Slashdot Mirror
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.
The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
Have a report spam option, as well as report fishing or illegal solicitation. It's not hard, just need to actually do something reasonable (I know, I know, it's a bureaucratic). Just send a text message to some service with the offending caller's number from the number you got spammed at, or have a web service and smart phones can have a report unwanted call option with a drop down on if it was just annoying, or if it was illicit in some way. Get more than X reports of spam and you get a warning, get more than Y reports of spam get fined and you can appeal. Get more than Z and you get barred from making more calls until you appeal.
problem solved... too bad it won't happen for another 20 years.
Business will whine and say that if they can't make robocalls, then it will savagely destroy the economy. And whenever business claims that, the lawmakers just roll over and give them whatever they want.
The reality is, the vast majority of calls I get are robocalls, and the majority of them are usually scams involving highly accented idiots in call centers.
I've taken to telling the people who may or may not be legitimate that I simply can't believe people calling me. Between fake caller ids, and outright scams/phishing ... I mostly treat all calls not by people I personally know to be a scam and tell pretty much all telemarketers to fsck off.
Robocalls are essentially just spam, but with permission. And probably just as sketchy for the most part.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
its not even political. its a scam. 'we would like to take your poll on some issues. oh, and stay online so we can tell you about our CRUISE PACKAGE!'
its all a scam.
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use a caller id modem, get the # string and check things like mrnumber.com (which is easy to script/call). the spam number is easy to get and I can basically NOT let the call ring thru if its on the spam list. if its not, the relay will click, the 2 wires will pass thru to the actual phone system in my house and I'll hear the ring.
best way to avoid them is to not even give them an answer. they think there's no one ever there. best way to deal with them (since killing them is illegal. I think?)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
About once a month I get a robocall from some company that cleans carpets. The recording launches into a cheesy sales pitch without giving any information that would really be useful to someone wanting to report them to the FTC.
Then at the end of the message, it says if you're interested in their fabulous offer, you can call their number.
So I called the number, and it was an answering machine! You are told to leave your information for them to get back to to schedule a visit. Again, there is no real identifying info on that machine either that would help you track them down.
I left a message telling them to stop calling me and that I'd report them to the FTC if they didn't. Of course they ignored it and I still get the calls semi-regularly.
Now I have a phone that when it rings, it also announced in a synthesized voice the number or the number of the caller. If it's not someone I recognize, or it says "unknown caller" I just don't answer.
It's a shame it's come to that, but what can you do?
the asshats who keep calling my phone to play the sound of a foghorn blowing
When I receive a political robocall, I make note of the politician who's the subject of the call and I then proceed to call their campaign headquarters and speak very rudely and sternly to the staff person who answers the call. I've gotten off several calling lists that way- lists that I NEVER asked to be on. It probably doesn't accomplish much, but I don't think it's a wasted effort to call and annoy people who willingly call and annoy me.
In local elections, I can frequently talk directly to the candidate. It's always fun to listen to them stammer and try to make an apology.
Note to politicians: If I want to hear from you, I will contact you. I don't need nor want you calling me and I don't need or want any of your "supporters" calling me on your behalf. I get enough of your foolishness in the media. I don't need to hear it over my phone.
I think what we're seeing today is a different form of robocalling. Legislation has (thankfully) made legitimate, above the board robocalling operations unprofitable.
What we see now are scams run by criminal organizations, not unlike spam. They used to try sell you things, now it's just outright fraud. With low cost voip-hardline services it's easy to setup a fly-by-night operation and make a few hundred thousand calls before you're shut down.. If you get shut down. The FCC/FTC seem to be pretty slow acting.
Rules and laws are useless if not enforced.
I get (and block) at least 2 robocalls a week, and after googling each number after the call, I'm nowhere near the only one.
What we need isn't new rules, but to simply enforce what is already there.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
That sounds like something that my cellphone already does in software.
The Robo Answering Machine scripts wouldn't even need to be that interactive. As long as the device could detect when the salesguy was speaking, and respond with a random interogative or prompt. There could even be contests to generate the best scripts.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
it's better to play the 'out of service' or 'disconnected' tone for them so their robocaller will automatically remove your number from the list. They don't want to waste time calling invalid numbers, and someone not answering is still a potential call, while a dead number isn't.
