Verizon Fights Back Against Mobile Phone Spam 124
The Register is reporting that Verizon filed two separate lawsuits earlier this week against companies it claims spammed their customers with automated telemarketing calls. In addition to seeking a cease and desist, they are also apparently seeking "monetary damages."
phonetables (Score:2, Interesting)
I will configure it myself:)
Just don't let anyone "Ping" me:)
Re:phonetables (Score:1)
However as I use a phone powered by WindowsMobile I doubt many /. readers would be able to avail themselves of the software <g>
Re:phonetables (Score:1)
Anyway, smart feature! Do callers sense that they're forwarded?
Re:phonetables (Score:1)
Re:phonetables (Score:2)
Must be annoying for people on night shifts who still would like their family to be able to call them. One shouldn't have to unplug the cord or turning the phone off.
See? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:See? (Score:1)
Hypocrites! (Score:1)
Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well Duh!
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, if you charged people more to dial a number that looks exactly like a landline phone number, you'd quickly have a slew of lawsuits from people who stayed on the phone for hours, only to discover it wasn't a normal phone number and they're broke or something. That's why the cost is shared in the US: the caller pays for whatever is normally paid to call a landline phone, and you pay the difference.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many home phones are getting this functionality as well, so even in the UK (Mobile numbers start 07) you can't guarantee in the long run that you will be messaging a mobile or a phone number, although when you are it will be obvious!
That way you can still have your mobile number smushed into the rest of the nation's telephone number scheme, without paying however much to receive spam texts, and sharing the cost of telephone calls.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Most European telephone systems were designed with a different set of principles for billing and numbering, which makes it much easier for them to implement "caller pays".
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Erm.. whats the point in having *area* codes for *mobile* phones.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
The USA is a big country, with many telephone companies. Area codes are needed for routing.
Area codes are an integral part of the NANP [wikipedia.org] (North American Numbering Plan)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2, Interesting)
Close, the caller pays what they would pay if they called out of their area code which is why I agree with the other reply;
"why not move the cell phone numbers to a separate area code then?"
Happens enough when someone has a 'normal' line and a cell both in the same area code, one's a free local call but the other I have to pay for even if my 'normal' line bill says free calls in same area code. It would be n
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
You're using cellular network bandwidth (air-time), which is scarce and expensive. Someone has to pay for it, why not the person who made the choice to connect to the telephone system via a cellular network?
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
This is mad. How can you people put up with this situation? Here in .au mobiles start with 04 and you expect to pay more.
Apparently in the USA I can call your mobile phone and you will have to pay for part of the call. Mad.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Strange though that you can have this situation without even having to leave the US.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
-The telefonica caller being charged internationally to call an Irish cell phone
-You being charged the additional "roaming" fees to re-route the call. These can be quite hefty.
I have a Swisscom phone (in Switzerland, duh), and we do not have incoming call charges for the entire area of Swisscom coverage (throughout Switzerland, duh.) I believe the same applies to fixed r
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
$32 for me, as an example, with Sprint.
About 120 minutes any time, and some 120+ minutes weekends. I never use that much anyway, so this is a good plan for me.
because anyone calling you is going to have to pay through the nose to talk to you
Yes, the US system wins here. Anyone can call me, but if I don't think it's worth using my minutes I will call him back on a landline, or just politely bring the call to an end. It is better this way bec
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Oblig. "I have free incoming in the US" (Score:2)
Sounds like you need to investigate modern offerings. Cingular/AT&T and Verizon have offered unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes by default for years. And I've had one of Nextel's "free incoming" plan for years (600 peak outbound minutes for $63, all other calls and 2-way free) If you have AT&T/Ci
Re:Oblig. "I have free incoming in the US" (Score:2)
Also, mobile to mobile only counts if you're calling someone in the same company, so in a town like mine (which is serviced by all three major networks) you only get about 1/3 of your calls "free".
Anyway, I don't know about it being the default "for years". I just switched plans 1 year ago this month, and the base plan did not have mobile-to-mobile by defaul
Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:1)
Why US mobiles don't have special area codes (Score:1)
Number portability. (Score:1, Insightful)
You guys in other countries may not know that here one can transfer a cell phone number to a land line and a land line to a cell phone.
This means you cannot have a simple "area code" for cell phones. It's much more complicated and liberated than your closed systems.
Get over it.
It's just a database issue, that's all.
Re:Number portability. (Score:2)
Every country has number portability, but *only* the US won't let you know that you're calling a mobile so you get slammed with the higher charges.
Re:Number portability. (Score:2)
No, we just want the unsolicited calls to stop completely. You should also be aware that there was at one time (and may still be in some areas) a budget calling plan (sometimes called message rate) for which both incoming and outgoing calls were charged either a per-connection or per-minute fee. That means that someone who struggled j
Re:Number portability. (Score:2)
I don't pay any extra charges if I call a cellular phone from my landline phone.
