Class Action Alleges Phone Spammer Uses Alias to Avoid TCPA Detection
An individual who goes by the name Bob Hansen contributes to the national “barrage of telephone spam” by initiating illegal calls to plaintiff David Ulery to pitch his website construction services from a business in Santa Monica, alleged Ulery’s Telephone…
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Consumer Protection Act class action Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-02786) in U.S. District Court for Colorado in Denver. Hansen’s real identity is Robert Selfors, president of a North Carolina entity, Happy Panda, and Ulery “wants this telephone spam to stop,” said his complaint. “Others do as well,” and Ulery’s counsel, James Wertheim of LawHQ in Pepper Pike, Ohio, has “multiple other clients who have received telephone spam” from Selfors and Happy Panda, said his complaint. Ulery of Colorado Springs is the residential subscriber to his home phone number, which he listed on the national do not call registry in September 2011, it said. Selfors “has actually presented himself” as Bob Hansen in at least one YouTube video in which he poses as a senior marketing strategist promoting website listings and referral websites for multiple dental practices, said the complaint. The same individual appearing as Rob Selfors is also featured in multiple other videos promoting him as the minister of Brier Creek Fellowship, a North Carolina church, it said. “Selfors has, for a substantial period of time, perpetuated a pattern of initiating a telemarketing scheme” involving the use of the Bob Hansen alias, it said. It’s clear that Selfors “directly controlled, authorized, and/or participated in initiating this deceptive telemarketing scheme that included the various calls and prerecorded messages left for Ulery,” it said. The calls were “especially intrusive, frustrating, and annoying to Ulery” because Happy Panda and Selfors “purposefully hid their identity,” it said. “Ulery had no idea who was spamming, whether the spammer was somebody whom Ulery had previously told to stop, or whether it was safe for Ulery to make a do-not-call request,” it said. By not disclosing their identities, Selfors and Happy Panda “knowingly tried to prevent Ulery from monitoring and enforcing compliance with the TCPA,” it said. The class action seeks injunctive relief to halt the illegal spam calls, plus statutory damages. Efforts to reach Selfors Wednesday for comment on the TCPA class action were unsuccessful.