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'This Is Your Second and Final Notice' Robocallers Revealed
nbauman writes "A New York Times consumer columnist tracked down the people who run a 'This is your second and final notice" robocall operation. The calls came from Account Management Assistance, which promises to negotiate lower credit card rates with banks. One woman paid them $1,000, and all they did was give her a limited-time zero-percent credit card that she could have gotten herself. AMA has a post office box in Orlando, Florida. The Better Business Bureau has a page for Your Financial Ladder, which does business as Account Management Assistance, and as Economic Progress. According to a Florida incorporation filing, Economic Progress is operated by Brenda Helfenstine, with her husband Tony. The Arkansas attorney general has sued Your Financial Ladder for violating the Telemarketing Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services investigated Your Financial Ladder, but the investigator went to 1760 Sundance Drive, St. Cloud, which turned out to be a residence, and gave up. The Times notes that you can type their phone number (855-462-3833) into http://800notes.com/ and get lots of reports on them."
These fuckers relentless harassed my grandmother in her final days despite my efforts to put her on the do not call list and working with her telephone company to try to identify them.
Take all their money. All of it. Take it all and put it into something that helps the elderly.
I would guess that it relates to a certain way of thinking about the world, where everything an individual does on their own is a criminal matter, and everything a person does for a company is a civil matter.
It probably also relates to the "just doing my job" mentality where something becomes less morally objectionable merely because you're doing it as part of a job.
The Do Not Call list works very well for what it was intended to do. It stops legal calls from businesses you have no association with. Do you remember the "would you like to change long distance providers" calls? What if Dish Network could call you every week to ask you if you wanted to switch off cable?
The problem is that the DNC list does *nothing* to stop the following groups:
Congress chose to allow the first 3 for their own benefit, and no law can stop the fourth, only really tough enforcement and holding phone companies accountable.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
They do not scam large corporations with deep pockets.
Basically, a good scammer knows to not scam marks that can cause him trouble. You can scam a million people with no resources to fight you and be fine. But go against one mark who does have the resources and you're toast.
Humans might be the top of the food chain in the animal kingdom, but we are the bottom of the food chain in the society we have built. Corporations, criminals, politicians - every parasite in existence preys upon the common citizen first and foremost, because we are the easy targets.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There is a lot of money in violating the telemarketing rules. One illegal voice broadcaster was paid over $6 million by just one customer in only 10 months [1]. Large fines against violators are often uncollectible and ignored by scofflaws [2]. Violators often engage in money laundering and brag about their “bulletproof” broadcasting facilities that can’t be traced [3]. I personally received over 300 prerecorded telemarketing calls in some years, and I was able to track down the people behind only a tiny fraction of those calls, despite my concerted efforts in recording calls, filing lawsuits, subpoenaing phone company records, and hundreds of hours of my own time. Anyone who tries to find the source of these illegal calls will find the vast majority lead back to shadowy, untraceable names such as Transfers Argentina, Asia Pacific Telecom, TeleEurope, and Castle Rock Capital Management. Trying to track down a text message spammer is a similar exercise in futility.
Many studies have show that massive penalties don't work as a deterrent because perpetrators never plan to get caught. What does work is increasing the likelihood of getting caught.
[1] See declaration of Roberto C. Menjivar at 30 (totaling the amount paid to Voice Touch by National Auto Warranty during a 10 month period at $6,013,500). Document 42 in FTC v. Network Foundations, LLC., No. 1:09-cv-02929 (N.D. Ill. 2009).
[2] See Order of Forfeiture, File No. EB-02-TC-120 (released Jan. 5, 2004) (finding Fax.com liable for the maximum fine of $11,000 for each of the 489 fax violations, for a total fine of $5,379,000).
[3] Menjivar decl. at 20–22.
On Android: Create a contact (I call it "Spam"). Click settings->More and add to reject list. Whenever you get a spam call, select "update existing contact", select "Spam" and no more calls from that number. For a home phone, use a VOIP provider (I use and can recommend Galaxy Voice). They should have a web page that lets you add numbers to a blacklist. Also select the "anonymous call rejection" feature which will block all calls where the caller id has been intentionally blocked. By doing the above it is very rare for me to receive a spam call.