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FCC May Permit Robocalls To Cell Phones -- If They Are Calling a Wrong Number
An anonymous reader writes There have been plenty of false rumors about cell phones being
opened up to telemarketers, but now the FCC is actually
considering it. From the article: "Consumers have long had the support of government to try to
control these calls, chiefly through the Telephone Consumer
Protection Act, which actually allows consumers to file lawsuits and collect penalties
from companies that pepper them with robocalls or text messages
they didn't agree to receive. But now the Federal Communications Commission is considering
relaxing a key rule and allowing businesses to call or text your
cellphones without authorization if they say they called a wrong
number. The banking industry and collections industry are pushing
for the change." In one
case recently, AT&T called one person 53 times after he
told them they had a wrong number...and ended up paying $45 million
to settle the case. Around 40 million phone numbers are "recycled" each year in the
U.S. Twice, I've had to dump a number and get a new one because
I was getting so many debt collection calls looking for someone
else. Apparently the FCC commissioners may not be aware of the
magnitude of the "wrong number" debt collection calls and aren't
aware that lots of people still have per-minute phone plans.
Anyone can file
comments on this proposal with the FCC.
Maybe it's time to abandon normal phones now.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
They think that Net Neutrality generated ire of consumers...that didn't piss off 1/10th of the people that this will piss off.
Instead of filing comments, can we send robocalls to the Commissioners' cell phone, and say we reached a wrong number because we intended to call someone who cared?"
"If they *be* calling a wrong number". Don't Slashdot got any editors no more?
My robo caller only calls wrong numbers at least that is what the victims on the other side of the line say pretty often.
Just let the robo caller ask if Mr smith is available
Oops, wrong story!
I have no issue with them being able to call me without legal repercussions... once. After that, it's their job to update their robocall lists. I've informed them that they no longer have the correct number. Any further "mistakes" should be fully punishable.
I've already had cold sales calls (from a person, not a robocall) where they ask for a non-existent person, I tell them they have a wrong number, and they launch into "oh, I'm sorry, but as long as I've got you on the phone, let me tell about the great deal we're offering on replacement windows..."
It's just that the pacing and tone of voice made it clear to me that the whole thing was scripted in advance to go that way, that the "oops, sorry, wrong number" was simply a lie told in the hopes that I would not report them for violating the do not call list.
The FCC complaint office is useless. I've submitted multiple complaints for robo calls and have never heard back from them.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Just don't make it sound like that Jar-Jar Binks gag up there in the headline
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Thomas Wheeler, Chairman (District of Columbia)
Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner (Connecticut)
Ajit Pai, Commissioner (Kansas)
Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner (South Carolina)
Michael O'Rielly, Commissioner (New York)
Use a pre-recorded message with a robodialer.
Don't forget to mention that you dialed a wrong number!
The Federalist Society recently posted a podcast on this subject.
http://www.fed-soc.org/multime...
The issues, and unintended side effects of The Telephone Consumer Protection Act are more extensive than you probably imagine.I recommend that podcast as TFA for this thread.
Why are *any* robocalls allowed? In most (perhaps all) places they fit the definition of criminal harassment, and a computer certainly has no free speech rights.
They don't even proofread the fucking summary here anymore?
Oh how the great have fallen.
"Sorry - wrong number," as a get out of jail free card? They might as well get rid of the phone protection part.
Um. At that point it is no longer a wrong number.
Glad ATT got slapped.
You racka disaprin!!!
Who the fuck wrote the summary? Who the fuck wrote the summary title?
Whoever they are - YOU RACKA DISAPRIN!
American idiots.
... for calls to cellular numbers: Caller pays.
Have gnu, will travel.
anyone though it was a good idea to make some one receiving a call pay needs sacking from the FCC
$45 MILLION dollars for annoying phone calls
That's the kind of lawsuit that causes the lobbyists to ride to Washington.
.
What is so difficult about the FCC understanding that I do not want calls on my mobile from robocallers and/or telemarketers.
