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... I report all my spam calls to the FTC National Do Not Call Registry Report Unwanted Calls site. Both my cell and home landline are registered for Do Not Call, but it seems only my cell gets any. Perhaps Cox is blocking the spam calls on my landline...

So file the complaint with the FTC, and give the Government their chance at collecting the $20k fine per incident.

Do-not-call does seem to help, but the idiots who implemented that, it's expires after like what 6 months or a year, I dunno, but as soon as it expires, the calls skyrocket like the same day.

The FTC Do Not Call Registry does not expire. What you may get is idiot companies thinking it does, or spammer groups adding you to their list without checking the list. Report violations. The FTC really doesn't have any way to go after violators if they aren't reported. It's rather quick to do online, and in my experience it does help eventually. (I imagine with enough people reporting a certain robocaller, the FTC eventually tracks them down and fines their ass into oblivion.)

Pardon me a moment while I laugh hytserically. OK, all good. You really think Trump's FTC is going to give a flying F? They're probably working to dismantle the do-not-call list.

Do-not-call does seem to help, but the idiots who implemented that, it's expires after like what 6 months or a year, I dunno, but as soon as it expires, the calls skyrocket like the same day.

The FTC Do Not Call Registry does not expire. What you may get is idiot companies thinking it does, or spammer groups adding you to their list without checking the list. Report violations. The FTC really doesn't have any way to go after violators if they aren't reported. It's rather quick to do online, and in my experience it does help eventually. (I imagine with enough people reporting a certain robocaller, the FTC eventually tracks them down and fines their ass into oblivion.)

Report them. (I assume you're in the US.)

It's better if you have put your number on the Do Not Call registry, but as I understand it, if you get robocalls from people trying to sell you things, you can report them even if your number is not on the Do Not Call registry.

With the online form, it takes all of a couple of minutes to report the number. Given that the fine can be tens of thousands of dollars *per call*, you can let the FTC do the digging with respect to tracking down the changing numbers. (Even if your info doesn't help track them down, it helps to up the financial penalties when they do get caught.)

https://complaints.donotcall.g...

If you want to get rid of most telemarketing, put all of your phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. Then, make a habit of reporting violations so that the feds have the evidence they need to enforce the law. This won't stop all of it, but it will keep away the more honest companies and give you a way to fight back against scammers.

Wouldn't take much to have the bot also submit a complaint to here:
https://complaints.donotcall.g...

Who knows if the government checks the list but couldn't hurt.

I think I get about one call a DAY. How do YOU get the do not call to work???

(1) Try to get as much information as possible from the caller: name of company, type of business, reply phone number, etc. True scammers are likely to waffle, so try to feign interest long enough to get what you can.
(2) Then ... tell the caller that you are on the FCC do-not-call list. If the caller says something oblique, like "oh, I need to mark you not-to-call in my records" then tell them it's the FCC's records (not their own) that they should be checking before they call.
(3) Report the violation to the FCC. Supply as much information as you can, including what you could get from the caller, your phone number, and the time of the call.

For the system to work, it's not enough to be put on the list. People need to complain when a caller violates the law.

Report them to http://donotcall.gov/ anyway.

We have that too. It's at http://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.

There's already a federal Do Not Call registry, so government has already solved the problem! https://www.donotcall.gov/

I'm not sure. https://www.donotcall.gov/ [donotcall.gov] (620)867-5309

Well played.

Well maybe I'm lucky, but I for sure am not going to post my real # on a site like this.

I'm not sure. https://www.donotcall.gov/ [donotcall.gov] (620)867-5309

Well played.

Who receives these calls or any spam calls for that matter? Like an ever increasing number of people, I only have a mobile number. It's registered on the Do Not Call list. I've never, to my recollection, received a spam call. I know this is for scammers and they don't play by the rules but it's been like this for a decade (DNC started in 2004 and I've been mobile only since then). Am I an anomaly? Am I not worthy of a spam/scam call for some reason? My phone number is out there and with every online site I need to enter it in. Perhaps I've just been lucky or this isn't a problem for most Americans due to the Do Not Call list? I'm not sure. https://www.donotcall.gov/ (620)867-5309

Found some old recommendations I sent out to friends that weren't too tek savvy. It's fairly basic info that most should know.

