FTC To Revisit Robocall Menace 167
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.
They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:4, Informative)
its not even political. its a scam. 'we would like to take your poll on some issues. oh, and stay online so we can tell you about our CRUISE PACKAGE!'
its all a scam.
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use a caller id modem, get the # string and check things like mrnumber.com (which is easy to script/call). the spam number is easy to get and I can basically NOT let the call ring thru if its on the spam list. if its not, the relay will click, the 2 wires will pass thru to the actual phone system in my house and I'll hear the ring.
best way to avoid them is to not even give them an answer. they think there's no one ever there. best way to deal with them (since killing them is illegal. I think?)
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That sounds like something that my cellphone already does in software.
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)
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sorry but I disagree.
the best way to address a hidden network area is to never respond to their packets. 'firewall' them. they will go away or waste their time (both good outcomes).
I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
the trick is setting up the filter like and pass-list, just like all spam systems. I'm getting enough of either filterable names and number prefixes OR hits on websites that crowdsource the number and give a spam score.
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine this: if instead of just ignoring the packets, you could somehow make their DNS server say "no such host."
Your analogy doesn't apply. ACD systems don't care about non-answers, they don't remove the number then. If they get an answering machine they can detect, they drop the call but keep you - but if they get a number disconnected or other telco error, they remove you - at least from that campaign. Nothing stops the meatbag in charge from feeding you into the hopper again later.
Disclaimer: I used to work with these systems. I do know how they work, having implemented them. (for a legitimate collections agency, not bullshit "Want a cruise!?" nonsense)
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for a legitimate collections agency
You had me up to that point.
Hey now, those guys seemed to try to work with people, not just say "pay up or else." At least that's what I heard whenever I was passing by. Never heard them going after acquaintances.
Doesn't matter anyway, poor leadership on the part of the owner has been bleeding the company dry, ironically. Been trying to develop some tools to sell out to other such companies but failing miserably at it.
I'd name names, but I already posted non-anonymously and don't want them coming after me. It's bad enough I got screwe
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There's no need. Had you actually read, you'd know that the 3-tone operator message prefix being played will cause the ACD to hang up the call and remove you from the campaign.
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I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
Uhhh, yes, sending them the "invalid number" tones is more effective than ignoring them if you put a value on being able to use your phone for what you want instead of it being used by them.
If you ignore them, they keep calling. They don't care, it's a MACHINE. The machine has been told to call your number. If you don't answer your number stays on the list. Automatic. No person is ever involved in that process. It's not a waste of their time because you are still a potential customer. Whoever they are bei
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This is getting complicated. Can't we just kill them?
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:4, Informative)
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use
Not trying to rain on your parade, and hey, if it works for you, go and do it, but once you have an asterisk PBX and voip working, setting up some caller ID routing rules is almost terminally simple as shown below.
So in /etc/asterisk/exten.conf you'll have a stanza for incoming calls
[provider-in]
Now inside that start if/then routing kicking junk out. Now please be patient with me, I'm old, tired, and this is from memory, and asterisk config language is like F-ing LISP but ten times worse in how even something "simple" needs endless nested parens, brackets, and curlies.
exten => _XX.,2,GotoIf($[${CALLERID(num)}" = "Unknown"]?200)
exten => _XX.,4,GotoIf($["${CALLERID(num):0:3}" = "800"]?200)
Take a wild guess what line number 200 looks like:
exten => _XX.,200,VoiceMail()
exten => _XX.,201,HangUp()
I also have a line 300 termination that simply hangs up on certain blacklisted numbers. and a "ZapaTeller" or whatever its called that squirts SIT (disconnected) tones. And I believe I have a milliwatt termination, and a music on hold termination in there somewhere.
Now as a practical matter this is an excellent way to learn who blocks caller ID and who doesn't. I've made some weird discoveries like one of my kids doctors categorically blocks outgoing caller ID every time he calls (annoying). Also the school. Other than that, no problemo.
