On June 2, 2017, a federal district court judge in California approved a judgment against Aaron Michael Jones that permanently bans him from all telemarketing activities. He’ll no longer be able to initiate robocalls, call numbers on the DNC Registry, or sell data lists containing consumers’ phone number and other information.
Earlier this year, the FTC charged Mr. Jones and nine companies with running a telemarketing operation that allegedly made hundreds of millions of calls to numbers listed on the Do Not Call Registry. (Read blog article: FTC Takes Down Two Companies Accused of Illegal Robocalling).
The original FTC complaint alleged that Mr. Jones and several companies that he was involved with placed billions of illegal robocalls between March 2009 and May 2016. The majority of those calls were made to sell extended auto warranties, search engine optimization services, and home security systems.
$2.7 Million Fine
The court order also includes a $2.7 million fine, although most of it will be suspended after Mr. Jones pays $3,000 to the FTC. The full amount will become due if he is found to have misrepresented his financial condition. One of Mr. Jones’ associates, Steven Stansbury, had recently settled with the FTC on similar charges.
Included in the court’s default judgment are the following nine corporate defendants:
- Allorey, Inc.
- Audacity LLC
- Data World Technologies, Inc.
- Dial Soft Technologies, Inc.
- Digital Marketing Solutions, Inc.
- Savilo Support Services, Inc.
- Secure Alliance, Inc.
- Velocity Information Corp.
- World Access Media
The court’s default judgments against Mr. Jones and the other corporate defendants, along with the stipulated final order against Mr. Stansbury, resolves the FTC’s actions regarding all of the defendants in this case.
Dishonest telemarketers are not the rule, but in the minds of consumers and the courts they do cast a dark shadow over the rest of the industry. Unlike the litigants in this case, most telemarketers understand and follow all TCPA and DNC regulations, as well as all other applicable telemarketing laws, in order to avoid similar detrimental judgments.