A friend of mine had his answering machine set up to play the tone, then do a normal message back when we were being inundated in robocalls here. It's amazing how effective it was. I even borrowed a copy of his tape for a week to 'dissuade' the vast majority of them. Worked like a charm. (Yes, we had tape based answering machines, the digital ones were too expensive and limited at that time.)
I find it hard to believe that POTS supports the dynamic range needed to damage someone's hearing.
https://donotcall.gov/
It helps. It's not perfect, believe me, and for the 30 days between when you register and you're officially on the list, it's hell, but... I'm down to 2-3 robocalls a month from 20-30(and for the 30 days, it was about 5-10 a day. I just didn't answer my phone for a month).
#include <disclaimer.h>
The ones I get are usually credit card scams.
I've heard it said that these calls are coming from offshore making it hard for the FTC to trace.
Too bad we can't set the RIAA and MPAA loose on them.
We've been getting Home Security calls from Oregon and Washington area codes but the caller is an Eliza type robot. It asks a recorded question and the next question is based on your answer. It's done pretty well at working the call including when you interrupt the question and then hangs up. You can just tell it's a robot question and answer package vs a real human. It's just a little too perky and the inflection is just a little off.
Most of the time though we get callers that don't leave a message. Generally I just ignore the call and then do a google lookup on the number and add it to my spammer contact (it tells me I've already looked it up so don't have to look it up again).
A funny one was when we were traveling. We'd called the banks and credit card companies to let them know we were out of town but got a call from a number not in my contact list. They didn't leave a message but called right back. I picked up the second time and they asked for me or my wife, but used my real first name (I go by my middle name) so I hung up. Then they called my wife's number. Since she was driving, I snagged it, cursed them out and hung up again. Turns out it was one of the banks. :) We received an e-mail asking us to contact the bank to confirm we were out traveling. We did tell them that they should identify themselves when calling though :)
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Finally a practical application for Turing test contestants!
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use
Not trying to rain on your parade, and hey, if it works for you, go and do it, but once you have an asterisk PBX and voip working, setting up some caller ID routing rules is almost terminally simple as shown below.
So in /etc/asterisk/exten.conf you'll have a stanza for incoming calls
[provider-in]
Now inside that start if/then routing kicking junk out. Now please be patient with me, I'm old, tired, and this is from memory, and asterisk config language is like F-ing LISP but ten times worse in how even something "simple" needs endless nested parens, brackets, and curlies.
exten => _XX.,2,GotoIf($[${CALLERID(num)}" = "Unknown"]?200)
exten => _XX.,4,GotoIf($["${CALLERID(num):0:3}" = "800"]?200)
Take a wild guess what line number 200 looks like:
exten => _XX.,200,VoiceMail()
exten => _XX.,201,HangUp()
I also have a line 300 termination that simply hangs up on certain blacklisted numbers. and a "ZapaTeller" or whatever its called that squirts SIT (disconnected) tones. And I believe I have a milliwatt termination, and a music on hold termination in there somewhere.
Now as a practical matter this is an excellent way to learn who blocks caller ID and who doesn't. I've made some weird discoveries like one of my kids doctors categorically blocks outgoing caller ID every time he calls (annoying). Also the school. Other than that, no problemo.
Whenever I mention this, I get breathless FUD about how the world might end because a CIA agent can't call me to tell me to hack into NORAD and block the missile launch. Oh wait that was the movie "Wargames" again. Well anyway the point is ignore the FUDders they aren't worth it.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Sometimes you just need a cleverly worded recording: http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/07/10/0052245/when-telemarketers-harass-telecoms-companies
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Why bother waiting for the FTC to come up with an answer, when there's a simple solution readily available (to most people, anyway) right now? If you have the option (and the budget) just kill off your land line altogether, in favor of wireless. Cell phones have been protected from all but opt-in robocalls since 1991. The most important benefit of a land line (always on, remotely powered) essentially disappeared for me when I bought a house that was already wired for FiOS... so upon reflection, my wife and I decided to kill our "VoIP landline" several years back, and we've felt practically no angst at all over that decision. Today, pretty much the only robocalls we receive are from our daughter's school, informing us of closings and wot-not.