Re:Number portability. (Score:2)
You guys in other countries may no
Re:Number portability. (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:1)
It could work in this situation too.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:1)
In my area some landline prefixes are 234, 235, 265, 472, and 473. Cell phone prefixes are 258, 259, 262, 267, 277, and 377. You never see a landline with a cellphone prefix, or a cellphone with a landline prefix. The only grey area here might be someone who has call forwarding from a landline to a cellphone. If they can't tell the difference between dialing a 234 (landline) and 26
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Phone companies that do not use an ent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Out of that list, only Verizon charge for an incoming SMS. They used to charge 2c a SMS, but have now upped it to 10c. No other cell phone company does this as far as I know.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
Ah shit. I stand corrected. I guess I'm sticking on my AT&T contract for now. Charging for incoming SMS's is insane.
Re:Easy solution to phone spam... (Score:2)
So I pay the cost as part of my bill because the spammers can't look up a list of cell exchanges?
Monetary damages (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Monetary damages (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Monetary damages (Score:1)
That's easy, customer not registered with or not on the don't bother calling me list for 31+ days reviews bill and sees unwanted charges or receives telemarketing calls and calls customer support claiming the calls were unsolicited telemarketing calls. Customer service rep agrees and credits customers account leaving part of the cost of the call unpaid and the company takes a loss. After a while all those refunds are going to add up and the company wants to recover the
Re:Monetary damages (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Monetary damages (Score:2)
Re:Monetary damages (Score:2)
Their network would have had x% extra usage which probably had their network resource staff asking for more hardware and other resources...
They may have had to buy additional equipment to handle the unexpected volume of messages, etc...
Telemarketing is just another job (Score:3, Insightful)
If a telemarketing company is barred from using automated phone dialers to make calls, then they ought to be taken to task for it. I don't think any one will argue with that. But these companies typically have a couple dozen people on staff who can be trained to punch in phone numbers all day long, so it's not like they couldn't just do the same thing manually. In fact, I wish they would do it that way (it would get rid of that annoying split second of silence before you realize you've been caught).
I'm lucky to have been able to avoid falling so low as to have to work one of those jobs, but there are many people who choose to do so. They aren't the ones who you ought to aim your rage at, but at the companies who hire them.
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2)
Telemarketing sucks, but nobody said the poor schmuck on the phone was getting rich. That schmuck's bosses are, and possibly the private company that's administering her/his prison is. These are the people we sue, and the people we dislike intensely.
Telemarketers don't punch in phone numbers. That's too low-tech. computers can dial numbers. Computers can determine (more or less) if there's a human on the line. Then computers can determine which script reader has just finished a call, so as to maximize
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought that they were complaining about "pre-recorded messages" more than auto-dialers. The issues with auto-dialers is that it is illegal to use them to ring cell phones not normal ones. Using these two technologies together means that you can simultaneously call thousands at the same time with no worker involvement, obvously a huge boon to SPIT companies but a pain in the arse for everyone else. This could have a greater impact than spam as spam doesn't disturb me when my computer is off or intrude wh
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:1)
I thought that they were complaining about "pre-recorded messages" more than auto-dialers.
Also from the article: Under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations it is illegal for telemarketers to use automated diallers to call cell phone numbers
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:1)
Florida has had a state law regarding computerized autodialers that called random or sequenced numbers.
Doesn't matter if it is cell phone or not.
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:5, Insightful)
Telemarketing is just another job
You're telling me that scamming vulnerable and trusting elderly folks [ftc.gov] into buying stuff they don't need or making dodgy investments is 'just another job'?
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see how this choice could ever arise, but I for one would take the meal and run.
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2)
Oh please. Somebody call the Waaaaaaaahmbulance!
You can't compare janitors and telemarketers. Last I checked, janitors were not paid to annoy people at dinnertime, scam the elderly, and defraud mobile phone users.
Telemarketers have no excuse. There is plenty of other low-wage work for when you are at the bottom of your rope, ethical work that doesn't involve the stuff that telemarketers do.
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2)
No, I don't agree. Just because a company has made a job available does not mean that that job should exist.
And I sympathize with those people who have to choose between working a terrible telemarketing job and eating.
I symp
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2)
No, screw them (Score:2)
There are plenty of other jobs out there. If you take a job making unsolicited calls, you are pond scum. While I don't think you should be strung up with piano wire from the neare
Re:Telemarketing is just another job (Score:2)
earlier this week (Score:4, Funny)
We have a credability problem here.
Re:earlier this week (Score:1)
Re:earlier this week (Score:2)
Where do they get their numbers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Where do they get their numbers? (Score:2)
I wish... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wish... (Score:1)
And presumably (Score:4, Funny)
Verizon will certainly redistribute the "monetary damages" to spammed customers, right? </sarcasm>
It's not just Verizon customers... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.payphone-directory.org/discussion/sub2
Its not just Verizon customers. I can only hope that I (as a Sprint customer) receive some sort of "umbrella" benefit from this.
Re:It's not just Verizon customers... (Score:1)
Automated of course. Hopefully Cingular jumps on the bandwagon and sues these bastards as well.
seeking damages? (Score:1)
What kind of company seeks damages?
