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

Re:It's One of Those Days

[TheLink]

I saw this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh4EPcOpSy8 (How to torment telemarketers with one word ).

Didn't seem to torment the telemarketer much. Plus the telemarketer has him on the record as being a moron :D. and I think that was one experienced telemarketer (might have dealt with speaking to bots before - I'm sure someone must have set up a telemarketer handling bot ;) ).

FWIW, I think automated "Hold on, the baby's ...", and similar "please wait" type responses would waste more time.

But if you don't want to tie up your line maybe something like this would help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

Three tones, then "The number you have dialed is not for telemarketing, please wait if you are someone I would like to speak to".

Re: I remember them

[Black Parrot]

They would call and tell me my car warranty was about to expire. I thanked one of them and asked which of my two cars had the warranty problem... and the guy couldn't answer and hung up.

When robocalls get a hit there is a 2-3 second delay while they connect you to a salesjerk. You almost never get this delay when it's a human caller; they respond to your hello at normal conversational reaction time.

So when I'm feeling surly I just lie the (landline) phone down when I hear the pause, rather than hanging up. I figure if they're willing to waste my time I might as well waste theirs.

I also read somewhere that robocalling software remembers useless numbers and skips over them, so I turned off my answering machine when I was going to be away from the phone for a couple of weeks, and sure 'nough, I get a lot less telespam than I used to.

Re:It's One of Those Days

[Monkeedude1212]

I worked for our local Telecommunications company a few summers ago. Just a temp job, between semesters.

I applied for call center work, and they basically had 2 options: Sales and 411. In Sales, you'd be calling various customers with offers the telecom had available, and in 411 you'd be recieving calls requesting phone number or address info. While sales isn't as bad* as regular telemarketting, I still didn't and still don't think I could do it, knowing that I'd be basically harassing people. I chose 411, which was definately one of the most interesting jobs I've had. The Drunks on Fridays and Saturdays looking for a Cab are usually very social and hilarious. Anyways. What were we talking about again?

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?

I mean, in all those cases, the small fish pretty much knows whats going on but can't really do anything about it.

If anything, its the Marijuana situation that needs to change. They should just make it like hash bars in Amsterdam, or at least how they define them in Pulp Fiction. Legal to own, Legal to buy. If you are the proprieter of a bar, it's legal to sell. But you can only light it up in those bars.

*They're the biggest Telecom in the country so they probably adhere to federal guidelines pretty well.

Re: I remember them

[asdf7890]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html can be fun to try if you have some time to waste.

A trick I've used with "success" is to be very interested but need to nip out for a second. Something like "ooh yes, I've been looking for a new mobile phone deal, could you hold while I go turn the pans off in the kitchen?". Don't be too eager or they'll smell a rat. Once you have them waiting, nip off and do something else for a while. I've had cold callers wait for my return (according to my phone's call log) for ten minutes or more before now.

Want to get rid of them a little more quickly? Try answering with something like "Hello, you are through to the North Yorkshire Emergency Response Centre, what is your current location?" and role-play from there as much as is needed. They usually appologise and ring off in short order. If tey don't ramp it up with "this is an emergency number, you could be endangering lives by holding it open". Obviously don't do this on a line you get business calls on as you have to jump in before knowing who is calling for it to be convincing - my home landline only exists so I can get ADSL based internet down the line, so I know that any call I get down there is a junk call (everyone else calls my mobile).

Re:what I hate most

[southpolesammy]

You're describing the recent trend of Debt Collection Scam. Two of the worst are Allied Interstate and NCO Financial. Now truth be told, those two companies probably do have some legitimate business in collections, but just do a Google search on their company names. Their track record is horrible, and abuse of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is rampant. It doesn't matter if you owe or not to them, as they're not interested in playing fair -- they are scammers through and through. Got your number on "Do Not Call" registry? They don't care. They're just like spammers looking for that one sucker out of thousands that will pay something they don't owe, and thus, validate their raison d'etre.

In my case, somehow both have gotten a hold of my cell phone number, and are calling at least 1-2x per week. It's always an automated dialer, leaving me a message to call them back at so-and-so number. Never, ever is there a live person, either if I pick up right away, or let it go to voicemail.

Here's the kicker though -- when they first started, I got worried that I might have been the victim of identity theft, so I pulled all 3 of my credit reports. All 3 are clean as a whistle and have been for years, and there are no unexpected accounts or credit inquiries. So, as mentioned above, they're trolling for suckers, and seeing who will return the call and then will harass the caller into paying something they don't owe.

The scambusters website has a lot more good information on this growing scam. Go here --> http://www.scambusters.org/debt.html

FWIW -- I've recently filed complaints with the FTC. We'll see where that goes.