The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
FYI, that used to be true for me. But over the past year I get *far* more credit scams than political calls. Sometimes the same scam goes on day after day, and I have even gotten 5 calls in one day from the same number with the same scam!
Why can't somebody invent voicemail service that filters everything by default, except whitelisted numbers? I'd pay for that.
I get on average, 4-6 robocalls every weekday, and being able to do this would be a tremendous timesaver, not to mention, spare me a lot of aggravation.
I work for a large non-profit health system in the midwest. We implemented "robocalls" to serve as appointment reminders. Our patients seem to like and appreciate them. They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out. These calls save time and money, because they reduce no-show rates and they also reduce incidences of people showing up unprepared for the service they need. ("You weren't supposed to eat this morning, unfortunately we can't do the procedure now.")
So, not all robocalls are bad. There just needs to be a law that you can only use automated calls with people who have initiated a business relationship with you.
Politicians always exempt their own calls, of course. And the "previous business relationship" thing is being interpreted very broadly right now. If you donated to the DNC or a candidate in 2008, they interpret that as you wanting junk mail and phone calls for every candidate they have this time around and continue robo-calling.
We need to get politicians to play by the same rules as everyone else. (fat chance)
1 Bar political calls unless A you have registered as %party% or independent B have voted in the last 2 elections (so you don't get calls if you are registered as %other party%
2 If X number of complaints are registered (add 20% to the total for any number on the DNC list) then JAIL the execs of the company (and the BOD) for a period of not less than 2 years.
3 Also Jail the persons running the Call Center for a period of not less than 3 years (and bar them from running any other businesses)
4 in cases where the Call Center is not in the US then follow the chain and the company that is the last jump in the US goes on the hook.
5 The Only defense allowed is A we do not use "cold calls" (and here is the written company policy) B our contract with %call company% specifies the required legal limits are to be followed
6 Any company using fraud or other tricks to bypass the regs now has a TRIPLE sentence
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Most of the time when I give out a phone number to a business it goes to a land line with a call screen-er attached. My friends get the cell phone number. http://www.amazon.com/PHONE-BUTLER-UNWANTED-TELEMARKETING-CALLS/dp/B0008GTP9S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341941553&sr=8-1&keywords=phone+butler This device asks people the type in a number like an office extension. I wipes out nearly all automated calls, wrong numbers that don't speak English and midnight drunks. You might be able to program some smartphones to do this.
VoIP allows the robocallers to move around and hide themselves very easily. Trying to stop the robocallers is worse than whack-a-mole. The robocalls have gotten so bad that I now let the answering machine screen all my incoming calls. Oh, and naturally, if the FTC does decide to put into place new rules, be aware that political robocalls will be exempt.
Asterisk is great for this, google "Asterisk Telemarketer Torture" sometime: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Telemarketer+Torture
A good source of ways to handle unsolicited sales calls: Fun with Phone Solicitors: 50 Ways to Get Even.
I have been cell-phone only for about 10 years, except a brief period after I moved into a new apartment (the apartment required a land line for the security system).
I received a massive, massive amount of telemarketing calls in the first month. About 75% of them were from the local newspaper trying to get me to subscribe. The other 25% or so were politics. So outside of one problem company, political calls are the problem.
I've not had a cold call, a true sales call in years - other than of course the 5,000 or so in a month from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, a publication to which I wish bankruptcy and a good long rot in hades.
The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political.
I get my share of political, but the vast majority, sometimes twice a day, are robocalls from debt collectors trying to reach people who do not and have never lived at my house. The most annoying thing is that their message says "by continuing to listen to this message, you acknowledge that you are XXXX...", That REALLY pisses me off. I feel like changing my answering machine message to say "by leaving a robocall message on this recorder you agree to pay me $1,000 in exchange for which I will maintain your message in its original format for a period of not shorter than 5 minutes."
The next most frequent is credit cards companies pretending like they are my credit card company and offering to lower my rate.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
[Stern, 1980s announcer voice]
In the city of old Detroit, the Overpriced Consumer Products corporation had fallen on hard times. Unable to retain a lucrative telephone marketing plan in the face of rising minimum wage and more stringent employment laws, they created: ROBOCALL.
