FCC May Permit Robocalls To Cell Phones -- If They Are Calling a Wrong Number 217
An anonymous reader writes There have been plenty of false rumors about cell phones being
opened up to telemarketers, but now the FCC is actually
considering it. From the article: "Consumers have long had the support of government to try to
control these calls, chiefly through the Telephone Consumer
Protection Act, which actually allows consumers to file lawsuits and collect penalties
from companies that pepper them with robocalls or text messages
they didn't agree to receive. But now the Federal Communications Commission is considering
relaxing a key rule and allowing businesses to call or text your
cellphones without authorization if they say they called a wrong
number. The banking industry and collections industry are pushing
for the change." In one
case recently, AT&T called one person 53 times after he
told them they had a wrong number...and ended up paying $45 million
to settle the case. Around 40 million phone numbers are "recycled" each year in the
U.S. Twice, I've had to dump a number and get a new one because
I was getting so many debt collection calls looking for someone
else. Apparently the FCC commissioners may not be aware of the
magnitude of the "wrong number" debt collection calls and aren't
aware that lots of people still have per-minute phone plans.
Anyone can file
comments on this proposal with the FCC.
Time to abandon normal phones? (Score:2)
Maybe it's time to abandon normal phones now.
Re:Time to abandon normal phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it's time they fixed the phone system so that telemarketing scammers from Pakistan and India can't hide behind a North American phone number.
Maybe it's time they fixed the phone system so that telemarketing scammers in North America have to show their real number.
Maybe it's time to shut down all number spoofing systems.
Re:Time to abandon normal phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
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http://www.amazon.com/PRO-Call-Blocker-Incoming-Telephone/dp/B00AZ43MGU/ref=pd_sim_e_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1J6JDGKBWXFNN580TVKM [amazon.com]
The only downside is that if you enable blocking of no caller ID, Unknown, 000-000-0000, etc, it will block legit calls if the caller ID doesn't show up fast enough. I LOVE mine. I was getting 2-3 calls per night with 5ish more per day on the machine. This stopped them. All of them. If one gets through, I push the big red button and it hangs up and adds t
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Get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/PRO-Call-Blocker-Incoming-Telephone/dp/B00AZ43MGU/ref=pd_sim_e_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1J6JDGKBWXFNN580TVKM [amazon.com]
This device appears to use a blacklist only, not a whitelist. According to the reviews, quite a few people are unhappy with it. Most junk calls seem to come from random numbers, so a blacklist is not an effective way to stop them. Blocking all non-caller-id is not effective either because many junk calls spoof CID, while many of my friends and relatives don't use CID out of privacy concerns.
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Re:Time to abandon normal phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the ol' Landline days, I ran a SIP gateway that went to an asterisk system. It would always ask you to press 1 if you weren't a telemarketer and 2 if you were. Option 2 would politely tell you to fuck off. I never got a telemarketing call after that. I'm guessing the VRU confused most of the robo-calling software they used. After a while I got fancy with it and installed SIP software on the cellphone I was using at the time. So if my phone connected up with the wireless network, it would register with the asterisk server and the asterisk server would ring the phone. If the phone was not available because I was away from the house, calls would go straight to voicemail. If you were on a whitelist, the asterisk system would ask you to hold on and then dial out over VOIP and connect the call to my cell phone. The software on my phone now works pretty well but I miss the power I had with Asterisk.
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I'm afraid most of the voters don't share those sentiments. Nothing matters but cheap gas prices.
Re:Time to abandon normal phones? (Score:4, Insightful)
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That doesn't help much when the caller is in another jurisdiction such as India.
It also doesn't help when some scummy debt collector has randomly associated your number with an alleged debtor that you don't know. They call relentlessly and refuse to accept that you don't even know the person. They claim do-not-call doesn't apply because they have a 'business relationship' with the debtor. They claim you can't order them to stop calling because you said you weren't the debtor. They are the biggest assholes y
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I live in the U.S. Here, for some godawful reason, cellular customers pay to receive the call.
