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FTC Rules Outlawing Robocalls Go Into Effect Next Week
coondoggie writes "Nearly a year after announcing the plan, new Federal Trade Commission
rules prohibiting most robocalls are set to take effect Tuesday, Sept. 1. With the rules, prerecorded commercial telemarketing robocalls will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls. Hopefully the rules will go a long way to helping consumers eat dinner in peace without being interrupted by amazingly annoying telemarketer blather or in this case prerecorded blather. The requirement is part of amendments to the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) that were announced a year ago. After September 1, sellers and telemarketers who transmit prerecorded messages to consumers who have not agreed in writing to accept such messages will face penalties of up to $16,000 per call."
...or did they make sure to keep that loophole in there for themselves again...
For the most annoying types (scams mostly) this won't matter any. There's already a "Do not call" mechanism that's ignored. The legitimate ones will obey, the rest will just continue on.
Yes, it gives some teeth for when you actually catch them, but for the millions of us who have been getting the "Your credit rating will be affected!!!" calls lately, I doubt it will make any difference to our evening meals.
}#q NO CARRIER
Governmunt regulation is bad and socialist and communist and will make our children weak and effeminate. I know it's true because Ronald Raygun told me so. Why does the FTC hate America?
RON PAUL! RON PAUL! RON PAUL!
Scumbags who use robocalls don't care about laws or reputations. Most of the products they peddle are outright scams or at the very least a bad deal for customers.
The perpetrators will set up shop offshore and evade detection. This law, just like CAN-SPAM, will make no difference at all.
Happy Dude is not going to be happy.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
With the rules, prerecorded commercial telemarketing robocalls will be prohibited, unless the telemarketer has obtained permission in writing from consumers who want to receive such calls.
Ah.
You can expect the "permission" to be buried in the fine print of phone contracts, software licenses, and the like. And be sure to remember to uncheck that "share your information with third parties" box.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I'm thinking it might be time.
something that ensures a human is at the other end, and a thinking one, at that. yeah.
phone spam is getting to the point where we need blacklists and whitelists. wildcards on names, numbers in caller-id. or even trapping on lack of caller-id.
arms race they want? we can meet that challenge.
but its a damned shame we've let ourselves get to this point ;(
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
That wouldn't be so bad, except no one here speaks Spanish. So I have no idea if it's a bill collector, a telemarkter, or a candidate running for office in a Spanish speaking area.
All the Spanish I know is basically ordering a beer and asking for directions to the bathroom, so I know they're not selling Dos Equis or directions to the toilet.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Calls from political campaigns are considered protected speech
But who knew we'd already granted computers rights?!!
Quack, quack.
No, you do. A "scumbag" is a failed sociopath. We call the successful ones "CEO", "Hedge Fund Manager", and "Sir".
For fuck's sake, a contract isn't an atomic sacred unit of holy marketology. It's just a piece of paper.
The problem is Common Law, which holds that a contract is almost as sacred a the Ten Commandments except in limited circumstances. Courts have long rules that many sorts of contract are invalid if one party is deceived. Long form contracts with surprisingly asymmetric benefits to the drafted of the contract are a relatively modern chapter in the long history of contracts design to deceive. In practice, nobody reads the fine print. Saying "well, people should" is counterproductive because you know in practice that very few people will. By that logic, you can reduce all law to "well, people really shouldn't hurt each other."
What matters is how the contract is commonly understood, not what it actually says. It's high time for contracts of adhesion to be held to much stricter standards. Specifically,
That means that if a cell phone company, for instance, claims that their contract allows them to give your number to telemarketers, that clause is unenforceable unless the writer of the contract can show, via an impartial third party poll, that common people understand the contract to permit that right.
I haven't gotten a single call on my mail line since the day I put it on the Do Not Call List.
Then you are amazingly lucky or keep your phone turned off most of the time. There was at least one outfit that was literally war dialing every single possible valid NANP number. They called police dispatchers, the White House, military bases, Congressional offices, etc, etc. I got at least three or four calls from them per month until the FTC shut them down.
They were a bunch of cocksuckers too. You'd challenge them on ANYTHING and they'd just hang up you. I gave up on trying to get removed from their "list" and tried to pretend to want to do business with them. They wanted a credit card and when I told them I didn't have one and wanted to mail them a check they gave me an "address" of "4321 Main St. Some Random City and Zipcode" and hung up on me.
Eventually I gave up on trying to figure out who they are and just started being incredibly nasty to them. I'd bust out the 'C' word if I wound up with a female caller and various racial epithets for the male callers. Most of them would hang up but a few of them got into shouting matches with me over how horrible it was to use such words. I'm not actually a racist or sexist but I figured it was the best way to piss someone off over the phone with a single word before they could hang up. Since they consumed my cell phone minutes and interrupted multiple dinners I figured it was only fair.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The best way is to make it matters legally. Give them your credit card number, the one you don't use often or just sign one up just for this. Let them charge it, then take it up to the card center and police and say you have a lead on someone using your credit card illegally. If it's no traceable, you can't prove enough to charge my card either. If it is, you get the fuckers.