Whenever I mention this, I get breathless FUD about how the world might end because a CIA agent can't call me to tell me to hack into NORAD and block the missile launch. Oh wait that was the movie "Wargames" again. Well anyway the point is ignore the FUDders they aren't worth it.
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:4, Informative)
Oh and I forgot another step of my exten.conf script.
Certain numbers get a GOTO to line 100 where I ring every phone in the house plus an analog adapter with a weird phone ringer on it. Mom, Granny, auntie, workplace, friends, coworkers, neighbors, you get the idea, basically if we know them, we get a special ring.
However unknown numbers fall thru to line 50 or so and only ring the regular phones.
You can do multiple lines with voip and selective ringtones and such, but it turns out to be simpler and cheaper to just do some analog weirdness to a special extension.
When I was single and living alone I shut off my ringer and did not accept incoming calls. Message service only... I enjoyed my freedom.
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I have simple old POTS (not even cellular, in this specific case).
its so simple to have all your phones or ans machines downstream of a simple DPST relay and use a caller id modem (which your system does have, of course) and some simple embedded linux or even arduino stuff. it does need a net connection and it needs live lookups before it passes the relay click.
I have been running a script to lookup numbers as they come into my callerid (using the nice tool suite 'network caller id' or ncid) and then do a
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I have been cell-phone only for about 10 years, except a brief period after I moved into a new apartment (the apartment required a land line for the security system).
I received a massive, massive amount of telemarketing calls in the first month. About 75% of them were from the local newspaper trying to get me to subscribe. The other 25% or so were politics. So outside of one problem company, political calls are the problem.
I've not had a cold call, a true sales call in years - other than of course the 5,000
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Even the genuine political calls are scams disguised as polls [wikipedia.org]. "Hi, this is a totally unbiased voter survey conducted by an independent research company. If you found out that Candidate A rapes puppies and Candidate B spends 25 hours a day working unpaid for charities, would that affect your voting preferences?"
And of course even the retailers get around the call restrictions by using these bogus surveys to push their products. "By answering this market survey, you can make sure retailers know what you l
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its not even political. its a scam. 'we would like to take your poll on some issues. oh, and stay online so we can tell you about our CRUISE PACKAGE!'
its all a scam.
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use a caller id modem, get the # string and check things like mrnumber.com (which is easy to script/call). the spam number is easy to get and I can basically NOT let the call ring thru if its on the spam list. if its not, the relay will click, the 2 wires will pass thru to the actual phone system in my house and I'll hear the ring.
best way to avoid them is to not even give them an answer. they think there's no one ever there. best way to deal with them (since killing them is illegal. I think?)
I have "invested" in two Digitone Call blockers. The call blocker will block 80 numbers/area codes. I have two because the first one is now full. The device works great, which the FTC doesn't. The "Do Not Call List" is a 100% joke. If you hook the call blocker up where the phone line comes into your home, and connect all the phones in your house to the "Tel" side of the blocker, the phones will never ring for a blocked call. The caller ID comes between the 1st and second ring so if you connect the call bloc
Doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Just ignore any number your phone doesn't recognize. Better, have software ignore it for you. If it's important, they can leave a message (and potentially be whitelisted).
If your complaint is "but I have a landline," the solution is even simpler: disconnect it from a phone. :-P
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If you have a landline, you can buy a sip gateway for about $50 and route calls into an Asterisk box. That actually gives you a lot of flexibility with what you do with the call. You can route it to a phone, dump it into a voice menu system, dump it into a voice menu system from hell, play a game of hunt the wumpas with the caller or pretty much anything else you can imagine. I was playing with it for least cost routi
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Google Voice can let you do this... it automatically filters known-spammy CIDs, and can allow pass-through to your phone(s) (land-line and/or cell and/or voip app) only for numbers on your whitelist. You get an email for all other callers that leave voicemail, with an added bonus that you can have the message as text for a quick skim instead of having to listen to a bunch of junk messages.
Of course, this means that you're giving Google access to your voice data, so you lose any semblance of privacy.
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The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
FYI, that used to be true for me. But over the past year I get *far* more credit scams than political calls. Sometimes the same scam goes on day after day, and I have even gotten 5 calls in one day from the same number with the same scam!
