FTC To Revisit Robocall Menace

coondoggie writes "While there are legal measures in place to stop most robocalls, the use of the annoying automated calling process seems to be on the rise. The Federal Trade Commission, which defined the rules that outlawed most robocalls in 2009 has taken notice and this October 18th will convene a robocall summit to examine the issues surrounding what even it called the growing robocall problem." A true robocall summit would be a great way to field candidates for the Loebner Prize! But since these will be humans (regulators, etc), I hope, but doubt, they can somehow do something to stop the constant fraudulent robocalls I get from credit-card scammers. In the meantime, it's good to keep a whistle handy.

Comments

They have no intention of really doing anything

[rudy_wayne]

The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.

Re:Simple solution

[dkleinsc]

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.

Doesn't matter

[oGMo]

Just ignore any number your phone doesn't recognize. Better, have software ignore it for you. If it's important, they can leave a message (and potentially be whitelisted).

If your complaint is "but I have a landline," the solution is even simpler: disconnect it from a phone. :-P