FTC Bombs Massive Robocall Operation

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today had a federal court in Chicago halt a major telemarketing operation that made at least 370 million illegal phone calls pitching worthless extended auto warranties and credit card interest rate-reduction programs. According to the FTC, one telephone service provider told the FTC that during a single day in April 2009 the defendants — SBN Peripherals — sent 2.4 million calls to consumers — more than 27 calls per second."

Comments

It's One of Those Days

[eldavojohn]

FTC Bombs Massive Robocall Operation

It's one of those days when you wish the headlines were literal in meaning. I mean, surely the FTC could pull some strings and a few cluster bombs could go "missing" en route to Iraq ...

Re:It's One of Those Days

[somaTh]

I think most of the American public would be okay with labeling them "enemy combatants"

Re:It's One of Those Days

[eldavojohn]

I think most of the American public would be okay with labeling them "enemy combatants"

Is it wrong to hope that I someday see a black and white combat video on Wikileaks of an Apache gunship pointed at the blown out wall of some skyscraper with a wounded telemarketer or auto-dialer operator laying next to a headset and the gunners voice come over saying, "Just pick up the #%&$ing headset, just give me a reason, motha$%#@er!"

Seriously, if these are the jerks that harass my poor grandmother then I hope for nothing else for these people. I know it should be directed at the people running the operations but right now everyone involved should be held accountable because they know what they're doing. Why is it that you get in trouble for distributing marijuana for a bigger fish but you don't get in trouble for working as a call operator at some telemarketer who is making illegal telephone calls?

Re:It's One of Those Days

[dkleinsc]

The trouble is that the poor saps who work at these sorts of places are rarely the people really responsible for the scuzzy business practices. As a general rule, the grunts in those sorts of organizations are people desperate for work, any kind of work, and are aware that what they're doing is scuzzy but at the same time need to feed themselves and their families. Now, if you could drop a bomb that only hit the upper management who's making the big bucks off of these scuzzy business practices, I'd be all for it. But otherwise, you're mostly punishing decent folks trying to make a living.

That's also the reason I generally don't hate on telemarketers. If they could find other work, most of 'em would take it.

Re:It's One of Those Days

[frosty_tsm]

Right. People operating as telemarketers. Should they be strung up along with the big fish? I don't know. Often times it's the only "job" people can get that isn't in the restaurant business. I mean should the cook at McDonalds be put in Jail because he knows he's poisoning civilians with fatty food and giving them diabetes? Should the Factory worker @ Intel be fined x amount of dollars if the CEO's collude and price fix the processors?

You cover this pretty well. There is a quote that sums it up pretty well:

"These are tough times. If a man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is."

I know it has applied to me personally, although I haven't done telemarketing (instead, a job promoting products I don't completely agree with). Would someone pick working as a telemarketer over starving? Welfare? The real problem is people who chose to create a shady telemarketing business rather than a more constructive business.

Re:It's One of Those Days

[Jeprey]

I was thinking instead: "We'll nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Re:Simple solution

[gstoddart]

Wow, Epic fail on my behalf.

I actually quoted text from a different poster (the one I intended to respond to) and replied to you.

Today, I am apparently stupider than usual. :-P

Death, not just for infidels anymore...

[DarthVain]

Seriously can these people be executed already? I am not talking about the poor jerk getting paid minimum wage to do these soul sucking jobs, but the evil bastards behind these types of things.

Good for the FTC actually doing something about it, most times these guys are so adept at being wriggling bottom feeders that they can slip through every loophole and just keep on doing what they are doing, or once they get shut down, they just start up another one.

I know I have gotten to the point that even on my cell phone, it really just limits my phone usage, as I refuse to answer 1-800, 1-866, or any "unknown" callers. I figure if it is a legit call, and it is important, they can leave a message, and I can decide to return the call or not.

I say line them all up against a wall with all the "businessmen" who have stolen over a million bucks in ponzi schemes and have them all shot. No club fed for you. That goes for all those lying TV infomercials as well. It disgusts me that these people prey on others seemingly without any punishment.

Just thinking about this stuff fills me with rage.

Re:i've been screwing with these people....

[Attila Dimedici]

My favorite are the automated messages that give you an opportunity to leave your name and number if you are interested. I always leave a fake name that is just plausible enough not to catch their attention, but strange enough for me to remember it when I hear it. Then when they call back and ask for that name, I say, "Oh you just missed him. He stepped out and should be back in 15 minutes." The second time I use some excuse as to why he won't be available for about half an hour. If they call a third time, I give some reason why he won't be able to talk to them until the following day. I've never gotten a fourth call, but if I did I would probably start overat number one.
If they are going to take up my time by autocalling me, I'm going to take up their time as much as I can.

Anathema

[Anonymous Coward]

The "it's the only job around" is a complete cop-out. People are responsible for their own actions. Even if you feel you have no choice but to work as a telemarketer, the truth is that you do in fact have choices. You mentally preclude them as "too tough" or unappealing, but they do exist; telemarketers are just lazy.

People who choose to make a career out of preying upon the elderly and unfit are not only cruel and unethical, but sociopaths as well. There is no sane person who thinks that scamming someone is an acceptable thing to do. We can bring it down to a matter of sanity and insanity, where a sane person would reject becoming a telemarketer in favor of other, less harmful options, and an insane person would see no harm to what they are doing.

At the end of the day, there is no ethical excuse for harassing and scamming people.

Re:I waste the marketers time

[DavidTC]

Heh. As the other guy pointed out, your #3 is dependent on #3 being finished, and unless you have some sort of time machine, that ain't going to work.

I just have a simpler rule: Don't buy shit over the phone.

Seriously, who still does that? That's what the interwebs are for.

Of course, the idea of purchasing from someone who contacted you and you have no evidence they are who they say they are or have any legitimate business at all is rather nonsensical to start with.

Look, when I want to buy shit, I'll go find someone who sells it. You want to be that person, feel free to run ads in legitimate places I might see, and maybe when I need one I'll go 'Hey, I need a new dryer...I think Sears sells dryers, I saw an ad about that, I'll go there.'. Or you can run an ad in the place I look up business information, and I might go for that one. Or maybe you can get me via word-of-mouth. Who knows? The point is, when I want to purchase something, I purchase it by tracking it down, and buying it.

I'm not going to buy a damn dryer from someone who walks up to me on the street and tries to sell me a dryer and wants a check from me, and promises to deliver it next week. 99.999% of the time because I'm not wandering around without ownership of a fucking dryer, and in need of one, you morons. And the other 0.001% of the time because, while I do happen coincidentally to need to buy a dryer at that exact instant, I have no idea who you are.