FTC To Revisit Robocall Menace

coondoggie writes "While there are legal measures in place to stop most robocalls, the use of the annoying automated calling process seems to be on the rise. The Federal Trade Commission, which defined the rules that outlawed most robocalls in 2009 has taken notice and this October 18th will convene a robocall summit to examine the issues surrounding what even it called the growing robocall problem." A true robocall summit would be a great way to field candidates for the Loebner Prize! But since these will be humans (regulators, etc), I hope, but doubt, they can somehow do something to stop the constant fraudulent robocalls I get from credit-card scammers. In the meantime, it's good to keep a whistle handy.

Re:They have no intention of really doing anything

[meerling]

it's better to play the 'out of service' or 'disconnected' tone for them so their robocaller will automatically remove your number from the list. They don't want to waste time calling invalid numbers, and someone not answering is still a potential call, while a dead number isn't.

A friend of mine had his answering machine set up to play the tone, then do a normal message back when we were being inundated in robocalls here. It's amazing how effective it was. I even borrowed a copy of his tape for a week to 'dissuade' the vast majority of them. Worked like a charm. (Yes, we had tape based answering machines, the digital ones were too expensive and limited at that time.)

Re:Simple solution

[tompaulco]

The Do Not Call list should charge huge fines and reimburse the reporting party something like $50 per incident.

Re:They have no intention of really doing anything

[Obfuscant]

I work for a large non-profit health system in the midwest. We implemented "robocalls" to serve as appointment reminders. Our patients seem to like and appreciate them.

My "large profit health system" implemented the same thing. Didn't bother telling me ahead of time. I do not appreciate a robocaller calling my office (where several people work) and not bothering to ask for me, it just starts spouting that I "have an appointment with ..." and the details and any special instructions to whoever happens to pick up the phone. I consider it a violation of HIPAA to do that. Some of the details are pretty specific, and there is no way to be sure I'll ever get the message.

They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out.

I've been trying to opt-out ever since they started doing this and they simply cannot do it. I was told today that it was not possible to opt-out. The only option is to give the system a different number where it is almost impossible to reach me, but at least they aren't dumping my medical information to anyone else.

These calls save time and money,

Yes, because we all know how important it is to save a phone operator in a medical office "time and money", compared to obeying federal law and patient requests.

So, not all robocalls are bad.

You used a very poor example of a good one. At least the credit card scammers aren't spreading private information around after being told not to.