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I seriously had no idea that was going on it the US. The idea that the recipient should pay for a communication initiated by someone else is ludicrous and any attempt by any organisation that allows others to involuntarily force costs upon you is horrendous. I would not touch a mobile phone upon that basis or at the very least turn off network connection when I am specifically not using the phone to initiate calls. So I gather that in the US there is an Android app that blocks all incoming calls and texts
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There are such app. You just set the ringtone to silent and set a different ringtone for people in your address book. It does limit the functionality though since you don't get emergency calls where someone you know had to borrow a phone and such.
The whole thing is a leftover from when landlines had unlimited local calling and cellphones were a luxury item called a carphone (because it was the size of a briefcase and needed a car battery to operate anyway). Since it was a low volume luxury item, you got cha
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> It does limit the functionality though since you don't get emergency calls where someone you know had to borrow a phone and such.
Those people can leave a voicemail message. Most telemarketers and robocalls don't. When I get a mystery calling number, I let it go to voicemail. If it's important they can leave a message, and I can call them back.
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If it's an emergency, they can call 911.
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Not all emergencies are of the 911 variety. Certainly not all urgencies are.
I would prefer we just fine the hell out of junk callers who call cellphones.
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As one, every man, woman and child should cancel their cellphone planes until this absurd situation is resolved. Starting today.
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And later find out that it was your wife on a borrowed phone telling you the car won't start and now she's really not amused.
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And while they're at it, prevent the same for the Indian recruiters.
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Closing spoofing closes normal business trunking.
Case in point.
I have a DID line. No outgoing phone plan at all. Normal business applications is an 800 toll free number. Call it and an entire bank of phones ring for the first available operator.
I also have several trunk lines. Mush like the local hotel. You know the drill. Dial 9 for an outside line. What was proposed is to give each of the trunks a FIXED phone number. You can call a trunk line, but they don't take inbound calls. Instead the PBX us
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Now Customer Owned and Maintained Equipment (COME) has let the jeanie out of the bottle and there is no way to put the jeanie back in the bottle. I you have a business trunk line and a DID even over VOIP, setting your own line display name is a normal administrative task.
Sure, but the telco should still sanity check the ANI provided to make sure it's a number permitted over that PRI (or whatever you're calling with). IE: if you order a PRI with a 100 block of DIDs, the telco should reject any number that's not within your block of DIDs. If you want outbound calls to match your toll free, fine, but you should have to register that with the telco to permit it.
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Right. Maybe we should all switch to Skype, or Facebook, or email, for all our communication. The telemarketers would never find us there!
Once (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once (Score:5, Insightful)
Result of your request:
800-555-1212 -- Nemyst -- Confirmed quality number with confirmed name, removed from our call database -- Placed on working number selling list
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Result of your request:
800-555-1212 -- Nemyst -- Confirmed quality number with confirmed name, removed from our call database -- Placed on working number selling list
I used to be so kind to call center workers, asking them to remove from the call list, with all the please and thank you's i could give. But most of the call centers would call back (most likely due to the above).
Now i tell them to "Fuck off", be abusive and swear my heart out. Surly that gets you put on the "black list" and removed from the system?
Works for me in the UK.
I feel sorry for the staff, but at the end of the day, their job is to piss people off and they know it.
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This is actually a case where government regulation works, here in Norway there's a "reservation registry" against telemarketing, fixed and mobile phones. About 2.1 out of 5 million inhabitants have registered, never get any telemarketing calls. You can optionally reserve against ideal organizations too, though you can't reserve against surveys. There's a loophole for "existing business relationships" but it's pretty narrow and since that means you actually have business with them they're quite responsive t
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We have that too. It's at http://donotcall.gov./ [donotcall.gov.] And you can register your numbers and it has a simple form to submit complaints. Companies still call by spoofing the caller ID and when you report that number, nothing happens.
What you need to do is go along with them enough, pretend like you want their offer, but then say you heard about phishing so you need a real number where you can call them back. Then report THAT number. They get a fine for $11,000.
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The problem is that people with debts often tell the caller that they have the wrong number, even if they don't. Since the caller is basically powerless to do much else other than harass the debtor by phone, they keep doing it. I assume it must work in some percentage of cases, otherwise they wouldn't.
