Cingular Sues Telemarketers

ATLANTA -- Cingular Wireless today announced that it has filed three lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Ga. to stop telemarketers from making unsolicited and illegal calls to Cingular customers. In one lawsuit, Cingular alleges that Sebell Telecommunications, LLC of Miami, Fla. made unsolicited marketing calls to Cingular subscribers through the use of an automatic telephone dialing system and a prerecorded message -- actions expressly prohibited under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and other laws. (Autodialing systems store or produce telephone numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator.)Cingular alleges that Sebell conspired with a company in the Dominican Republic, called Florida Vacation Corporation, to make the telemarketing calls, which occurred during June and July 2006.

Cingular originally filed a "John Doe" lawsuit on this matter in August 2006, and has now amended the earlier complaint by identifying defendants discovered through Cingular's ongoing investigation.

Cingular's second lawsuit alleges that American Broadcast Systems, Inc. of Seattle, Wash., used an autodialing mechanism to send prerecorded messages about "free vacations" to Cingular customers.In a third lawsuit, Cingular alleges that Go2Prepaid, LLC of Miami, Fla. also made unsolicited prerecorded telemarketing calls to Cingular customers using an autodialing mechanism. Cingular claims that Go2Prepaid worked in connection with Alo Hispanos of Bogota, Colombia to make the calls.

Cingular Wireless