Getting away with telemarketing by posing as a survey or non-profit. And just like the "No Soliciting" sign on my front door, you can sue door to door sales if they knock on your door selling services, but not if they say "We're doing a survey for solar panels, would you be interested in buying some?"
Oops worded that wrong...
Getting away a telemarketing to posing as an survey or non-profit. And just like they "No Soliciting" sign on da front door, you cin sue door 2 door sales if day knock on da door selling services, but'nt if day say "We're doing a survey for solar panels, du be interested in buyng sum?"
They a changin'
I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize anyway, and I recommend everyone else do the same.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If they a calling a wrong-a number, it's-a all right.
I want a fine was easier to collect. $45 million seems excessive for 53 phone calls but most of us have no way to easily track down the perpetrator nor collect any award short of a lawsuit. And unless you have a well defined deep-pockets violator, good luck getting an attorney. I have received 2-3 and have no reasonable recourse to collect any money. I want an instant $50 for every wrong telemarketing/debt collection call.
And given the large number of businesses out there, they all will be willing to take that one free bite of the apple. Look at all the businesses around in your area. Imagine if each one was allowed 1 pre-recorded call without penalty. Especially as a "wrong number". Do you have time to ask each and every one explicitly to be put on their do-not-call list?
on their cell. See if they still wanna go through with this.
I get robocalls from our pharmacy letting us know a prescription is ready. I'm okay with that. I've also gotten fraud alert calls from my bank. I'm okay with that, too. I don't want to ban all robocalls, however, I think that the current rules are good: You have to have explicit permission in order to do a robocall to a number. If this goes through, you know that 100% of the scammy telemarketers are going to claim "sorry, wrong number" if you complain. This will effectively gut the prohibition of unauthorized robocalling.
I can go months without making a phone call in my personal life. Work is a different story. I would do everything in my power to eliminate a cellular telephone from my personal life. Mifi access point might make a good alternative, or even just not having one for personal use. If enough people did this the cellular companies may get the hint and start petitioning to change the rule back.
http://www.fcc.gov/contact-us
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Kill everyone responsible for propsing or considering this.
Fix the fucking cell system so that it becomes impossible to block or spoof your number. Why in the fuck can't I know who is calling me?
Well, I've sent in my complaint .. for what it's worth.
"http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/01/17/176248/fcc-may-permit-robocalls-to-cell-phones----if-they-are-calling-a-wrong-number Do not, repeat, DO NOT open up cell phones to telemarketing or any other dialing scam. While you're at it, put teeth into the current telemarketing scams, fake caller IDs, and all the rest. You KNOW what's going you; you just need to find the balls to do something about it. "
I mean, in Europe you don't pay if someone else calls you. So there is a common trick if some salesperson calls you "oh, one moment please", put the phone somewhere and check 30 minutes later if they are still on the line (usually not). Costs them money and time, not you.
And on mobile phones you have programs to block numbers from phoning and smsing. Much easier than regulations.
...to be able to have an entry in my contacts named "Spam", add the number of a telemarketer, block it, and never hear from them again.
Caveat: Each time I add a number to "Spam", I must unblock, then block it. Apparently, the blocking action operates only on the numbers that are in the contact entry at the time the block is applied.
No it is the kind of lawsuit that gets the management at a company with $19 billion in net income to actually take notice and change how they do things.
IBID
How is robocalling any different from war dialing?
Wrong number = 1 call just one. 53 Calls = Harassment and should equal a fine. Once I say this person is not at this number they should be prohibited from calling again.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Instead of ranting here on Slashdot, use the link to make your point.
Make your point using clear logic, without emotion.
I wrote mine and stated that instead of enlarging the allowed robocalls, that all robocalls not associated with local schools, utilities or emergency services should be blocked, and that the ones allowed are strictly for valid communications, and not for any kind of fiscally related calls.
That would include blocking political calls as well as calls from charity organizations since the companies that used to robocall now use charities to make their calls giving them a fixed percentage (probably negligible) for every sale they make.
