'This Is Your Captain Speaking!': You May Be Entitled Up To $900 For Those Annoying Cruise Robocalls

The call may be all too familiar for many. "This is your captain speaking!" And as said captain goes on to talk about a "free cruise," most people just hang up. But if you've ever received one of those annoying robocalls, you may want to keep reading. A class action lawsuit was recently settled with the company behind those calls, awarding between $300 and $900 to many of the unwitting recipients.

The lawsuit, filed by Philip Charvat in 2012, alleged that a marketing company by the name of Resort Marketing Group violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in making those telephone calls to landlines and cell phones. The parties in the case have since settled, which means that the cruise companies and their marketing firm aren't admitting any wrongdoing. In total, they'll pay out between $7 million and $12.5 million, according to court documents. The final number depends on how many claim forms are submitted.

"The lawsuit alleges that Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian authorized RMG to make these calls on their behalf," according to the lawsuit settlement website. "Defendants deny all of the allegations made in the lawsuit and deny they did anything wrong."

The settlement, in part, states:

"Settlement Class Members may receive up to Three Hundred U.S. Dollars ($300) for each telemarketing call made to a Settlement Class Member’s residential or cellular telephone line by the RMG Defendants as reflected by the Call Records. The maximum number of calls for which a Settlement Class Member may recover is three (3) per phone number and the most any one Settlement Class Member may receive is up to Nine Hundred US Dollars ($900.00) per unique phone number."

According to the settlement website, people included in the settlement are those who received the pre-recorded telemarketing calls from RMG between July 2009 and March 2014. Your number must be one of the many that was included with the call records submitted by RMG in the case.

"The Call Records contain all phone numbers that RMG used to initiate pre-recorded telemarketing calls to promote its business," the website says. "Any person submitting a claim with a telephone number not found in the records of RMG is ineligible for distribution from the settlement fund."

To find out if you may be owed money, head to this site here to enter your phone number.

You can find more information about the lawsuit here.

Patch file photo by Renee Schiavone