Robocall, the ultimate telphone marketing system: part man, part machine, RoboCall could dial thousands of potential customers in minutes. All over the country, robocall interrupted dinner, meetings, classrooms, selling timeshares and discount viagra supplies. The board of OCP celebrated their victory over looming insolvency by giving themselves healthy raises, and firing the team responsible for RoboCall's creation. But the residents of Old Detroit wouldn't go down easy....
Because no criminal has ever stolen a credit card number. No sir.
Oh and I forgot another step of my exten.conf script.
Certain numbers get a GOTO to line 100 where I ring every phone in the house plus an analog adapter with a weird phone ringer on it. Mom, Granny, auntie, workplace, friends, coworkers, neighbors, you get the idea, basically if we know them, we get a special ring.
However unknown numbers fall thru to line 50 or so and only ring the regular phones.
You can do multiple lines with voip and selective ringtones and such, but it turns out to be simpler and cheaper to just do some analog weirdness to a special extension.
When I was single and living alone I shut off my ringer and did not accept incoming calls. Message service only... I enjoyed my freedom.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
When they ask what kind of car you have, tell them it's a 1928 Porter, and let them give you a quote on an extended warranty.
Nah, that's harsh and much less effective than this horror..
Even the genuine political calls are scams disguised as polls. "Hi, this is a totally unbiased voter survey conducted by an independent research company. If you found out that Candidate A rapes puppies and Candidate B spends 25 hours a day working unpaid for charities, would that affect your voting preferences?"
And of course even the retailers get around the call restrictions by using these bogus surveys to push their products. "By answering this market survey, you can make sure retailers know what you like so they can improve their services. Now, previous surveys showed that 11 out of 10 housewives prefer new Oomph! detergent over the major competitors that may or may not have baby seal meat and maggots in them. Would you say you agree strongly, agree very strongly, or agree more than words can describe?"
Oh, and my personal favorite: fraudulent law enforcement charities that imply without actually saying so that your contribution will make cops like you better and give you a break when they see that decal on your windshield. I emailed the sheriff in my county that these clowns claimed to represent and he assured me he had never heard of them; shortly thereafter a notice went up on the department's website making it clear they did not support or approve of the solicitation from the whatever-it-was Deputy Association.
If I taught my two twentysomethings nothing else useful when we were homeschooling, it was never to believe anything that anybody ever said to them. Unfortunately I didn't think to save that lesson for last, so I was unable to teach them anything else afterwards.
sorry but I disagree.
the best way to address a hidden network area is to never respond to their packets. 'firewall' them. they will go away or waste their time (both good outcomes).
I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
the trick is setting up the filter like and pass-list, just like all spam systems. I'm getting enough of either filterable names and number prefixes OR hits on websites that crowdsource the number and give a spam score.
CSing it seems the only way to defend against this. playing back a beep sequence is not going to work enough to justify it but NOT passing them thru will certainly waste their time a little bit (in that it ties up their machine for a bit and again and again, a few more times until they time me out of their system).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I usually get the "this is your captain speaking" cruise scam. Usually at least once a month or more on my work phone
This is all I have to say about that!
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I have simple old POTS (not even cellular, in this specific case).
its so simple to have all your phones or ans machines downstream of a simple DPST relay and use a caller id modem (which your system does have, of course) and some simple embedded linux or even arduino stuff. it does need a net connection and it needs live lookups before it passes the relay click.
I have been running a script to lookup numbers as they come into my callerid (using the nice tool suite 'network caller id' or ncid) and then do a quick web query to find if they are good guys or bad guys. so far, it working well. (so far...)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Hi, I'm the only political robocall cop in the country ! Article about me here this week > http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/27324-1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Best, Shaun Dakin Founder The National Political Do Not Contact Registry www.StopPoliticalCalls.org A National Non Profit fighting for voter privacy rights
Join with us ! Shaun Dakin The National Political Do Not Contact Registry www.StopPoliticalCalls.org
Imagine this: if instead of just ignoring the packets, you could somehow make their DNS server say "no such host."
Your analogy doesn't apply. ACD systems don't care about non-answers, they don't remove the number then. If they get an answering machine they can detect, they drop the call but keep you - but if they get a number disconnected or other telco error, they remove you - at least from that campaign. Nothing stops the meatbag in charge from feeding you into the hopper again later.
