(Image source from: Gizmodo)

A woman in Tennessee has just won half a million dollars in a lawsuit against a furniture company because they wouldn’t stop harassing her.

Earlier in 2015, Veronica Davis began receiving calls from the furniture chain Conn's just after she purchased some furniture from one of their local stores on EMI (Equated Monthly Installment). According to her lawyer, the contract specifies were to be paid on the fifth of each month but had a 10 day grace period within which payments wouldn't be considered late.

Apparently, in spite of this grace period, the company started spamming Davis with calls between the 5th and 15th of every month, using an automated dialing system at least for more than 10 times a day.

In 2017, Davis said she revoked her consent for the company to contact her anymore, to end the insanity. However, they continued calling her another 306 times, up to a dozen times a day.

Consequently, she filed a complaint in consumer court, saying the use of robocalls to spam her was a violation of the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that restricts robocalls and telemarketing calls, so a company flouting them despite the customer's non-consent put them in deep trouble.

The furniture chain has now been hit with a hefty fine they have to pay Davis. They have less than 30 days now to pay her a whopping $495,000 (or approximately Rs 3.43 crore), which is the maximum penalty of $1,500 per call to her after she had revoked consent to be contacted. Though the furniture chain has filed an appeal, it is unlikely they are going to be able to get off the payment.

It is not illegal in the United States to repeatedly call a person that owes your company money, even multiple times a day. But it must be sure that it is a human on the other end of the line and not an automated system.

By Sowmya Sangam