I was looking into Life Lock and started reading what they actually do, which is in the fine print of their terms of service here.

http://www.dmachoice.org/ it's the primary service Life Lock uses to get you off of mailing lists and it's free. They also have some good info on how to keep secure online. There are several items you can go through to have your self removed form email and mail lists.

Then go to https://www.donotcall.gov/ and register your phone numbers for the do not call list.

Then go to https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ to remove your self from the credit card pre-approval lists.

If you want free credit reports use this site. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp You can get 1 free report every year from each of the 3 reporting agencies. If you break it up you could get 1 every 2 month. I could get one from Equifax this month. Then in 2 months my wife could get one for them. Then in 2 months I could get one from TransUnion. etc... The reason to get them is mostly to see who has been looking at your credit. Then make sure all the loans are yours.

Now for your online stuff. Get an email account at google or some place else that you can use for those online registration things that you need to do from time to time. Use that account only for things that you are unsure about. Keep another account for the more important stuff like the banks. You could even have a 3rd account for your general email.

Most web browsers have an option too clear the cache and cookies. Look for it. In Safari on Mac look under the Safari menu then select Reset Safari... On Windows it's under the File Menu. In Firefox you need to look in the Preferences and the Security tab. Resetting and clearing out the cookies will also clear saved passwords. The reason to do this is because many web sites set tokens on your web browser called cookies that allow them to track you and what you do online. They can see where you are going and what you do online. For Windows this is a big problem because there are ways to install applications on the system without you knowing. Then your computer can be used to send email spam to others or even be used remotely to take over other computers. This is really only a problem on Windows but for Macs they can still track your online usage and figure things out about you that might make it easier to get you to click on something that would install an application that could take over your computer.

For email. Set your email program to not automatically read your mail and try to use the built-in spam filters. Also set the options to not download in-line pictures and such. The pictures in spam can be used to also track you and verify your email address. If you and I get the same piece of spam the picture will actually not be in the email it's actually a picture on a web server someplace. The name of the picture is unique to each spam email so when your mail program tries to access the picture from the internet the spammers computer ticks off the unique name your computer used to get the picture. That unique name is associated with your email address.

So far what they've done is set up a web site that allows people to send in complaints in approximately 2 minutes: You need the number called, when the call happened, whether it was a robocall or a human violating the Do Not Call registry, and as much related information as you can come up with.

https://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).

You mean like the Do Not Call complaint system, 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.

Maybe the AC is not aware that the Supreme Court has only ever recognized limited constitutional protection for commercial speech.
I wonder if AC is signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry.

They did this to me, too, just now, on my cell phone that is listed on the national do-not-call registry. I encourage you to file a complaint at https://complaints.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx. Even if your phone is not on the DNC list, robocalling is not generally allowed for telemarketers unless you have a prior business relationship with the company.

We need a privacy bill of rights. Opt-in, full disclosure, and deterrent-level fines and fees for breaking the rules.

Yes, but in the meantime submit all your phone numbers to The National Do Not Call Registry.

For example, the phone feature of the iPhone. The other week I was getting increasingly frustrated that my iPhone doesn't provide any way to block unwanted callers. Some telemarketer was calling a dozen times a day for several days, and it was pissing me off. How hard would it be to implement call blocking?

Uh Chief? . . . I feel for you, but that's something that should be handled by your phone service provider. Not necessarily by the device.

Tackling telemarketers.

Put your cel phone number on the Fed Do Not Call List. Your state might have one too.
https://www.donotcall.gov/

Some telemarketers bypass this by claiming a "business relationship". Calmly tell the telemarketer to take you off his call list and you do not want to receive any more calls.

If they call again then you call your phone service provider (aka Verizon, AT&T etc.) to have the number blocked.