Disclaimer: I used to work with these systems. I do know how they work, having implemented them. (for a legitimate collections agency, not bullshit "Want a cruise!?" nonsense)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
1. The Do Not Call List:
A. Is opt-out only for legally-operating businesses.
B. Is a sales leads vector for illegal businesses, or businesses that can make a claim to a pre-existing customer relationship.
2. ANI/Caller ID, prepaid cell phones, VOIP:
A. As others have noted, VOIP makes it trivial to spoof ANI/Caller ID data, requiring a detailed (and often costly) "harassing call" investigation on the part of the consumer's carrier to decipher the actual source, if possible.
B. Prepaid cell phones are ubiquitous now, and allow one to easily use a line (or merely an ANI number) for nefarious purposes and ditch it before it reaches a threshold of suspicion.
3. Consumers lack the sophistication to delineate legal "annoying calls" from illegal "harassing calls."
A. Title 47 has no longer has the teeth to grasp offenders unless they are extremely high-profile in their offenses. 10 years ago, it was a misdemeanor to call a wireless device with an automated service or to "spam-fax." A caller was to identify themselves and their employer and to provide a means by which to opt-out of future calls.
B. Thus, Federal and local regulatory and law enforcement agencies don't have the sophistication, funding, or inclination to tackle the problem.
C. And, carriers don't want to be in the business of preventing calls of any kind.
From my recent personal experience, a large number of the fraud businesses (credit-rebuilding scams) are leveraging a combination of all of these phenomena in order to operate with impunity: they use a robodailer, pitch only when a person answers (not voicemail), and use a "burn-phone"/prepaid cell number as their ANI source or callback opt-out number. I get about 2-3 of these calls per month on my mobile, a number that isn't publicly shared in any other directory than the Do Not Call List. I have a constantly-growing list of 20 numbers that my carrier now blocks, but I believe that the scammers are only likely to be using a given number for only days at a time.
Only when the correct # is pressed your phone commences to ring.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The vast majority of "robocalls" I receive are political. These calls are specifically exempted from the rules.
FYI, that used to be true for me. But over the past year I get *far* more credit scams than political calls. Sometimes the same scam goes on day after day, and I have even gotten 5 calls in one day from the same number with the same scam!
The #1 winner around here is calls from an alarm company. Not my alarm company, a competing alarm company. They use pictures of cops in their big expensive color ads in the local coupon guides. In fact, the owner of this alarm company is an ex-cop. They call multiple times a day, and force their employees to rattle off long live speeches to my answering machine. Presumably because recorded speeches are illegal.
Oh, and did I mention I'm on both the state AND Federal Do-Not-Call lists?
This guy records his telemarketer calls and plays games with them. In this video he told the telemarketer he called a crime scene and is a suspect in a murder. http://www.digyourowngrave.com/tom-mabe-telemarketer-crime-scene-prank/
Isn't it this simple? Dedicate a code like say *811 or some such as "report last incoming call as an unsolicited robocall". Require all telcos to log the real source of the reported call. Any caller with enough robocall reports is required to account for their outgoing calls, and if unable is forced to pay the $500 statutory per-call penalty (that's what it is in California) to each call recipient, per call. Give the government say 15% of the penalty and I think no robocaller would be able to fly under the radar for long.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Why is it not OPT IN???? You have the patient right there in the office. They al;ready have to fill out about a gazillion forms every time they walk iint he door. Why not ask them about robocalls????
I can't count the number of "press 1 to speak to a representative, press 2 to be removed" scam calls I get. Most of them are from "my credit card company", "my mortgage company", "my xxxx company". Press "2" once and you are screwed as your phone number ends up being sold to every scammer in the world. Press "1" and the people curse at you if you ask to be removed from the list (and you are still screwed as your phone number ends up being sold to every scammer in the world).
These people deserve a special place in Hell, right next to SMS (texting) scammers (which actually cost me money).
I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
Uhhh, yes, sending them the "invalid number" tones is more effective than ignoring them if you put a value on being able to use your phone for what you want instead of it being used by them.