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The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
FYI, that used to be true for me. But over the past year I get *far* more credit scams than political calls. Sometimes the same scam goes on day after day, and I have even gotten 5 calls in one day from the same number with the same scam!
The #1 winner around here is calls from an alarm company. Not my alarm company, a competing alarm company. They use pictures of cops in their big expensive color ads in the local coupon guides. In fact, the owner of this alarm company is an ex-cop. They call multiple times a day, and force their employees to rattle off long live speeches to my answering machine. Presumably because recorded speeches are illegal.
Oh, and did I mention I'm on both the state AND Federal Do-Not-Call lists?
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Oh, and did I mention I'm on both the state AND Federal Do-Not-Call lists?
I had a lawn service company that would not quit calling me. When I'd demand to be taken off their list, they'd smart-mouth me, claiming I must have used them in the past (I had never used any such service, much less them), or that the DNC list did not apply to them, and so on. One day I just literally snapped and screamed at the top of my lungs "DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN YOU FUCKING CUNT"--and since that moment I have never heard from them again ;-)
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I get my share of political, but the vast majority, sometimes twice a day, are robocalls from debt collectors trying to reach people who do not and have never lived at my house. The most annoying thing is that their message says "by continuing to listen to this message, you acknowledge that you are XXXX...", That REALLY pisses me off. I feel like changing my answering machine message to say "by leaving a robocall message on this recorder you agree t
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:5, Informative)
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. They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out. These calls save time and money, because they reduce no-show rates and they also reduce incidences of people showing up unprepared for the service they need. ("You weren't supposed to eat this morning, unfortunately we can't do the procedure now.")
So, not all robocalls are bad. There just needs to be a law that you can only use automated calls with people who have initiated a business relationship with you.
Politicians always exempt their own calls, of course. And the "previous business relationship" thing is being interpreted very broadly right now. If you donated to the DNC or a candidate in 2008, they interpret that as you wanting junk mail and phone calls for every candidate they have this time around and continue robo-calling.
We need to get politicians to play by the same rules as everyone else. (fat chance)
Re:They have no intention of really doing anything (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
If they
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Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Additionally, this is being done all over the country by the exact same methodology, by organizations which have similarly reviewed it for compliance.
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Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information". The fact that this patient HAS health information is something nobody else needs to know, as far as I'm concerned.
What you say i
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Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information".
No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic - nothing more specific than "Bring a photo ID" or "Please do not eat or drink for 8 hours prior to the appointment".
PHI actually means protected health information. Some types of information are in a protected class by law and some are not.
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And calling you up with instructions and giving them to anyone there is a violation.
The following identifiers of the individual or of relatives, employers, or household members of the individual must be removed to achieve the âoesafe harborâ method of de-identification: (A) Names; (B) All geographic subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, except for the initial three digits of a zip code if, according to the cur
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No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic -
Yes, my name is read. Just my first name, but there is only one person in this office with that name. Clearly identified.
The name of the provider AND the name of the doctor are both provided. It is trivial to go online and find out what specialty that doctor has.
As for "generic instructions", when a urologist calls and says to show up with a "comfortably full bladder", you can be pretty sure that there is some urological issue that is being treated. I consider the fact that I'm SEEING a urologist to be p
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The be sure to CYA, because they are failing at determining what is and is not PHI. The IRB and lawyers at our hospital would not let that one pass at all.
The following identifiers of the individual or of relatives, employers, or household members of the individual must be removed to achieve the Ãoesafe harborà method of de-identification: (A) Names; (B) All geographic subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, ex
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If people don't remember to show up, or show up unprepared, charge them for the appointment anyway. (Most
Simple solution (Score:2)
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like the Do Not Call complaint system [donotcall.gov], set up by the FTC to report robocalls as well as calls to numbers in the Do Not Call registry? (I agree a text would be more efficient, but reporting exists, and isn't remotely difficult)
The big problem is actually tracking down the bad guys. Phone robocall spammers aren't doing anything fundamentally different from what email spammers do.
