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Complete and total harassment

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essex23

New member
On Friday, 7/14/2023, I started looking at medical coverage plans as my new job contract had insurance rates that were ridiculous. So I went to the BCBSTX website to look and see what rates would be if I paid for it myself. What I did not catch was that the link I clicked to "Check rates" too me to an information field that went to Healthcare Marketplace. Not the actual Healthcare.gov site, but a totally different site.

Within literal MINUTES, I was bombarded with calls from people wanting to sell me insurance. and when I say bombarded, I mean on 7/14/2023 alone, I received no less than 26 calls, 4 text messages, 2 voice mails, and an email that was literally sent a 1:17 AM!!! I started a spreadsheet to track all of these calls that came in as many of them were from the same number several times, one of which called three times between 3:09 pm and 4:27 pm.

I have now received 145 calls as of 7/27/2023...some companies have called in excess of 9-11 times in that time span. This constitutes literal harassment as I have told all of these people to stop calling me now. Since this originated with Healthcare Marketplace giving my information to all of these agencies, I think the onus is on them for allowing this situation to happen to begin with.

How can I sue Healthcare Marketplace for this harassment. I emailed them and their legal team and let them know that if calls did not stop and I was removed from their list, that I would sue them for $1000 per call I received past 7/19/2023....and as of right now, that constitutes 55 calls. And if not Haelthcare Marketplace, how can I go about suing the individual companies for harassment of this nature after they have been notified to stop calling?
 


I am guessing that you inadvertently agreed to allow your state's healthcare exchange site to share your contact information with various vendors, by clicking a box, or clicking agree, etc.
 

Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
Since this originated with Healthcare Marketplace giving my information to all of these agencies, I think the onus is on them for allowing this situation to happen to begin with.

How can I sue Healthcare Marketplace for this harassment.
I think suing the Market Place will end up being a futile effort unless you can prove that the Marketplace has some control over the marketing efforts of the people to whom it provides the information. Moreover, unless you can find a federal or state statute that provides for statutory damages for phone harassment you'll only be entitled to an amount equal to the actual damages (financial loss) you suffered from this. You don't get to set an arbitrary amount and impose that on the other party. It's extremely unrealistic for you to expect to get $55,000 from the calls you have received so far.

What I suggest you do instead is contact the individual insurance agencies/brokers involved and tell them to stop contacting you. They are the ones doing the solicitation, not the Marketplace. If they don't stop, there are legal remedies for that. Federal law provides rules for telemarketers to follow and provides remedies if they don't comply. See the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) page on the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Follow the steps the rule requires to notify them that you don't want them calling you and if the telemarketers keep it up after that, then you'll have claim to statutory damages. Contact your state's agency that handles consumer affairs to see if state law offers any additional help for you.
 

Bali Hai Again

Active Member
I programmed my phone to answer on the 8th ring and they had to listen to Little Richard-Keep a Knockin‘ for 90 seconds. That cut down on voice mails and eventually call volume.
 

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