If you ignore them, they keep calling. They don't care, it's a MACHINE. The machine has been told to call your number. If you don't answer your number stays on the list. Automatic. No person is ever involved in that process. It's not a waste of their time because you are still a potential customer. Whoever they are being paid by to make calls will still pay them.
CSing it seems the only way to defend against this. playing back a beep sequence is not going to work enough to justify it...
Don't know what "CSing" it means, but yes, the SIT tones are the system defined way of detecting "invalid number". It really is a waste of their time to call invalid numbers, since invalid numbers can never be a customer.
but NOT passing them thru will certainly waste their time a little bit
Nope. Nobody will ever know. It's a machine. The machine will call you over and over and over again without tiring of it. The only way it will stop is when the contract ends, and then you'll just get on the next list for the next contract.
While you may think it's good that it "ties up their machine", you have to remember who has the hardware and who doesn't. They have digital trunks that can handle a huge volume of calls, you have a single wire. They can be making tens or hundreds of other calls at the same time they are calling you; you can make NONE while they are calling you, and worse is that nobody can call you -- they get a busy signal.
I'd use a car analogy, but I have a better one. It's like saying that the SETI software that you are allowing SETI to run on your computer in the background is wasting your time. It's happening in the background, you are still using the computer. You've lost nothing. The robocallers lose nothing.
Everyone has their own set of values. Letting them keep calling you because you think they are going to get tired or annoyed and stop is, well, your decision, but it's not based on facts.
I work for a large non-profit health system in the midwest. We implemented "robocalls" to serve as appointment reminders. Our patients seem to like and appreciate them.
My "large profit health system" implemented the same thing. Didn't bother telling me ahead of time. I do not appreciate a robocaller calling my office (where several people work) and not bothering to ask for me, it just starts spouting that I "have an appointment with ..." and the details and any special instructions to whoever happens to pick up the phone. I consider it a violation of HIPAA to do that. Some of the details are pretty specific, and there is no way to be sure I'll ever get the message.
They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out.
I've been trying to opt-out ever since they started doing this and they simply cannot do it. I was told today that it was not possible to opt-out. The only option is to give the system a different number where it is almost impossible to reach me, but at least they aren't dumping my medical information to anyone else.
These calls save time and money,
Yes, because we all know how important it is to save a phone operator in a medical office "time and money", compared to obeying federal law and patient requests.
So, not all robocalls are bad.
You used a very poor example of a good one. At least the credit card scammers aren't spreading private information around after being told not to.
Your case is different from the robocall problem. The problem is not with automatic systems that targeting individual customers with customized messages. The problem is scams and businesses that call anyone and everyone with the same message. So, all robocalls are bad. Appointment reminders are not robocalls.
Oh, and did I mention I'm on both the state AND Federal Do-Not-Call lists?
I had a lawn service company that would not quit calling me. When I'd demand to be taken off their list, they'd smart-mouth me, claiming I must have used them in the past (I had never used any such service, much less them), or that the DNC list did not apply to them, and so on. One day I just literally snapped and screamed at the top of my lungs "DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN YOU FUCKING CUNT"--and since that moment I have never heard from them again ;-)
By robocalling them!
Most of the political poll calls I get are scams, but not the type that are really trying to sell cruise packages. "We'd like your input on these very important issues. Would you vote for the opposition candidate who's for truth, justice, and the American way; or re-elect the incumbent candidate who voted against the Puppies, Orphans and Nuns act? Would your opinion be different if we told you that they were *really cute* puppies? And that orphans all froze to death? And the nuns ended up turning feral? Press 1 to save America. Press 2 to let the terrorists win."
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
My "large profit health system" implemented the same thing. Didn't bother telling me ahead of time. I do not appreciate a robocaller calling my office (where several people work) and not bothering to ask for me, it just starts spouting that I "have an appointment with ..." and the details and any special instructions to whoever happens to pick up the phone. I consider it a violation of HIPAA to do that. Some of the details are pretty specific, and there is no way to be sure I'll ever get the message.
If they are doing that then they ARE in violation of HIPAA. Tell them to kill that system, or report them.
This is getting complicated. Can't we just kill them?
