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FTC Gets 744 New Ideas On How To Hang Up On Robocallers

Posted by timothy on from the I'd-prefer-starving-them-in-a-cage dept.

coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today said the submission period for its Robocall Challenge had ended and it got 744 new ideas for ways to shut down the annoying automated callers. The FTC noted that the vast majority of telephone calls that deliver a prerecorded message trying to sell something to the recipient are illegal. The FTC regulates these calls under the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Challenge was issued to developing technical or functional solutions and proofs of concepts that can block illegal robocalls which, despite the agency's best efforts, seem to be increasing."

4 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Leave a fax machine plugged in during the day. by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This works well for land lines. The calls stop. On my cell, it hasn't been much of a problem.

    --
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    1. Re:Leave a fax machine plugged in during the day. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When I was in law school, I worked at the legal clinic. They had a fax machine that got all sorts of spam. So, I followed all the proper techniques for opting out. Didn't stop the spam. So, I sued all of the companies for statutory damages. Winning a couple of those stopped the spam real quick.

      I still remember a phone conversation I had with one of the lawyers. He was talking about how I shouldn't waste everyone's time and money by suing his client. And I said they shouldn't waste everyone's time and money by spamming them and using up their resources. The funny thing is, the FRCP 11 and 37 sanctions imposed by the court caused by the out of state firm playing fast and lose ended up being more than the damage award. They really shouldn't have messed with the largest law firm in the state, especially when everyone works for the fun of it.

  2. Robo lawsuit trolling by Picass0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've arrived at the point where I hate my land line. I'd drop it in a second but my wife thinks it's important. None of our friends or family ever call the land line, it's always trolls. I dunno.

    But I digress. I had a new one last night. My land line rings and I can't help myself, I need to see what asshole it is this time. I've been getting a lot of survey calls recently and I'm now openly hostile to them "get a real job, f-ck off". This time it's a robocall collecting names for a class action lawsuit against a medicine. "Have you ever taken whateveritscalled and experienced the following side effects? Blah Blah Blah. If so you are entitled to receive penies on the dollar while our bloodsucking ambulance chasers get rich"

    So now we have lawsuit trolling to look forward to.

  3. Asterisk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I solve this problem by having asterisk prescreen all incoming calls. An IVR prompt requires you to press a combination of numbers before it actually rings any phones. A white and black list for caller ID data are used to bypass or simply play line disconnected tones and hang up.

    It's the only reason I still have a POTS line. I never give out my cell.