Auto Dialer exceptions (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently
"calls from companies with which you have an established business relationship" are allowed by automatic dialers...
http://www.dmaconsumers.org/telephoneconsumerprote ctionact.html [dmaconsumers.org]
Re:Auto Dialer exceptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, I must be missing sonething here. I haven't RTA (sorry) but how can Verizon sue the spammers? If the spammers are paying to send the messages then they are at worst in breach of their contract with Verizon? If they aren't paying to send the messages then thats a whole different ball game and surely there must be some form of criminal activity going on. In which case the police should be involved.
I hate spam in all it's forms but I can't help feeling this is like the mail service suing junk mail produc
Re:Eh? (Score:1)
Re:Eh? (Score:2)
While the article doesn't actually seem to involve cellphone spamming, it is fairly widespread. I don't know about Verizon, but many carriers allow you to receive SMS messages via email. The problem is that the email addresses are predictable, usually
Mobile phone scamming -- no limits (Score:2, Interesting)
I like the spam ... don't get many calls (Score:4, Funny)
Text-Spammer SMS.ac gets away with it. (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps the worst violater of sending unsolicited SMS messages is the company SMS.ac out of San Diego, California.
They've got a track record of trcking users into giving up their passwords to AOL and Hotmail accounts and then using the addresses those accounts contain to send messages to your friends and family that appear to have been sent by the unsuspecting victim. In one case Joi Ito was compromised and when he pubilshed his troubles on his blog they threatened him with legal action!
A search on Technorati http://technorati.com/search/sms.ac%20complaints [technorati.com] will reveal an astonishing number of people that have been victimized by this company.
If you haven't heard about this, you really should take a few minutes to check out the scam. The lure is free sms messages...they claim 5 per day, but what happens is shortly after you sign up you begin receiving "friend requests" not dozens, but four or five a day. This doesn't seem like much but if your premium sms charge is 0.50 and you get 5 per day times 30 days per month well...most people on /. can handle that math.
I signed up to do an investigation for my blog and discovered some support for the complaint that these "friend requests" are company originated. Over the course of 3 months I had probably at least half a dozen requests by different screen names with the same photos as well as multiple requests by the same screen name.
Now if there are the millions of members they claim, what are the odds of two people scraping the same images? And of course two different people with the same screen name is an impossibility.
Adding insult to injury (I mean besides the couple hundred bucks I shelled out to verify this) the company actually had the audacity to post a "Cellular Bill of Rights" in my opinion, this is like the fox being left to guard the chickens.
Of course unlike Voice Spammers that are paying to place and terminate their calls, the folks at SMS.ac obviously aren't paying much if anything. Complicit in this, though to what degree they're aware of the issue is Qpass http://qpass.com/ [qpass.com] and their m-Qube system for non-operator originated mobile wallet billing.
Personally, I believe enough complaints to Qpass would put a dent in SMS.ac's evil ways. Believe me, they are evil. People lose their phones over this, and it's the one's that can't afford it...kids that didn't know any better who get hurt. Read the complaints for a while and you'll be as indignant as I was when I wrote about their Cellular Bill of Rights http://technorati.com/search/sms.ac%20complaints [technorati.com]
Re:Text-Spammer SMS.ac (a correction) (Score:1)
man...lack of sleep can F*** you up...
Who Wins? (Score:1)
So, I wonder, who gets to pocket the money? I'd bet its not the customer, who's footing most of the bill for these calls and burning up precious minutes over them, not to mention having to put up with them. Verizon is just the carrier.
Several months ago, we started receiving repeated text messages from some online casino. We never use this feature, so we never purchased an "unlimited mess
Gee.... (Score:1)
Your Damage, Their Profit (Score:2)
The US justice system lets corporations keep compensation for damages they help cause. The courts also award "punitive damages" from damagers to the damaged parties, on top of "compensation damages". Why? The damager should pay the punishment, but after the victim is already compensated for the
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:1)
Ladbrokes kept texting me, the cunts. I never even told them they could, I haven't even had any dealings with them in the past. Hence, I will never be using Ladbrokes if I ever place a bet in my life.
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:5, Informative)
I love unsolicited calls (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I love unsolicited calls (Score:2)
It's not really a premium number, it's a portable number - 07031 xxxxxx - so it seems to be treated as a mobile number. Note for USians - over here in the UK, mobile calls are entirely paid for by the caller, because they are obviously not a landline. Actually running it i
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:2)
Good news everyone! You can receive 'reverse charge' texts in the UK now! Yet another reason not to give any company your mobile number.
See this news story [bbc.co.uk] for an example - although I have to admit, I had real trouble digging up any sympathy for anyone who ordered the Crazy Frog ringtone (see the comment from 'Gemma, Lancashire' below the story, and then the comment immediately following it :->). That's just a form of evolution in action, I'm afr
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:2)
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:1, Informative)
<URL:http://www.orange.co.uk/about/contact/spam/>
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If only European operators did this.. (Score:1, Informative)