Letting debt collectors make robocalls would be worse than the political calls and charities combined.
I also suggested increasing the fines for regular robocalls with callerid intact, 10x for robocalls with callerid blocked and 20x for robocalls where the callerid is spoofed. All of the fines would be paid to the person who received the calls, not the government.
How about a law that forces phone salesmen, charities and bill collectors to have a prefix to their numbers such that any phone can block 100% of those calls before the phone rings? Put teeth in the law such that anyone trying to bypass the law not only gets bankrupted but also spends time in a federal prison.
They do listen, but they generally only go after the most egregious. Here's an article at http://www.tormentingtelemarketers.com/2015/01/fcc-looking-at-permitting-robocalls/ that discusses this, and have links to the FCC comment site for this. Also, an interesting idea on how to get rid of telemarketers by eliminating the profit - talking to them without making a sale. No sales = no profit. No profit = bye bye telemarketer. If enough people pressed 1 and talked to a live agent, it would negatively impact their business. That's why they started using robocalls.
But suppose there was a number you could punch in just after a junk-call. This would then feed through to (a) the who paid for it data and (b) a central nuisance calls depot. Now as soon as say 5 nuisances are registered against some caller (indexed by who's paying not junk number) then the cost per call becomes say £3.00 If they get 20 reports then it becomes £30 per call. All collected through the existing phone toll collection system. All hassle free for the consumer.
My phone only rings if the caller is listed in my address book with a custom ringtone. My default ringtone is silent. Everyone I know knows that if they call me from an unrecognized number I won't answer it, and all they have to do is leave me a voicemail. I also have premium txt messages turned off on my account.
That's frustrating, I know. Your complaint appeared to dissapear into a black hole. It actually went into a database. Once in a while they take look at the companies with the most complaints and that sort of thing. They do take action once in a while. Not as much as we'd like, but occasionally.
I found out the FBI does similar for common, ordinary IT attacks involving malware, spear-phishing etc. They don't fully pursue every case individually, but they want to know so that they can spot a TREND of increased spear-phishing in a particular industry or something.
As a Republican, I don't LIKE pointing out that the federal government occasionally does something useful, but I have to be true to the facts. :)
Another loophole they use is, if you're on the do not disturb list, they're still allowed to call you if they're calling with a survey. The law didn't want to block research, so by adding a survey to your call it becomes legal, which means that a ton of companies do fake surveys which they throw away, just so they can call you without falling afoul of the law. Then, during the call, they ask if it would be alright to call you again. Since you just answered a nice little survey, you say sure. Now you've given your legal consent for them to call you back, and they will. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
How about recording a stream of the worst profane language, complete with racial slurs and blasphemous filth, and playing that on a continuous loop while you put them on hold. I'm betting they'd hang up in a matter of seconds.
No way should the FCC permit this. These makers of unwanted calls can check the phone number of the person they want with that of the number they have. If they don't match, they don't call. After all, they use tons of automation to save themselves time and money. They can use a little to save us time and money.
My response to them is quite simple. It usually takes several seconds for a robocall to get a human on the line. If the call isn't from someone I know, the instant I sense that delay, I drop the call and remember not to answer that number again.
Also, keep in mind that, every time you make one of these calls unsuccessful, you drive up the value of even making them at all. Don't respond to bill collectors, telemarketers, or survey takers who call and the whole industry will eventually shrivel and die.
And are now sending the phone spiders!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As a Republican, I don't LIKE pointing out that the federal government occasionally does something useful, [...]
And why is that? Any civilised nation must have a government. Why not be happy that is works? This whole `all (federal) government is evil' position is very immature.
It is true that every nation needs a government. It is also true that the government occasionally does what it is supposed to do. It may also be true that most of the US federal government is evil, especially at the highest levels. Let me cite a source for you: http://www.ibtimes.com/us-stil...
... or blocked phone numbers.
Problem solved!
This space left intentionally blank.
I did put a smiley after that comment. Here's why I said that, jokingly. Some people reason as follows:
If some government does one thing good (at a cost of $2 trillion), then ten times as much government will be ten times as good.