If the provider doesn't do anything then call the police and tell them you are being harassed. Be sure to have the dates and times of all the phone calls.

Yes, it would be more simple if the phone handled it, but sometimes you have to do your own legwork.

File a complaint. It takes a while, but they do actually process these. I filed several of them years back and recently received E-mails notifying me that they had taken action. You don't get any money out of it, but it's my understanding that the companies in violation are fined, so filing enough complaints will (hopefully) provide a disincentive to harass people.

Get on the national Do Not Call registry. Got rid of 90% of the problem for me.

Doesn't stop local spammers, though your state may have its own Do Not Call registry.

Doesn't stop politicians in any case. But them you can get righteously pissed-off at, because they're not just doing a job, they're trying to fuck up your economy and legal system.

two quick things.

The other reply is good advice to reduce junk mail and such I have been on it for a while and I can say it helps. Unfortionatly companies that have prior business with you will still sell your info so your treating the symptom not the cause.

Having been closer then I wish to admit to a group of spamming a-holes for my first job out of college "think senior citizen groups" I learned the magic phrase.

"Do not rent, sell, or trade any of this information, & please put on your do not mail list"

This tells them in clear terms they can't weasle out of that you don't want your info sold or traded, and you don't want junk mail catalogs. They trade, rent, and sell your name like a commodity, with competitors lists for more names so don't forget this part!!

I have also had people recommend and tried although I haven't caught anyone yet, to change your middle initial to something odd as if you had a typo. That way if they do sell your info you will know who the offending party is. FYI the bad guys do this (seed their list) to make sure when they rent or sell your info the list only gets used once.

You can also contact the post office and let them know you don't want any 3'rd class mail.

Get your name on the Do Not Call Registry, the Opt out List, and the DMA do not mail list. Inform all the companies you do existing business with your wishes by writing the magic phrase or all your mail correspondence or checks for a few times. This with all for about 6 months and you will notice the difference. Here are links for the Google impaired.

https://www.donotcall.gov/
http://opt-out.cdt.org/online/
http://www.thedma.org/

Dale (K.O.T.H.) was right in some ways and I always get a laugh at that episode... remember people....DON'T FEED THE BEAST!!

DP

I wonder if that's the same scammer who's been calling me almost every day for the last two months? My caller ID box shows a Florida number (561-xxx-xxxx, which could be a fake), so I never pick up, but the caller never left a message until just last week. Then I had his pitch captured on my voice mail: it was from "Imperial Majesty Cruise Lines" claiming I've received a free cruise. I've reported every instance to the national Do Not Call registry, but the calls just kept coming until a few days ago.

I think sending the FTC a complete transcript of each voice mail message may have helped.

I simply signed up on the National Do Not Call Registry (US only). That cut the telemarketing calls from several per day to once a month or two. For those that I still receive, I ask them not to call again. Then I file a complaint on the Do Not Call website because they shouldn't have called in the first place.

One of the problems is that some telemarketers, and probably fraudsters are using VoIP lines that dump out on modem lines for large ISPs in various areas. I'm not sure exactly how their doing it but I have traced some of the calls back to these dial up access lines. I don't know if the servers have been hacked or if the ISP actually allows it but it seems to be causing some expenses for them as they are state to state long distance calls by the time they reach me.

Of course they could be spoofing the ai for the caller ID and making it appear as if the calls are coming from the ISP. In either case, it is difficult to hold the right people accountable when you cannot track them down. But even then, you need to report what you think is illegal behavior.

Here are a few sources in case you don't have them already
Do Not Call' complaints: https://www.donotcall.gov/complaint/complaintcheck.aspx

FTC complains about marketing practices and other stuff: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ (click in the wizzard)

FCC, for complaints about junk faxes and telemarketing: https://esupport.fcc.gov/form1088/consumer.do

There are probably more resources availible on a state level and but they would be dependent on the specific state. There might even be more on a federal level but those are the major ones I think.

This was my first reaction, too. I wonder if this creates a loophole in the Do Not Call list, since they're not actually calling the numbers?