People often have the same problem when they move house. Debt collection letters for the previous occupier, and occasional visits from debt collection agencies. There isn't much you can do, other than removing
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Also, this problem is somewhat unique to the U.S. Cellular subscribers in the U.S. pay for incoming calls. In most countries, it's the caller who pays, so they have a built-in incentive to avoid mobile phone numbers. (Long story short is that U.S. landline phone plans switched over to fixed monthl
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THIS! They will call every man, woman, and child in the U.S. once, then fold up their tents and open under a new name so they can do it again.
It's about time for these shoddy businesses to be taught that I do not owe them my time or ears.
good grief (Score:4, Interesting)
I've already had cold sales calls (from a person, not a robocall) where they ask for a non-existent person, I tell them they have a wrong number, and they launch into "oh, I'm sorry, but as long as I've got you on the phone, let me tell about the great deal we're offering on replacement windows..."
It's just that the pacing and tone of voice made it clear to me that the whole thing was scripted in advance to go that way, that the "oops, sorry, wrong number" was simply a lie told in the hopes that I would not report them for violating the do not call list.
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I get those from time to time so I accidentally give them the wrong name and address. I wonder who they sent out to the apartment complex.
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Interestingly, most of those calls don't go anywhere. Even though you make an appointment, they often don't show up.
The ones that do, are always in a nondescript van with no business name or anything. That's because they change names basically weekly to keep out of scam lists.
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Report them to http://donotcall.gov/ [donotcall.gov] anyway.
Oh, I did. He called at a time when I was totally fed up with people ignoring the do-not-call list, and he added to my frustration by refusing to take "no" for an answer and getting borderline belligerent.
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you know you can hang up on them at any time. you don't have to listen to their sales pitch.
they have no qualms about intruding on your time and trying to sell something to you that you don't want, so just hang up on them.
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you know you can hang up on them at any time. you don't have to listen to their sales pitch.
I usually do, immediately. But every once in a while if I'm bored, or like in this case they're taking a novel approach, I just want to see how far they will go.
Sort of like the shouting/cursing match with Joe from "the Windows Corporation" who wanted to alert me to my virus problem and help me solve it ;-) Seriously, after multiple calls per day for a while from different numbers, I decided to see how much abuse those scammers would take before giving up, and it turns out that if you don't hang up they'll
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i like messing with Joe from "The windows corporation". last time he called i wasn't even sitting at a computer and tried to see how long i could play along with them. even described the event viewer screen to them from memory so they could verify i was on the right screen. Only hung up on them because i ran out of time and had to go somewhere.
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i like messing with Joe from "The windows corporation". last time he called i wasn't even sitting at a computer and tried to see how long i could play along with them. even described the event viewer screen to them from memory so they could verify i was on the right screen. Only hung up on them because i ran out of time and had to go somewhere.
I've considered firing up a VM and going along until the point where they want money, then saying "nah, I think I'll just delete this VM image instead" ;-)
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you know you can hang up on them at any time. you don't have to listen to their sales pitch.
they have no qualms about intruding on your time and trying to sell something to you that you don't want, so just hang up on them.
Better yet, don't answer the call. If it's important, they'll leave a message.
Useless complaint center (Score:4, Informative)
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It's not useless. It creates the illusion that someone is listening to complaints.
It was never their function to *act* on the complaints.
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>But I worked for a company that got $88,000 in fines in a single month. //
And still found it profitable to harass people by phone? Usually such fines are miniscule compared to the companies operating funds and so just get absorbed in to the costs of doing business rather than altering the company's behaviour.
they count how many complaints, act if 10,000 (Score:2)
That's frustrating, I know. Your complaint appeared to dissapear into a black hole. It actually went into a database. Once in a while they take look at the companies with the most complaints and that sort of thing. They do take action once in a while. Not as much as we'd like, but occasionally.
I found out the FBI does similar for common, ordinary IT attacks involving malware, spear-phishing etc. They don't fully pursue every case individually, but they want to know so that they can spot a TREND of inc
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As a Republican, I don't LIKE pointing out that the federal government occasionally does something useful, [...]
