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FTC Gets 744 New Ideas On How To Hang Up On Robocallers
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."
Or maybe just actually investigate consumer complaints.
The problem is the law. There are so many loopholes in it you could drive a Mac truck through them. For example, the whole "if we did business with you before we can contact you again" part. There is no definition of "doing business" and it can include things like they sent you snail-mail spam. It also exempts the most annoying which are the political robocalls. In short, the law itself is contributing to the problem.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
There are so many loopholes in it you could drive a Mac truck through them.
Is Apple making wheeled vehicles now?
This works well for land lines. The calls stop. On my cell, it hasn't been much of a problem.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Somewhere along the line, it must be technically possible to identify that the number isn't coming from where it claims to be.
Most of the obvious fraudulent crap is all using fake caller IDs and they're calling another country.
If I could simply tell the phone company that I'm not willing to accept numbers which don't match their origin, that would kill off all of the crap I get. And I don't care about the legitimate ones, because by masking their real phone number they're no better than the scammers.
Unfortunately, these guys lobby hard enough that they make sure nobody could pass anything which cut into their business -- because they feel it's their legitimate right to call us.
It's gotten to the point where even the ones with legal exemptions like charities and political parties usually get an earful of profanity.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The problem is the law. There are so many loopholes in it...
Actually, if you look in the summary, that's exactly not what the FTC found. All of the loopholes are legal ways for companies to call you that are still not desired by the recipient. But the majority of robocalls, it says, are illegal. Meaning they're not driving through loopholes, they're just ignoring the law.
Follow the money trail. Once you know what company is getting the money, find out who owns the company.
Once you find out who owns the company, you shoot them.
Problem solved.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
The feds and ISP's are too busy busting kids for downloading movies in their dorm rooms.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I wouldn’t worry about the Apple Mac Truck being a death trap; after all they are all very well engineered devices.
It's the other things that worry me; such as add-ons like the "Standard fuel pump to iGas adapter", "sloped driveway parking adapter", and the fact that I could only get gas, wiper blades, air freshener and other iTruck items from the approved iTruckStore. But then again ... they really do make the best adapters; and the door is on the bottom!! *mind blown*
-- sent from my S3 --
what we need now is an overzealous federal prosecutor looking to make an name for themselves and perhaps perform some act of societal penance.
won't anybody help?
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Better yet, agree to the sale.
Then once they get you one the phone with the person who takes your credit card info, hang up. This will result in a cost to the call center and the agent who called you will get reprimanded for the failed conversion.
I tried this. Unfortunately, the fact that I actually wanted to talk to somebody got me bumped to some sort of "possible target" list, where I get called probably 5 times as frequently now. Before starting your strategy, I got called maybe once every few weeks. It bumped up to once or twice a day after I actually talked to somebody. *sigh*
Excellent. That means they are too busy to call me.
Everybody else do it too. You won't regret it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They would just claim it is a square with rounded corners.