Government is like alcohol - a little bit can make things more pleasant, too much leads to major trouble.
Its your own stupid fault for letting phone companys charge you for receiving calls.
I think the man should be awarded 45% of the company shares. He might be able to run the company better
FFS: Welcome to what, 20 years ago? 100?
I swear to god, what would have happened to all you always-connected pussies in the 19th century?
MAN THE FUCK UP.
How many times has your wife blocked unsolicited calls because of her method, and how many times did you have to call the neighbours ?
Its a trade-off. Your wife thinks that a very few false positives aren't that bad when a slew of junk-calls are blocked. I think I agree with her.
But hey, if its really that much of a problem, install an answering system (a small version of what, for instance, companies have) that will answer all "bad" calls, allowing you to enter a special code to be connected thru to the wifes or home phone. Problem solved.
The link to submit a comment to the FCC is for proceeding 02-278, which is for information to be included in unsolicited faxes. It doesn't seem to relate to wrong-number cellular calls.
Have you?
Do it. Now. Don't give robocallers / wildly inaccurate collection agencies an inch.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Why can't my phone screen calls for me? It's supposed to be smart, right?
In fact, why do phones even ring? Why shouldn't Siri or whoever say "Excuse me sir, but your dentist's office is calling. Do you want to take the call or should I take a message?"
If the caller isn't authenticated, get more information before passing along the call. Sure, it would be somewhat simple for a telemarketer to fake their way in, but that's always been the case with salespeople. As the software evolves it would get better (along with sharing whitelists and other tools amongst users).
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Finally got around to putting my landline on the Do Not Call List. The robots still call me, but half of them don't connect me to a recording, just sit there silently, and if they do play a recording and I hit "1" or whatever to speak to a live agent, half of them hang up on me. (One even plays an announcement saying "1" isn't a correct extension.:-)
I don't know how much of this is because their robots are broken, how much is because they don't have enough call center workers at the times they're calling me, and how much is because they're just trying to harass me.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is wrong in so many ways we already have to put up with hundreds of phone calls we don't want now we have to pay for calls they claim are the "wrong number" that is just a lie, they will lie and say they are wrong number when in all truth they know all along they aren't supposed to be calling these numbers. I pay a lot of money per month for my cell phone so I don't get unwanted calls. I also get spammed to death and calls from political groups too I certainly don't need telemarketers, if someone cant actually have a person placing the call by hand I don't want them at all. There is enough non-human contact in this world.
BTW I am not an anonymous coward, you didn't say put your name in this space or I would have. Normally I don't comment, excuse my ignorance or your lack of direction
I tried filing a complaint via the link in the OP but right after typing in my address I noticed that the form said all contact information entered would be publicly available on the internet, including my address. WTH? How do I complain about the complaint form?
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
Why is your phone system backwards?
In New Zealand (where I live) the cost of the call is paid by the caller not the receiver.....how can it possibly work out that the person who has no control of who is calling them is liable for the cost of calls? It makes no sense at all.
Thus in NZ you control how much you spend by controlling how much time you spend calling others; receiving calls is free.
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Or you could just hang up when you don't want to talk to someone.
I don't understand why everyone insists on throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Please do teach me the trick to hang up a nuissance call without first having been interrupted with whatever someone is doing at that moment (eating, watching your favorite series on TV, getting the kids to bed, you name it) and having picked up the phone.
And by the way: I've installed that "drop the call" thingy only after I got fed up with those call-center employees trying to con me with pretty-much everything to keep me on the line, and even getting angry when I told them I did not want to be bothered by them.
What baby please? My phone drops all "number witheld" calls and I'm mentioning that to everyone whom I give my number to. Only the companies among them seem to forget it (mostly claim they cannot call without caller-ID suppression), and need to send me snail-mail instead.
You know you pay for air time regardless if it a wrong number or spam right ? All the more reason the dump your cell phone. If you are tied to your phone because of work have work provide the phone or at least get reimbursed.