The Federal Trade Commission has settled a complaint with three individuals and a telephone call center, permanently barring the defendants from making telemarketing robocalls. According to the FTC’s complaint, Christopher Cotroneo, Christina Peterson, Robert Peterson II, and Cabb Group, LLC, made or facilitated millions of illegal calls marketing free cruise vacation packages by, among other things, failing to scrub the call lists against the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry, calling consumers who asked not to be called, and failing to transmit accurate caller ID information to comply with the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR).
The settlement bans the defendants from robocalling or assisting others in making robocalls, bars them from violating the TSR, and imposes judgments of $7.8 million. Other than $2,500 to be paid by Cotroneo, the judgments have been suspended due to the defendants’ inability to pay.
The FTC’s complaint derives from an investigation into the operations of Caribbean Cruise Line, Inc., its owners and affiliates, which resulted in a settlement agreement in March 2015.
January 14, 2020