Argh! Stupid mistake. The links are:

Tom Mabe
greepeace
DNC
SASE

Apologies.

I don't understand why this hasn't happened sooner. I've filled out that complaint form on donotcall.gov a number of times since it's inception when I get a call from some telemarketer for a company I've never dealt with. I always hoped that, even if my individual complaints weren't looked into, maybe they would aggregate complaints, and investigate the bigger offenders. Apparently they haven't really even been doing that...

It's true that opt-out and opt-in lead to very different solutions. But opt-out gets expensive when a lot of people do it; the companies have to actually go through and process each opt-out request.

Plenty enough of people are opting out through services allowing individuals to see what information the big data brokers have on them, and to delete some of it, but not all data can be removed that way. They call it a "global do not call list". keeping with the FTC's US phone do not call registry. If enough people opt out, the customer service costs become so high that it becomes cheaper for trackers to force opt-in instead.

To the predictable "They are proposing a [x] market based solution" -- yeah, it's true. But they at least have a shot at controlling some of it for the people who care the most.

You can use https://www.donotcall.gov/ to help block the numbers. If they call after you sign up, report them.

The important thing is that the do not call list isn't for the government - it is for you. You can sue the telemarketer in small claims for every unwanted phone call $500 and win on the basis of this law (you might have to educate the judge of the law and the proper venue first, along with proving you got the call). The tricky part is to figure out who they are and where to serve them papers. To do this it is best to lie to the telemarketer and pretend you want to sign up or get more information. You then sue them in small claims court, most of the time you get a default judgement, and then you garnish their accounts. If enough people sue they might change their practices.

MAKING TELEMARKETERS PAY -- IN CASH

You can use https://www.donotcall.gov/ to help block the numbers. If they call after you sign up, report them.

Go here.

I have filed 4 complaints about them and it hasn't done a thing.

BTW, register your number here https://www.donotcall.gov/register/Reg.aspx

You could also find out when your registration will expire by using this:
https://www.donotcall.gov/confirm/Conf.aspx

We registered the number on 10/4/2004 and it says it's good until 6/13/2012.

0 0 1 1 * wget --post-data 'ctlACPH1:txtAreaCode=&ctlACPH1:txtPhone=&ctlEmail:txtEmail=&txtConfirmEmail=' https://www.donotcall.gov/Register/Reg.aspx

You could wrap the wget in an if-block to see if the year is divisible by 5, but I'm lazy.

Reid

I just signed up for it (for my new phone) and it took exactly 22 minutes from the time I loaded DoNotCall.gov to the time that I got the confirmation email and clicked the corresponding link.

Here's hoping the /. effect doesn't bog it down too much today....

My mobile # is on the DNC list and I still get calls. I have filed complaints with them and still get the same people calling over and over again. Emperion Marketing (505 647 9618)is my worst offender. I keep getting calls from these asshats, though I have called them and told them to take me off the list. I have filed 4 complaints about them and it hasn't done a thing.

BTW, register your number here https://www.donotcall.gov/register/Reg.aspx

The post office has to use more fuel to carry all the extra weight in their vehicles.

The post office has to do the same route every day whether they deliver you one piece of mail or 10. Even if they don't have mail for you, they have mail for your neighbors so they have to travel down your road anyway. Driving the route is the biggest contributor of fuel expenses, junk mail just makes it slightly more inefficient. I normally get about 22 mpg on my truck. Towing a trailer around with 1000 pounds of weight in it makes me get about 21 mpg even on hilly routes.

I have to get it from the mail box

Do you check your mail daily? Does carrying a couple ounces of mail to your dwelling cause you so much wear and fuel that you can measure it?

The DMA companies didn't buy my shredder for me, they don't spend 15 minutes shredding junk every week, and they don't subsidize the cost of fuel for the garbage truck that stops at every house to pick up what most likely amounts to tons of extra garbage weight a year.

