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Telco Spams and Gets Huge Fine
jack_call writes "According to The Register the large German based mobilephone operator 'Debitel' was fined $359000 for (deliberately!) sending a total 48000 spam messages( mail: 36000, sms: 12000) to Danish costumers of rival company 'Telmore'. According to different Danish media outlets, they appealed immediately, mostly because the fine comes out at about a sixth of what 'Debitel' made last fiscal year after taxes."
$7.47 per spam - faark.
perhaps other buisnesses will think first
If I want to know about some offer, I will ask. Thank you.
Was thinking of writing to a newspaper, but that idea got lost somewhere in a mire of laziness
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
That they keep sending to their own customers?
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
You seem to be in the UK, so... Are you registered with the TPS? If not do so. It only cuts out the semi-legitimate ones, but that is a supprisingly proportion, got me doen from one every day or so to one every week.
Then make sure you have caller ID and don't answer calls from hidden numbers (unless you work at home and use that line for work, in which case you have to take your chances in working hours. Sigh!). Your friends shouldn't be hiding their identity from you, so this filters out almost all of the rest of the telesales and `surveys'.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
On my way to London the other day, I was sitting in the 'Quiet Zone' car of the train. There are notices on every window asking people not to use Mobile Phones.
This moron gets on at a station, and quite obviously reads, and decides to ignore the notices, and makes about a dozen calls to people which I didn't want to listen to. However, it became quite obvious that this person was engaged in a mobile/SMS/MMS marketing campaign, and various other things he said suggested 'spammer'.
Of course, rule #3 states that spammers are stupid, and this one was no exception. He rattled off at great length a list of sites, usernames, and passwords for various SMS distribution services.
I pulled out my newspaper and pretended to do the crossword, writing down every group of site, username, and passwords. I have not done anything with them yet, but I'm sorely tempted. However, as my handsets are all registered with the TPS (the UK equivalent of the FTC do-not-call lists), I'll wait for a marketing SMS to be crapped into my phone before being tempted further.
If you are 'evileye' (what a stupid username), you might be more careful about where you use your mobile next time..
The fines for SMS spam should be higher than the fines for email spam.
Why? SMS spam causes more hassle. Think about it. Many people will want to see the message immediately, drag the phone out, poke at those tiny little buttons, squint at the menus etc. At least email spam can be seen and deleted almost immediately (if it even gets thru the spam filters)
In this case, AFAIK, the same charge was levied regardless.
Why bother verbally attacking? I tend to follow this response, which works in nearly every case:
Telemarketer: Hello, may I speak to whomever is...
You: [click]
Then how are you supposed to buy the product (should you be so inclined)? Could you not simply feign interest for long enough to get company details out of them, then inform the relevant authorities?
(That's a serious question, as it's such an obvious solution that people *must* have thought of it, so there's got to be a reason why that doesn't work)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
now if we could only get them indian call centers fined for calling peoples phone numbers and trying to trick them into moving to another company
i got called by one yesterday and i demanded to know were they got my infomation from (i have never given my phone number or address to them) you know what the fuckers said? that companys infomation is confidential wtf? what about my infomation i said. god damn people make me sick.
A few years ago, my father received a cellphone call with a caller ID of "ER".
Not in the USA he didn't.
None of the cell phone systems in the USA have had caller name identification, only caller number, until very recently and most still don't. Some of the phones are smart enough to look up the caller number in your personal phonebook on the phone and if it is in there display that name, but you have to put the entry in there first.
Given that there are people (who are often about equally well-paid) who are still willing to work at McDonald's, I'm not sure how you can make the telemarketing experience sufficiently unpleasant.
Incidentally, do you abuse everyone who does things that annoy you, or are you just a sociopath on the telephone where they can't smack you upside the head for being an asshole?
~Idarubicin