(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)Meet Craig Cunningham, a Tennessee man who has three cell phones that he uses to bait businesses.
Cunningham is another example of a “professional plaintiff,” or someone who manufactures lawsuits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Under this 26-year-old law, which was designed to stop annoying telemarketers from interrupting dinner, plaintiffs can take up to $1,500 per call.
To catch these calls, professional plaintiffs like Cunningham stockpile reassigned phone numbers. All Cunningham needs to do is wait for businesses to call. Since the business has no idea the number was reassigned, it falls right into the trap. For his first lawsuit, he sued a home security company after taking their survey and meeting with an installer to find out exactly who he needed to sue.
Cunningham, unfortunately, is not the only example of a TCPA professional plaintiff. A Pennsylvania woman, for example, admitted last year to using 35 different cell phones to create TCPA lawsuits.
