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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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
I am officially gone from
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.
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.
Except of course, that the spammers and fishers don't care at all about that.
My wife's cell regularly gets called with such things, and since the caller id is bogus and it's a robot on the other end, there's not much you can do to report it as they've gone to some lengths to hide who they actually are.
I think the phone companies should be required to block all calls which don't originate from the broadcast caller id. I generally don't answer anything that says "Private Caller".
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I've simply taken to not believing anybody who phones me ... which means the very tiny amount that are legitimate have an awfully difficult time not getting told to fuck off. The fact of the matter is, about 90% or more of all the calls I get are outright fraudulent.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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)
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.
What I would like to see is for the Do Not Call complaints to be publicly tracked. I've submitted many complaints -- mostly against credit card scammers -- and considering that the same idiots are still calling after dozens of complaints, it's a pretty safe bet that nobody's actually looking at them. Since there's no visibility into the process, though, I don't really have any evidence that the FTC is ignoring the problems.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Asterisk is great for this, google "Asterisk Telemarketer Torture" sometime: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Telemarketer+Torture
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
The Do Not Call list should charge huge fines and reimburse the reporting party something like $50 per incident.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It's a shame it's come to that, but what can you do?
Apparently, you need to schedule an appointment with them. Of course, don't be home when they come by. Once they show up, it should be relatively easy to figure out who they are and report them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I am getting occasional spam text messages and phone calls on my cell phone. This will probably increase for everybody in the future.
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.
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...
I'm on the list and still get a crapload of idiot calls.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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.
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.
I have all the numbers. Unfortunately with a few exceptions, they hang up without leaving a message. I do a search on the number and find out others have answered and they're one spammer or another so I add the number to my list.
I think just not answering the phone unless you're in my contact list is probably the best idea (that's what I do now).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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.