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A Florida Man Has been Accused of Making 97 Million Robocalls (bloomberg.com)
A Florida man accused of flooding consumers with 97 million phone calls touting fake travel deals appeared Wednesday before lawmakers to explain how robocalls work and to say, "I am not the kingpin of robocalling that is alleged." From a report: Adrian Abramovich, of Miami, who is fighting a proposed $120 million fine, told senators that open-source software lets operators make thousands of phone calls with the click of a button, in combination with cloud-based computing and "the right long distance company." "Clearly regulation needs to address the carriers and providers and require the major carriers to detect robocalls activity," Abramovich said in testimony submitted in advance to the Senate Commerce Committee. He has asked the Federal Communications Commission to reduce the fine proposed last year, calling it disproportionate, in part because most calls went unanswered or resulted in a quick hang-up by consumers. The panel's chairman, Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called Abamovich and officials from the FCC and other agencies to discuss ways to stop abusive calls.
$1.24 per nuisance call seems pretty fair. Hell, even $5 per unwanted call seems reasonable and would quickly end robocalling.
Just don't say anything when you answer a call from an unknown number. A real person will always ask "Hello" in a questioning voice. Robocalls don't know how to deal with silence and hang up. And even if they learn to interpret long silence, they'll never navigate the awkward handshake that happens when the person answering the call doesn't get in the first "Hello".