Keep getting home improvement scam calls. Decided to have a little fun with one of them.

Here's the problem with going after Home Advisers. Chances are it was not they who initially called you.  It was some other telescum who, after talking with you (?) put your info onto H A's website.  If you were to go after them, you would most likely need a declaration (under perjury) from the contractor about who sold him your info and then have HA give you another one declaring who they got your information from. Or sue the contractor and have him provide the information in court and amend your claim to include the call center.  HA will then claim that you "opted in" on their website. This is one of those type of cases that I had asked about here on a different thread, trying to figure out how money changes hands in these cases.  They can be very difficult to backtrack.
Now if you DIDN'T give any information to a different caller then, I would think, (after you get a declaration) you could go directly after HA.
Sorry to vent but I just got word that for an $8500 case ( for 18 calls) where I had ironclad evidence against the telescum, the sc judge awarded $1,300. And of course the judge does not have to explain his decision.  Now you see why the scum aren't afraid to continue with their calls.

As jomama points out, the legal system isn't always a perfect solution, either. You can put them out of business, or at least get them to legitimize their business, by going after their customers - the contractors. Make them pissed at HA and let them to the work. Have them issue charge-backs for the bad/invalid/illegal leads. Have them cancel subscriptions to HA.

If your business depends on getting leads, and you pay hundreds of dollars for a bunch of leads that are no good, are you going to do business with them anymore?

If I were a Contractor and depended on Leads, I would keep doing business with the one who's Leads paid off. Now you have to consider, even if you were to expose to the Contractor that their Lead provider is not following the rules in how they obtained the Leads, most do not care HOW its done....only that it produces. Many Contractors make more than enough money just from one single job to pay for a Lead list and still turn a profit.

The only thing that would make a Contractor look elsewhere for new Leads is when the current Leads supplier is not producing at all.  A good many Contractors have a budget set just for Advertising and Leads fall into that category, so there is an acceptable loss percentage they already take into account. That percentage varies from Contractor to Contractor, depending on the company size.

Yes, per the TCPA you are "supposed" to be allowed to go after the contractors for vicarious liability of the calls.  However, more and more of them are claiming the scum call center is an "independant contractor" and therefore the contractor isn't liable. Courts are buying it. PLUS there is less incentive for people to sue the scum and for the scum to be discouraged because a lot of the courts will not pay the supposedly required $500/call.  I've had these decisions in a number of my cases. The two worst that I've heard of from people I know, both had well documented cases of 10 and 12 calls.  They were awarded $15 and $25 in damages. WITHOUT court costs.  Judges (small claims) have their own agenda and do not have to explain their decisions

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However, more and more of them are claiming the scum call center is an "independant contractor" and therefore the contractor isn't liable.

As long as they produce Leads that pay out, they will continue to use them, even if they are dragged into Court. Its when a contractor is held liable for the calls made to victims, thats when they MIGHT consider not using that service for their Leads. But even then, for  large Contractors, a few kicks in the shin will not stop the march procession.

Your argument is extremely flawed.  First, we have the name and address of the calling party so they can be added as a defendant, negating the "vicarious liability" argument you so lovingly like to quote, which as I was taught in Tort Class, does usually release, in this case the contractor, from liability.  I have never suggested anything more then suing the contractors to get the information on the calling party.  Now your next flaw is people using small claims court for something like this, which both Resident47 and I have pointed out is a krap shoot as to whether they have the qualifications to adjudicate a Federal Law.  Your third flaw is that small claims judges do not have to explain their decisions.  While that might be true, there is nothing stopping people from appealing the decision.  Also remember that court cases can easily be found to support the law suits if people take the time to prepare instead of simply going and expecting to win simply because they are waving the TCPA on a flag pole.
I see nothing in the TCPA about being allowed to go after anyone else.  Perhaps you could point me to the exact section that you are referring to?

Exactly. Ive had cases where they paid the damages rather than expose the call center. Seems they were afraid to lose that "golden goose";.  Didnt matter I was paid, that's what made me happy!

I am not sure how they would issue charge-backs for the leads.  They could cancel subscriptions to this one particular lead generator, however it would take a lot of cancellations to achieve the results you expect.  There are thousands of contractors using this service and more signing up everyday, since a lot of these contractors are desperate for business.  I would never have done business with them to begin with, but that was just me.  I can see someone starting out and looking for work anywhere they could get it.  Back in the day we never had stuff like this, we used the newspapers, yellow pages, and radio.  We built our business up by giving good service, doing good work, charging reasonable prices while still making a profit, and word got around.

I suggest you do a little more research on the subject...Too much "oddness" in your statement to even comment on.
Not sure what you mean about "being allowed to go after anyone else"?

@jomamma - That is the risk, and small claims generally is only good if they are in your own State (to the best of my knowledge), and since HA is not in my State, would mean I'd have to go to Federal court.

@biga:
One contractor I talked to said he was going to go to his credit card company and get a charge back against HA for the bad leads, since they are the clearinghouse for the leads. How  successful he is, I don't know, but I do wish him luck. Hopefully, HA has the charged reversed on them and assessed a $25 chargeback fee.