I don't own a shredder. I heat my house with wood (hey, my heat is carbon neutral and cheaper than oil/coal/gas/electric though it is offset by manual labor) and I save my junk mail to use as starter paper to get the kindling going. It saves me from having to buy paper or starter fluid to get my fires going. Also, even with an extended amount of time, good luck putting my mail back together to get sensitive info when it has all turned to a mishmash of ashes in the bottom of my wood stove. As for my garbage, again, it is the same as the post office. The majority of the fuel is spent just driving to my house. The weight of junk mail is a pittance compared to that. I throw away an average of 3 bags of garbage a week. If I threw away my junk mail, it would be a small fraction of that.

They also don't care if some meth head stops by my mailbox, steals my junk mail, and uses one of the dozens of free credit card offers to steal my identity and start me down the road of a ruined credit rating.

Opt out of prescreened credit offers
Opt out of all DMA members mailing lists
Opt out of all DMA members phone calling lists
Join the federal do no call list

These programs really work... smart DMA people don't want to sell to people who don't like them. It wastes their time and resources to annoy you. Since joining just the federal do not call list, my telemarketing has dropped to near zero (only exceptions being companies I've done business with, politicians and political surveys (yeah, I'm one of those people who gets 1-2 survey calls a month)).

Spam is much, much more annoying to me than junk mail is. Telemarketing probably ranks higher than spam though since it is an immediate interruption in what I'm doing so someone can try to pitch something at me. Email I read at my leisure. It takes me a couple seconds to toss out my junk mail once a day since the envelopes are pretty obvious. I spend much more time making sure spamassassin is correctly classifying spam/ham, setting up whitelists and blacklists, etc than I do dealing with junk mail. Overaggressive filters means I could lose important emails if I don't scan through things carefully. I've never tossed away valid mail (though sometimes I will open a strange looking mail to make sure isn't something important).

At the end of the day, I'm at least wasting the junk mailers money if they send me crap to my mailbox. Even with a bulk rate, they're limited to how much they can send out by the expense of printing it and putting a stamp on it. Spammers incur almost no cost to send out an unlimited amount of garbage. I get 100 spams a day averaging at least 30 megs a month. I have to spend time making sure my network doesn't turn into a bots, cleaning out friends machines which were turned into bots, etc.

http://www.donotcall.gov/

Thats a federal website isnt it?

A month after signing up, ALL for-profit telemarketing calls have stopped. The only ones that remain are the not-for-profit-beg-for-money-so-80%-can-go-to-the- telemarketing-company variety. While annoying, it's a lot less than it used to be.

If they're calling your cell phone, that's against the law.

From the FAQ:

Q: If I register my number on the National Do Not Call Registry, will it stop all telemarketing calls?

A: No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most, but not all, telemarketing calls. You may still receive calls from political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or companies with which you have an existing business relationship.

So you are still wide open for push-polls, etc. That's the whole point.

Taking these guys to court does require a lot of time and effort, but as far as I know it's the only recourse we have. That said, caller ID works pretty well as a spam filter for me...

Kinda the same way that the Federal "Do Not Call" list is "a devastating loss of personal freedom for all U.S. citizens".

And, by "all U.S. citizens", they both mean telemarketers and spammers.

- Tony

That's the one piece of information they never told anyone.

I've gotten about 10 political calls in the 2 weeks leading up to the primaries here. About 8 of those were electronic.

As to the do not call list, I've reported about 10 companies who have called me after the 3 month period. I know at least one of them got punished.

It's esay to report them online: https://www.donotcall.gov/Complain/ComplainCheck.a spx

You can verify your registration on the DNC list:

https://www.donotcall.gov/confirm/Conf.aspx

They will send you a nice email that looks something like this:

"Your phone number with the last four digits XXXX was registered in the National Do Not Call Registry on 10/13/2003. Most telemarketers will be required to stop calling you 31 days from your registration date. Your registration will (or did) expire on 3/26/2010.

Visit www.donotcall.gov to do any of these things:
-- to renew your registration before it expires
-- to file a complaint

Print this email and keep it for your records."

I'm not exactly sure why the expiration date is more than 5 years in my case. Something to explore!