This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Listeners, friends, community, welcome. Now listen, I promise to bring you interesting and novel ideas in the pursuit of our mission. Our mission is, of course, to help you make extra money, to help you create personal freedom, to do more of what's important to you, perhaps to leave your job and go full on in entrepreneurship, or maybe, as I said, just make some extra money. We've got all kinds of people out there doing interesting things. So, interesting and novel ideas, as promised.
Today you're gonna hear about suing telemarketers and getting paid for it. What a great idea, right? Like the next time you get an annoying sales call, maybe don't hang up right away, because maybe there's a way you can actually get paid. Our caller today is gonna refer to a story of a guy who earned something like $7,000 from doing exactly that. So, is this possible for anyone?
What do you need to know? Well, listen to this episode. I'm gonna give you those answers. So, as I said, when you get those telemarketing calls, maybe hang on the line for a moment, because who knows? All right, just a thought.
Detailed question, my answer, coming right up. [Music]
Hey, this is Sarah calling from Knoxville. I heard an interesting story of someone who kept getting called by the same telemarketing company, even though they'd asked them to stop. Finally, they got fed up and filed a lawsuit where they won $7,000. Listen, I hate getting telemarketing calls too, but for $7,000, anyone is welcome to call me anytime.
Let me know if I'm on the right track to my next side hustle. [Music]
Yes, I'd take those phone calls as well. I don't like to take a lot of phone calls, but for $7,000, I would take that phone call. The thing is, of course, it's gonna be a good amount of process to it. It's not just like take the phone call, get $7,000, but it is absolutely possible to sue telemarketers and potentially receive financial damages as long as you can prove they have violated the law, which often, you know, they do.
They just keep calling people even after you have added your name to various lists in which you're not supposed to be called and such. So when a telemarketer violates those laws, you may be able to file a lawsuit and seek damages. Well, you can certainly file a lawsuit, but you may be able to actually get those damages. That's the point. There's several federal laws that regulate telemarketing.
Here, I'm talking mostly about the US, but who knows if you're in Canada or in the UK or Australia or somewhere else, might as well research this too, because if you're getting annoying calls or text messages, maybe there's a way you can get paid. But in the US specifically, it's the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Sounds awesome, TCPA. And the Telemarketing Sales Rule, TSR. So there's various points that each of these laws make, setting out rules that telemarketers have to follow and such.
And so if you feel like your rights have been violated or you're just annoyed by these calls, what do you need to do? Couple steps, you need to gather evidence. You might need to get your phone records, which you can get from your cell phone company, or I guess if you have a landline, who knows? I guess if you have a landline, you probably get a bill in the mail, right? Okay, so you need to get your phone records, any other documentation.
You need to determine which of these laws are being violated. So a little bit of research there. Once you do it once, and you're probably gonna be well-versed in doing it again, then you need to file a complaint with the FTC or your state's attorney general office. That's usually the best step, best next step. Then at some point, you're gonna actually file a lawsuit if it comes to that.
Of course, you can do that on your own, or you may want to seek the assistance of an experienced attorney who can at least help you navigate the legal process for the first time. So I've heard of some people who are doing this more than once. There is a guy, I don't know if it's the same story or not. I'll try to track him down because I was doing some research about this from my book. There is a guy who's kind of made a little bit of a career out of suing telemarketers and has made, I don't know the total number, but it's more than $7,000.
So definitely an interesting thing. Let me know if you follow up on this and decide to start suing some telemarketers. I have no objection to that. I feel like it's probably actually a net benefit for the rest of us. So good luck, as I said.
Listeners, comments, questions, ideas, things you're working on. sidehustleschool.com/questions. We have a new episode every single day, seven days a week. I want to make this show helpful and interesting to you so that you can learn and apply. So let me know what you think and how we can better serve you.
That's all for today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