And why is that? Any civilised nation must have a government. Why not be happy that is works? This whole `all (federal) government is evil' position is very immature.
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smiley. A little works, more must be better (Score:2)
I did put a smiley after that comment. Here's why I said that, jokingly. Some people reason as follows:
If some government does one thing good (at a cost of $2 trillion), then ten times as much government will be ten times as good.
Government is like alcohol - a little bit can make things more pleasant, too much leads to major trouble.
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Government is like alcohol - a little bit can make things more pleasant, too much leads to major trouble.
And Ted Kennedy get enough.
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NotAs Simple as it Sounds (Score:2)
The Federalist Society recently posted a podcast on this subject.
http://www.fed-soc.org/multime... [fed-soc.org]
The issues, and unintended side effects of The Telephone Consumer Protection Act are more extensive than you probably imagine.I recommend that podcast as TFA for this thread.
Wrong direction (Score:4)
Why are *any* robocalls allowed? In most (perhaps all) places they fit the definition of criminal harassment, and a computer certainly has no free speech rights.
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Why are *any* robocalls allowed?
They aren't - at least in California. The law here requires a human caller to verify that the consumer wishes to hear the message. A human needs to talk to the call first.
There are some exemptions - for political campaigns, emergency services, prior relationship (robe-call from your pharmacy that your order is ready) etc.
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There are some exemptions - for political campaigns
Why?
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Why?
Dumbest question of the day.
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So I take it you can answer my dumb question - why are politicians permitted to have robots call you up and hassle you whereas salespeople are not? They are both equally irritating in my opinion, and both of them are effectively trying to sell you something.
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I mostly agree. But there are some kinds of robocalls that are actually helpful. Our kids' school, for example, uses a robo-call system to let parents know when school is canceled due to weather or other reasons.
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No-one objects to robocalls they explicitly consent to. Those are not the problem.
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That use case is different though.
1. Your pharmacy isn't spamming thousands of people. Neither is your bank.
2. You _already_ have a business relationship with them. When some yahoo is mass robodialing that just wastes everyone's time.
Robocalls should be OPT IN, not this bullshit of "opt out."
--
First Contact is coming 2022. Are you ready for a new perspective?
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You have to have explicit permission in order to do a robocall to a number.
How do you define explicit permission? If it's buried in page 12 of a user agreement that you have to sign, is that explicit permission? From a legal perspective, how do you separate that from the actual real-world permission like what you're thinking of? How about a line on page 12 that explicitly gives their "affiliates" permission to robocall you?
A GIANT loophole (Score:2)
"Sorry - wrong number," as a get out of jail free card? They might as well get rid of the phone protection part.
"after he told them they had a wrong number" (Score:2)
Um. At that point it is no longer a wrong number.
Glad ATT got slapped.
Simple solution .... (Score:2)
... for calls to cellular numbers: Caller pays.
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Ban reciver pays (Score:2)
I currently get robocalls on my mobile (Score:3)
.
What is so difficult about the FCC understanding that I do not want calls on my mobile from robocallers and/or telemarketers.
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You mean I'll be getting MORE unwanted calls?
. What is so difficult about the FCC understanding that I do not want calls on my mobile from robocallers and/or telemarketers.
What is difficult for people to understand is the difference between telemarketers and political opinion surveys. Politicians will never, ever give up their political opinion polls. There WILL be a loophole.
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.
Now, if I could also stop those &*()&(^%^ political calls.....
Robocalls to my cellphone: 'Ineffective' (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize anyway, and I recommend everyone else do the same.
That's not an option for everybody, especially those who use their cell phone for business purposes.
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I've found that many of the telemarketers either use a random number with the same area code as the number they're calling or an 800/866 number for the caller id. I've had the same phone number since college and don't know anybody at all with that area code. So any call coming from my area code is a drunk misdial or a telemarketer. Very handy for filtering two classes of annoying calls.
Start robocalling FCC bureaucrats (Score:3)
on their cell. See if they still wanna go through with this.