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What I would like to see is for the Do Not Call complaints to be publicly tracked. I've submitted many complaints -- mostly against credit card scammers -- and considering that the same idiots are still calling after dozens of complaints, it's a pretty safe bet that nobody's actually looking at them. Since there's no visibility into the process, though, I don't really have any evidence that the FTC is ignoring the problems.
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Interesting)
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I get a lot of the "Credit Card Services" calls, and usually report them to the FTC (using donotcall.gov).
Last week, I (for the first time ever) got a call from a number that I had previously reported (at least 3 months ago). I lost all faith in the FTC's website at that time.
The ball is in the court of the FTC. They have a reporting website, and people are using it. However, they have NEVER publicized how they handle the complaints, and it is beginning to be obvious that they pretty much do nothing with
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It seems to me like:
1. The FTC is actually doing something about these complaints. As you said yourself, they've taken people to court and gotten convictions, e.g.
Time [time.com] on the ever-popular "This is Rachel from Cardholder Services" scam. My guess is that the office that handles this is not staffed to handle all the complaints, though, so they probably count up the complaints and only really go after the top offenders.
2. Most of the problems with catching spammers also apply to catching phone scammers, like fi
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Yeah I get lots of them. They seem to come in waves, I'll get 2-3 calls a day for a few days then nothing for a while.
I've filed quite a few FTC complaints but it doesn't seem to help anything.
I've also had quite a few from someone claiming to be Wells Fargo but who can't confirm any account details of mine. I tried calling the main wf number and they didn't know anything about who called me. I'm not even sure what to do with that sort of thing.
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I've also had quite a few from someone claiming to be Wells Fargo but who can't confirm any account details of mine. I tried calling the main wf number and they didn't know anything about who called me. I'm not even sure what to do with that sort of thing.
That's wire fraud and fraud over state lines, so it's the FBI's responsibility. They have a phone number and an email address where you can report it. I believe the Secret Service is also interested in these ones (although I can't recall why).
However, unless someone actually fell for it and collectively lost over $10,000, they're not going to do much. If this HAS happened, your additional data point can help nail the guy.
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Then you end up with political party A reporting political party B and vice versa. And naughty high school kids reporting each other and/or the truancy reporting office. You need a meta moderation system like /.
Yeah, right ... (Score:2)
Business will whine and say that if they can't make robocalls, then it will savagely destroy the economy. And whenever business claims that, the lawmakers just roll over and give them whatever they want.
The reality is, the vast majority of calls I get are robocalls, and the majority of them are usually scams involving highly accented idiots in call centers.
I've taken to telling the people who may or may not be legitimate that I simply can't believe people calling me. Between fake caller ids, and outright
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When I get true robocalls with no human I will also try to keep them on the line until they hang up, as opposed to my doing it.
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its a home made DDOS. you deny them the time slot to bother other people.
I am trying to do the same. slow them down and not answer the call if it matches a pattern or known bad number or name or online lookup. do not answer them or if you do, waste their time.
so yes, I agree with you.
Robocalls from a clever business (Score:2)
About once a month I get a robocall from some company that cleans carpets. The recording launches into a cheesy sales pitch without giving any information that would really be useful to someone wanting to report them to the FTC.
Then at the end of the message, it says if you're interested in their fabulous offer, you can call their number.
So I called the number, and it was an answering machine! You are told to leave your information for them to get back to to schedule a visit. Again, there is no real identif
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Apparently, you need to schedule an appointment with them. Of course, don't be home when they come by. Once they show up, it should be relatively easy to figure out who they are and report them.
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I just use google voice... I get prompted to press * for unknowns if I want to answer, otherwise it goes to voicemail, and it's easy to mark calls as spam, then they don't ring me again.
Sam
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I just hope they catch (Score:2)
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Oh sweet zombie Jeebus, yes. They call me at least once a week from a different number in area code 360, and like a chump I pick up every damn time because I know people there.
20 years to life sharing a cheap cruise ship cabin with a dozen rabid weasels is too good for them!
