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How One Small Company Blocked 15.1 Million Robocalls Last Year
TechCurmudgeon sends this excerpt from an article at Wired:
Aaron Foss won a $25,000 cash prize from the Federal Trade Commission for figuring out how eliminate all those annoying robocalls that dial into your phone from a world of sleazy marketers. ... Using a little telephone hackery, Foss found a way of blocking spammers while still allowing the emergency alert service and other legitimate entities to call in bulk. Basically, he re-routed all calls through a service that would check them against a whitelist of legitimate operations and a blacklist of spammers, and this little trick was so effective, he soon parlayed it into a modest business. Last year, his service, called Nomorobo, blocked 15.1 million robocalls.
The FCC does give a damn and is currently seeking comments http://www.fcc.gov/document/cgb-seeks-comment-call-blocking-letter-attorneys-general on telcos blocking robo calls.
The telcos tried blaming it on their status as common carriers ... so the FTC jumped in http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/advocacy_documents/ftc-staff-comment-federal-communications-commission-public-notice-da-14-1700-regarding-issues/150127fcccomment.pdf with their legal opinion that common carriers are allowed to block robo calls.
This plague is 100% on the telcos wanting the money and 0% on government.
It's not a legislative problem. At least not one that is fixable with more legislation. I still get robocalls, they just do more to hide who they are to avoid complaints and government action. And even then, the penalty is a slap on the wrist generally, or they bankrupt and change names and start again.
Here is the solution - TALK TO THEM. They went to robocalls to eliminate the bad lead cost of a person calling. They tell you if you are not interested to hang up - with further reduces THEIR costs in making a sales pitch. This is an economic problem. The solution is to make it uneconomical by answering EVERY telemarketing call and taking up their time. They make thousands of robocalls daily. If even 25 people out of those thousands answered the call and kept them going for 10-20 minutes on their pitch, it would waste 1 agents day of no calls. Given that maybe 1 on 10 people actually buy, having maybe even 2-3 of those calls could be enough to keep an agent from making a sale. Insufficient sales, no more telemarketing.
Nothing against NoMoRobo, but it actually HELPS the telemarketers by culling out the obvious technical savvier dead leads in concert with the robodialers. The ones that get through are ones more likely to make a sale, thus providing profit, and ensuring the economic viability of continued telemarketing.