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!!!!

[Radioactive]

you know who else called from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!!!?

[gaoxiaen]

I did, when my lazy-assed girlfriend wasn't quick enough with a fuckin' sammich.

[Trigger Hippie]

"In a federal lawsuit filed this week, Willie Willis ? who does not have a child attending the Broward County school ? claims more than two dozen of the automated calls since September have caused him a "significant amount of anxiety, frustration and annoyance."

He's demanding up to $25,000 from the Broward School district."

The guy thinks he deserves twenty-five grand, huh? State funded harassment is a bugaboo of mine and all but I suddenly wish the school district fucked with him even harder.

[Radioactive]

stay tuned, he just got the notice to drop his drawers and bend over...

[Cyto]

I used to run a call center with a couple of hundred thousand customers in our database, plus periodic lists of leads we would obtain. Because we were a commercial entity we scrubbed the lead lists against the national DNC lists. The dialer also separately checked against the DNC lists at dial time.

But that is for a commercial entity. As a school district I"m not sure if they are covered by the FTC regulations. They probably only call people with existing relationships - so they wouldn't subscribe to the DNC list (which costs quite a bit). Also, does the government count as a non-profit?

The DNC covers "sales calls", so I'm going to bet that a local school system does not count as commercial under the telemarketing regulations. So his suit starts out with a taller hill to climb.

Then they've got the byzantine school system - hundreds of schools all connected to the same system. Finding out why his number is getting called is probably beyond the capability of the secretary at the front desk of the high school that he called. She might be able to search their student list by number, but they might also have a signed paper with that number on it. Or maybe it is coming from a typo somewhere else.

Finally, this might fall under "law enforcement activities" as a truancy enforcement action.

I really doubt he has much of a chance of prevailing on his lawsuit. They've got a lot of built-in exemptions, and the FTC offers safe harbor for mistakes.

[Trigger Hippie]

"I really doubt he has much of a chance of prevailing on his lawsuit. They've got a lot of built-in exemptions, and the FTC offers safe harbor for mistakes."

And not-for-nothing, the article says the calls were to his cellphone. Not a landline, his cell. Now, I don't know what kind of phone the guy has but even my couple years out of date Android has a block number feature. After the first few calls and the initial complaint to the district he probably could have ended the issue then and there. But he didn't.

Kind of sounds like he's just looking to sue for an easy buck. Not really feeling too bad for the guy.

[SRVolunteer]

I got a new cell number a few years ago, and I kept getting calls for a Jabina Mitchell. Over and over. I told them there was no Jabina Mitchell at my number, they said 'sorry', and hung up. I assumed I was getting calls from her friends and family, and they would go away once word got out that her number had changed.

When the calls didn't end after a few months, I finally just said "She's not here right now, can I take a message?" and learned that Jabina's kids were skipping school. I told the man that I had been getting calls from them for months and they really needed to get an up-to-date phone number for her. The calls eventually tapered off, but not before I got a voice mail one night that threatened "It's 5:30 and your kids have not been picked up from school. If you don't come get them we're turning them over to [agency]".

I guess they got turned over that night, but I wonder why, at 5:30, the school couldn't get an up-to-date phone number out of the kids instead of calling me.

I didn't sue anybody... but the calls didn't come from the same number, even the calls that I knew were from the kids' school. (schools?)

[Radioactive]

Hey, I remember you...I'm coming over to your house to fuck you up...I told you don't call me anymore...

[sarcasmic]

Dave ain't here, man.

[gaoxiaen]

We have to search and see for ourselves.

[Fatty Bolger]

Block the number, dummy.

[Longtobefree]

Another reason to get rid of public schools.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

I'm surprised the school district isn't pushing child protective services to investigate this missing child.

[jdgalt]

I've had the local schools do the same thing to me. But I've also had Anthem Blue Cross repeatedly call me with reminders for some parent who used to have my phone number to bring his child in for shots. It was harder to get Anthem to stop than the school.