A California woman has filed a class action suit claiming that Sterling Jewelers recorded calls without their knowledge. According to the plaintiff, Yvonne Madrid of San Diego, Sterling called her one morning. The call was being recorded, but the Sterling representative didn’t inform the customer of that until the very end, and only when the customer asked. Under California law, it’s illegal to record a phone conversation without someone’s knowledge. Customers who shopped at Sterling Jewelers may be eligible for compensation thanks to a new class action lawsuit.
Sterling would call the plaintiff again on the same day, and again did not inform the customer that the call was being recorded. This led the plaintiff to believe that Sterling Jewelers is actually recording all of their outgoing phone calls without letting the customers know this is happening. According to filings, the plaintiff was personally affected by this recording, and she was “shocked, upset and angry” that she was recorded without her knowledge.
The class action law suit against Sterling for recording phone calls uses California Penal Code 632 as its main argument, which is actually much more strict that federal law on this matter. California’s consumer laws are regarded as some of the most consumer friendly in the nation, and this is no different. The law reads specifically that anyone who intentionally records a phone call using an electronic device without consent of everyone involved in the phone call will be punished by a fine up to $2,000 or even imprisonment for one year. The second issue, invading customer’s privacy, also carried a fine of $2,500, meaning that there’s the potential for a $5,000 fine for each customer this happened to.
And even though the company is in Ohio, when they called a California phone number, they came under California state and their strict laws. The plaintiff in this law suit says there’s no way for Sterling Jewelers to determine how many people they called, so she’s initiating a class action law suit for people to join on this own.
Sterling Call Recording Class Action Lawsuit Notes
- Two main cases are being brought against Sterling Jewelers: the first being that they illegally recorded customer cell phone conversations (made illegal under California Penal Code 632). The second charge is that they invaded customer privacy and intruded into customer’s private affairs
- Sterling Jewelers is actually a large group of jewelry stores that are all owned by the same parent company, known as Signet Jewelers. Their physical stores can be found mostly in states like Ohio, Georgia, Deleware, and Minnesota, and go by names like Weisfield Jewelers, Marks & Morgan Jewelers, LeRoy’s Jewelers, Goodman Jewelers, and Osterman Jewelers
- No official means of making a claim have been set up yet, but people who are interested in following this cell phone call recording lawsuit against Sterling can watch out for news about the lawsuit titled “Yvonne Madrid v. Sterling Jewelers,” which is currently case number 3:17-cv-01711-CAB-BGS in the Southern District of California’s US District Court