Call them back, especially politicians (Score:3)
When I receive a political robocall, I make note of the politician who's the subject of the call and I then proceed to call their campaign headquarters and speak very rudely and sternly to the staff person who answers the call. I've gotten off several calling lists that way- lists that I NEVER asked to be on. It probably doesn't accomplish much, but I don't think it's a wasted effort to call and annoy people who willingly call and annoy me.
In local elections, I can frequently talk directly to the candidate. It's always fun to listen to them stammer and try to make an apology.
Note to politicians: If I want to hear from you, I will contact you. I don't need nor want you calling me and I don't need or want any of your "supporters" calling me on your behalf. I get enough of your foolishness in the media. I don't need to hear it over my phone.
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Spam calls (Score:3, Informative)
I think what we're seeing today is a different form of robocalling. Legislation has (thankfully) made legitimate, above the board robocalling operations unprofitable.
What we see now are scams run by criminal organizations, not unlike spam. They used to try sell you things, now it's just outright fraud. With low cost voip-hardline services it's easy to setup a fly-by-night operation and make a few hundred thousand calls before you're shut down.. If you get shut down. The FCC/FTC seem to be pretty slow acting.
Useless. (Score:2)
I get (and block) at least 2 robocalls a week, and after googling each number after the call, I'm nowhere near the only one.
What we need isn't new rules, but to simply enforce what is already there.
Enter: The Robo Answering Machine (Score:5, Funny)
The Robo Answering Machine scripts wouldn't even need to be that interactive. As long as the device could detect when the salesguy was speaking, and respond with a random interogative or prompt. There could even be contests to generate the best scripts.
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Finally a practical application for Turing test contestants!
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Only when the correct # is pressed your phone commences to ring.
For once, an issue USA comes out ahead of Canada (Score:1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocall_scandal [wikipedia.org]
But don't worry Canada, we have a brutal presidential election coming up. We'll try our best to out surpass you here on the Robocall douchebaggery scale. Your victory is only temporary Canada!
Whistle damaged hearing? (Score:4, Funny)
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I've encountered more than a few headsets in call centers* that have the volume cranked up to drown out the people in the surrounding cubicles. Apparently the much-vaunted noise cancellation doesn't work as well as advertised?
* while switching out failed/misdiagnosed hardware... hey, break-fix contract work helps pay the bills
Do not call list (Score:1)
https://donotcall.gov/ [donotcall.gov]
It helps. It's not perfect, believe me, and for the 30 days between when you register and you're officially on the list, it's hell, but... I'm down to 2-3 robocalls a month from 20-30(and for the 30 days, it was about 5-10 a day. I just didn't answer my phone for a month).
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I'm on the list and still get a crapload of idiot calls.
[John]
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I have all the numbers. Unfortunately with a few exceptions, they hang up without leaving a message. I do a search on the number and find out others have answered and they're one spammer or another so I add the number to my list.
I think just not answering the phone unless you're in my contact list is probably the best idea (that's what I do now).
[John]
Credit Card (Score:5, Informative)
The ones I get are usually credit card scams.
I've heard it said that these calls are coming from offshore making it hard for the FTC to trace.
Too bad we can't set the RIAA and MPAA loose on them.
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It's pretty clear they are using outsourced autodialing, there's a distinct "prompt" phase: "Hello, press one to learn about valuable credit card information, press two to be added to our do not call list". On pressing 1, you get the actual boiler room. The CID is from all over the country, never the same number twice. Of course, all my phones are on the federal DNC list...makes no difference to these scum.
AI Robo Callers (Score:2)
We've been getting Home Security calls from Oregon and Washington area codes but the caller is an Eliza type robot. It asks a recorded question and the next question is based on your answer. It's done pretty well at working the call including when you interrupt the question and then hangs up. You can just tell it's a robot question and answer package vs a real human. It's just a little too perky and the inflection is just a little off.
Most of the time though we get callers that don't leave a message. Genera
Simple answer: Cut the cord. (Score:2)
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Except of course, that the spammers and fishers don't care at all about that.