If people don't remember to show up, or show up unprepared, charge them for the appointment anyway. (Most doctor's offices I know of already charge for missed appointments.) It's their problem, not yours.
Personally, I don't even need those little "appointment reminder" cards they give you... haven't needed them since I owned my first PDA (a Palm III back in the '90s) and now iPhone, i.e., something with a Calendar app.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
for a legitimate collections agency
You had me up to that point.
Hey now, those guys seemed to try to work with people, not just say "pay up or else." At least that's what I heard whenever I was passing by. Never heard them going after acquaintances.
Doesn't matter anyway, poor leadership on the part of the owner has been bleeding the company dry, ironically. Been trying to develop some tools to sell out to other such companies but failing miserably at it.
I'd name names, but I already posted non-anonymously and don't want them coming after me. It's bad enough I got screwed a paycheck when I left, I don't need their lawyer hounding me.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Robocalls have gotten more aggressive than ever. I get at least two of them a day, most of them about lowering my credit card interest rate (I don't even have a credit card!). ALL of them have the Caller ID info spoofed or missing, usually saying stuff like "Wireless Caller", or "Unavailable", or just the name of the state they're (supposedly) calling from. I've even gotten some that have the Caller ID spoofed using local names and numbers! Then, if somehow you DO answer (Such as at work, where you are required to answer the phone whenever it rings), it starts playing the recording IMMEDIATELY. It doesn't even wait for you to say "hello", the very nanosecond you pick up the phone, it starts playing. Things like Tele-Zapper or playing the tri-tone error sound on your answering machine doesn't work anymore. They used to, but then the criminals got smart, and now the robodialers are programmed specifically to ignore the tri-tone error sound. That's why the recording starts playing immediately the very instant you pick up the phone. It doesn't even wait and listen for "hello" or the tri-tones.
Something else I've noticed...a majority of the time, they hang up during the fourth ring, before my answering machine can pick up. My guess is they do this so that they don't get charged a connection fee when the machine answers. So, I changed my answering machine to pick up after only three rings. Now, instead of them getting money from me, they're losing money whenever they call me. I know it's not much...but anything to help put these people out of business is better than nothing!
Obviously it's useless for robocallers, but one trick I used to do with real-human telemarketers...if I KNEW it was a telemarketer calling, I would answer the phone and say "[Random city name] police department, Officer Randall speaking". 99% of the time, they would immediately hang up, and not call back.
If they are not opt-in they are bad.
its not even political. its a scam. 'we would like to take your poll on some issues. oh, and stay online so we can tell you about our CRUISE PACKAGE!'
its all a scam.
one thing I'm working on is a hardware device that will use a caller id modem, get the # string and check things like mrnumber.com (which is easy to script/call). the spam number is easy to get and I can basically NOT let the call ring thru if its on the spam list. if its not, the relay will click, the 2 wires will pass thru to the actual phone system in my house and I'll hear the ring.
best way to avoid them is to not even give them an answer. they think there's no one ever there. best way to deal with them (since killing them is illegal. I think?)
I have "invested" in two Digitone Call blockers. The call blocker will block 80 numbers/area codes. I have two because the first one is now full. The device works great, which the FTC doesn't. The "Do Not Call List" is a 100% joke. If you hook the call blocker up where the phone line comes into your home, and connect all the phones in your house to the "Tel" side of the blocker, the phones will never ring for a blocked call. The caller ID comes between the 1st and second ring so if you connect the call blocker to the line parallel with your phones the phones will ring one time if it's a blocked number and then it hangs up on the blocked caller. It blocks Unknown, Anonymous, Unavailable and Out of Area Callers. I have mine set up to block all 800 and 877 numbers. It's bad news when 80 numbers aren't enough. A large part of the problem right now is political calls. I have the 202, Washington D.C. area code completely blocked. Had two calls yesterday from there.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Additionally, this is being done all over the country by the exact same methodology, by organizations which have similarly reviewed it for compliance.
Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information". The fact that this patient HAS health information is something nobody else needs to know, as far as I'm concerned.
What you say is the same thing that the "local profit health" organization said when I complained about a letter from the diabetes councilling office arrived, with my name on the front, and hand-written at the top "diabetes". "Oh, that's not patient information", they said. "Nobody could figure out who the patient is and what the current health information is". I think someone would have to be dumber than those people are not to be able to figure it out.