I don't need to go after the contactor to see upstream, since they generally are pretty open about where they got the lead. The ones that contacted me stated right up front their name, name of company, and they got the lead from HA when they introduced themselves. I did impress on them that I gave a fake name due to a TCPA violation, so I can track them down. I told them if they violated the DNC to call me, they very likely violated it lots of other times in order to gain any other leads, so did they want to use a company that did that?

I'm a big fan of "poisining the well". If enough contractors get pissed about paying for leads that are bad, they will get tired of it. Personally, I think that's the only way to stop telemarketing. The government isn't going to stop it. They aren't going to stop it if they can continue to make money.

Too much "oddness"? What does that even mean?  Other then that one sentence, what is too "oddness" to "even comment on".

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If enough contractors get pissed about paying for leads that are bad, they will get tired of it. Personally, I think that's the only way to stop telemarketing.

Sounds plausible, only problem with it is no contractor is going to throw (as jomamma put it) their "Golden Goose" under the bus or abandon them, no matter how much you show them their Lead supplier is violating Laws to gain Leads, as long as there are no repercussions to come back and bite them where it hurts.

The story you detailed about the Contractor sounds more like they just "smoke screened" you about the charge back to keep themselves distant from their Lead supplier, since you revealed to them you gave false info to trace them over TCPA violations. I bet they had a conversation with HA about it too, so now HA will be aware you purposely gave false info and that allows them to smoke screen the Contractor, reassuring them there is nothing to be concerned about.

I admire your enthusiasm, but it seems to me your just beating a dead horse here.  Contractors don't casually indulge people about their Lead sources, mainly to avoid their competition from gaining an edge over them. Putting them 'on the spot' about it with a concern might cause them to go into "fight or flight" mode and you can't be sure if they will defend their source, smoke screen you or drop them from fear of some legal actions that might impact them.

You may be skilled at interviewing them and gaining information useful towards shutting down  the Leads supplier, but how many people do you believe are also able to confront/interview a contractor and convince them not to use that Lead supplier anymore?

I've been wondering about that "oddness" myself. Your post did not contain any "oddness" that I could see.

Yes. Those out of state ones can be a bear. If you win and they don't pay you can try what's called a sister state conversion (It is a pain) OR since it's a big company like HA and you have enough calls and good evidence you should be able to find a lawyer who would do a "domesticated" case.  It really comes down to how many calls and much time and effort you want to put into it. Usually it is WELL worth your time. It can come to something like $250/hr (and considerably more). Depending of course on the settlement/judgment. Don't give up!
But, like I say. IF you can find out upon whose behalf they're calling and you can put a complaint with their BBB, Yelp or Google sties it really helps those of us who go after them. It shows they're aware of the problem and have done nothing to mitigate those calls.  Plus you can get a little revenge....

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The story you detailed about the Contractor sounds more like they just "smoke screened" you about the charge back to keep themselves distant from their Lead supplier, since you revealed to them you gave false info to trace them over TCPA violations.

Smoke screen? Well, maybe, but keep in mind that they paid $100 for a bad lead on a call that never should have happened. That hurts. Also, I don't think the contractors knew or had any knowledge that lead generation violated the DNC. Unless HA had that in their contract, which would be stupid.

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Contractors don't casually indulge people about their Lead sources, mainly to avoid their competition from gaining an edge over them.

Remember, I'm not "competition", I'm a "customer". Since they want a assure me of their legitimacy, there's no reason why they wouldn't tell me how they got the referral. It's not like HA is a big secret, either.

Based on my experience with telemarketers, these foreign call centers actively try to hide who their US partners are. That's why they use generic fake names like "Vehicle Warranty", "Card Services" and "Home Improvement". They do this to protect their US clients from knowledge and liability. They do this to insure their income stream. The US company may or may not know this, as they are probably told that the telemarketing company adheres to the TCPA/DNC rules. If they did - and understand the liability - they'd possibly stop using them. But that's what the Robocalls are for. They are to screen YOU. They want you to not answer. They want you to hang up. They want you to not press '1'. They want you to press '2' to be put on their "DNC" list. They want you to complain to the foreign telemarketing agent. They know they are pretty much untouchable. They don't want you to play along and identify the US companies they are fronting for. This is how they protect their US customer and interests.

And you're right - the next "Home Improvement" call, if it's sent to HA, will probably be trashed. But I bet HA won't pay the telemarketer for it, either. Getting sued or published (via BBB, etc) that they do this increases their liability. It further hurts their legitimacy. That's poisoning the well.

Unfortunately, I don't think HA really cares about the complaints. There are tons of bad complaints for them on BBB and they are still getting contractors to sign up. There are YouTube videos and blog posts that are extremely critical of their current business practices posted by contractors. However, there's very little about their telemarketing practices violating the DNC. Wake the contractors up. Let them know. Looking that the complaints they are making now, the contractors will add that to their complaints about using HA.