My wife's cell regularly gets called with such things, and since the caller id is bogus and it's a robot on the other end, there's not much you can do to report it as they've gone to some lengths to hide who they actually are.
I think the phone companies should be required to block all calls which don't originate from the broadcast caller id. I generally don't answer anything that says "Private Caller".
As I've said elsewhere in thi
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I don't think the scammers care whether it has been illegal since 1991 or only illegal since 2003 or whenever the DNC was put into place. They still call my landline AND my cell phone.
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If you'll pardon the plug: Call Control by EveryCall.us has been an excellent caller-id-blocker for my Android phone. It handles wildcard blocks, so those jerks don't get through anymore regardless of which number they've picked each time.
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Okay... based upon the replies I'm seeing, clearly I left out an important detail: If there's no caller ID information, why on earth would you bother answering at all?? Or even if it's just a number you don't recognize... just let it go to voicemail, and that'll filter out pretty much all scammers/spammers/fishers. If for some reason they can't leave you a message with callback information, then whatever they wanted to say obviously isn't important enough to worry about.
And for the record, I have received
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Sadly, even when someone calls me from the office it shows as "Private Caller".
You'd be surprised at just how common it is for the caller id to be blocked or altered, which makes it even more frustrating.
But, generally I just leave the answering machine to do the initial screening ... most of the calls I get nowadays is stuff that is either an outright scam, or not someone whose call I'm interested in anyway.
The phone has basically become another vector for spam, and largely gets ignored. Which means occas
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When your phone rings off and on all day, because scammers are calling then come back here and say "just ignore them".
Personally I've created a shit-list contact on my phone which keeps getting larger and larger with scammer phone numbers. I have it set to silent ring so I never hear them call, but it still annoys me.
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Actually I get next to no calls on my home phone and ones I do, I can block since I use Ooma.
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Google voice.
Whitelist, everything else can go straight to voicemail, which is transcribed (good enough to get the gist) and emailed to you, so you don't even have to listen to it.
You can mark messages/calls as spam so you never even have to let them go to voicemail too.
Sam
"Easy" fix for this (Score:2)
1 Bar political calls unless A you have registered as %party% or independent B have voted in the last 2 elections (so you don't get calls if you are registered as %other party%
2 If X number of complaints are registered (add 20% to the total for any number on the DNC list) then JAIL the execs of the company (and the BOD) for a period of not less than 2 years.
3 Also Jail the persons running the Call Center for a period of not less than 3 years (and bar them from running any other businesses)
4 in cases where
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5 is useless.
Officially: "Our contracts with $OFFSHORE_CALL_CENTER specifiy compliance with DNC"
Unofficially, with no paper trail: "Hey, $OFFSHORE_CALL_CENTER, do whatever you have to do to make lots of sales. Screw the DNC, you're offshore and untouchable."
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which invokes the Last jump in the US clause and the Fraud Clause (also why the Suits should be PERSONALLY responsible for this)
I use this to block the automated calls (Score:2)
The FTC is powerless in this matter... (Score:2)
Fun with Phone Solicitors (Score:2)
A whistle? (Score:2)
Shameless Link to Old Post (Score:2)
I don't get it. (Score:3)
All of them are scammers (Score:2)
I can't count the number of "press 1 to speak to a representative, press 2 to be removed" scam calls I get. Most of them are from "my credit card company", "my mortgage company", "my xxxx company". Press "2" once and you are screwed as your phone number ends up being sold to every scammer in the world. Press "1" and the people curse at you if you ask to be removed from the list (and you are still screwed as your phone number ends up being sold to every scammer in the world).
These people deserve a special
Let People Know about this! (Score:2)
By robocalling them!
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[Stern, 1980s announcer voice]
In the city of old Detroit, the Overpriced Consumer Products corporation had fallen on hard times. Unable to retain a lucrative telephone marketing plan in the face of rising minimum wage and more stringent employment laws, they created: ROBOCALL.
Robocall, the ultimate telphone marketing system: part man, part machine, RoboCall could dial thousands of potential customers in minutes. All over the country, robocall interrupted dinner, meetings, classrooms, selling timeshares and
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