Additionally, this is being done all over the country by the exact same methodology, by organizations which have similarly reviewed it for compliance.
Yeah, saving money at the expense of patient privacy is a no brainer for any health organization. It would take someone with a bit of money to actually sue them, so they aren't scared. And if you sue your doctor or "local health organization", at least in this town, you wind up without a doctor or local health organization.
Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information".
No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic - nothing more specific than "Bring a photo ID" or "Please do not eat or drink for 8 hours prior to the appointment".
PHI actually means protected health information. Some types of information are in a protected class by law and some are not.
Get a robocall--press *13 (for example ) to automatically report the previous incoming call as a do-not-call violator. Reports will dwarf web-based reporting even though awareness will be minimal.
Then have the NSA use their AT&T "listening rooms" to track down Rachel.
There's already a * code for reporting harassment. It costs money and requires separately filing a police report.
And calling you up with instructions and giving them to anyone there is a violation.
The following identifiers of the individual or of relatives, employers, or household members of the individual must be removed to achieve the âoesafe harborâ method of de-identification: (A) Names; (B) All geographic subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, except for the initial three digits of a zip code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of Census (1) the geographic units formed by combining all zip codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people; and (2) the initial three digits of a zip code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people is changed to 000; (C) All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to the individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death; and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older; (D) Telephone numbers; (E) Fax numbers; (F) Electronic mail addresses: (G) Social security numbers; (H) Medical record numbers; (I) Health plan beneficiary numbers; (J) Account numbers; (K) Certificate/license numbers; (L) Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers; (M) Device identifiers and serial numbers; (N) Web Universal Resource Locators (URLs); (O) Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers; (P) Biometric identifiers, including finger and voice prints; (Q) Full face photographic images and any comparable images; and ® any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, except as permitted for re-identification purposes provided certain conditions are met. In addition to the removal of the above-stated identifiers, the covered entity may not have actual knowledge that the remaining information could be used alone or in combination with any other information to identify an individual who is subject of the information. 45 C.F.R.  164.514(b).
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html
The be sure to CYA, because they are failing at determining what is and is not PHI. The IRB and lawyers at our hospital would not let that one pass at all.
The following identifiers of the individual or of relatives, employers, or household members of the individual must be removed to achieve the Ãoesafe harborà method of de-identification: (A) Names; (B) All geographic subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, except for the initial three digits of a zip code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of Census (1) the geographic units formed by combining all zip codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people; and (2) the initial three digits of a zip code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people is changed to 000; (C) All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to the individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death; and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older; (D) Telephone numbers; (E) Fax numbers; (F) Electronic mail addresses: (G) Social security numbers; (H) Medical record numbers; (I) Health plan beneficiary numbers; (J) Account numbers; (K) Certificate/license numbers; (L) Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers; (M) Device identifiers and serial numbers; (N) Web Universal Resource Locators (URLs); (O) Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers; (P) Biometric identifiers, including finger and voice prints; (Q) Full face photographic images and any comparable images; and î any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, except as permitted for re-identification purposes provided certain conditions are met. In addition to the removal of the above-stated identifiers, the covered entity may not have actual knowledge that the remaining information could be used alone or in combination with any other information to identify an individual who is subject of the information. 45 C.F.R. à 164.514(b).
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html [hhs.gov]
No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic -
Yes, my name is read. Just my first name, but there is only one person in this office with that name. Clearly identified.
The name of the provider AND the name of the doctor are both provided. It is trivial to go online and find out what specialty that doctor has.
As for "generic instructions", when a urologist calls and says to show up with a "comfortably full bladder", you can be pretty sure that there is some urological issue that is being treated. I consider the fact that I'm SEEING a urologist to be personal information that the urologist and clinic should NOT be telling anyone not involved in the treatment.
I've also had a pharmacy call here with the message "your prescription is ready" (no name, no identification of the pharmacy, and no other information at all). What a useless message. Which of the 8 does that message apply to? That means it has to be spread to everyone just in case.
There's no need. Had you actually read, you'd know that the 3-tone operator message prefix being played will cause the ACD to hang up the call and remove you from the campaign.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...