Re:Start robocalling FCC bureaucrats (Score:4, Insightful)
You think *they* pay for their air time? *LOL*
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Legit question : Is that how it works in the USA? Where I live the caller pays for all expenses except for overseas roaming charges. It seems strange that you can call someone and have them experience a financial loss as a result.
Let them know (Score:3)
http://www.fcc.gov/contact-us [fcc.gov]
Submitted (Score:2)
Well, I've sent in my complaint .. for what it's worth.
"http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/01/17/176248/fcc-may-permit-robocalls-to-cell-phones----if-they-are-calling-a-wrong-number Do not, repeat, DO NOT open up cell phones to telemarketing or any other dialing scam. While you're at it, put teeth into the current telemarketing scams, fake caller IDs, and all the rest. You KNOW what's going you; you just need to find the balls to do something about it. "
Is this a US only problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, in Europe you don't pay if someone else calls you. So there is a common trick if some salesperson calls you "oh, one moment please", put the phone somewhere and check 30 minutes later if they are still on the line (usually not). Costs them money and time, not you.
And on mobile phones you have programs to block numbers from phoning and smsing. Much easier than regulations.
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The problem in the USA is that people are getting several to dozens of calls a day.
That's not special to the USA. I have some numbers set to auto-block with very good reason. It's significantly less annoying in Europe though, as the caller pays the cost of the call (except in exceptional circumstances, which robocalls don't count as).
Blacklists/Blocking numbers is useless because the callers use spoofed callerID, so the number shown is different every time. Lately, they have been using spoofed callerID numbers that belong to government agencies or well-known businesses.
That's what the FCC needs to crack down on. The easiest way would probably to have a rule change that makes the phone companies part liable for any court-imposed liabilities arising from private actions over robocalls where those robocalls come from a spoofed
My favorite feature of the iPhone is... (Score:2)
...to be able to have an entry in my contacts named "Spam", add the number of a telemarketer, block it, and never hear from them again.
Caveat: Each time I add a number to "Spam", I must unblock, then block it. Apparently, the blocking action operates only on the numbers that are in the contact entry at the time the block is applied.
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I don't even bother adding the number to a contact. If it's blocked it's because it's a telemarketer.
Wrong number (Score:2)
Wrong number = 1 call just one. 53 Calls = Harassment and should equal a fine. Once I say this person is not at this number they should be prohibited from calling again.
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Electronic Solutions (Score:2)
Don't answer the phone (Score:3)
Re:Don't answer the phone (Score:4, Insightful)
Year works a treat until its the hospital / police / significant other who lost her phone is stuck and using a borrowed phone because of it. My wife thinks like you do. It was very strange calling the neighbour and having them walk over to our house to tell my wife to answer the phone because I needed her help.
Another loophole they use is... (Score:2)
We're Not Interested (Score:2)
Your phone system is stupid. (Score:2)
Its your own stupid fault for letting phone companys charge you for receiving calls.
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It originally was mainly because people would just call someone and quickly ask them to call them back, which kind of defeated the purpose.
Now its pretty irrelevant since most people have unlimited plans and stuff, and only the cheapest of shittiest plans will have charges for incoming calls.
But it makes for a good argument against shit like robocalls, thats why it sounds like its much more common than it is.
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$45 million seems excessive for 53 phone calls
No more excessive than $200,000 per song downloaded or whatever it is.
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But then hasn't the legend firmly established that death is really only a temporary inconvenience for him?
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They'd know you are lying. The only person that could possibly care is dead.
Operator, information [youtube.com]...
They'd know you are lying. The only person that could possibly care is dead.
This gives me an idea. If say, a million or two of us nerds started up robocalling businesses, and started calling wrong numbers 24/7/365 and 1/4, maybe that would help.
And knowing that random number generators are never really random, well heaven knows the wrong numbers that might get called.
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Fine amount: $00,045,000,000
That barely amounts to a slap on the wrist.
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Net income: $19,000,000,000
Fine amount: $00,045,000,000
That barely amounts to a slap on the wrist.
You fail to recognize how greedy they are. That would be, like taking one less week's vacation.
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'anymore'?