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.

Comments

Throw this scum in jail

[Anonymous Coward]

People like Adrian Abramovich have ruined the phone system. Their abuse has led to people no longer answering their phone from anyone who is not in their
contacts already and maybe not even then. While you can use blacklisting software, this is troublesome for people who need to receive calls from any
number. I've talked with a number of people who say they just don't answer the phone anymore.

Fuck these pieces of shit and throw them in jail where they belong.

Re:Throw this scum in jail

[Locke2005]

First fix the flaw in the system that allows any scammer to spoof any number they want, which is the only explanation for why I keep getting robocalls from numbers that match the first 6 digits of my own number. I've got news for you buddy: having the same starting digits as the area I first got my cell phone in 20 years ago doesn't make you one of my neighbors now!

Re:Throw this scum in jail

[timholman]

First fix the flaw in the system that allows any scammer to spoof any number they want, which is the only explanation for why I keep getting robocalls from numbers that match the first 6 digits of my own number.

It's not a flaw, it's a feature. It permits employees of legitimate businesses to show a different callback number (e.g. customer service) rather than their personal extensions.

But robocalling can still be fixed from the user end. I've got an Obihai Obi110 on my home phone configured as a call screener. When someone calls, it answers in two rings and says, "You've reached xxx-xxxx. Please press 1 to continue." When a live caller hears that, pressing "1" then causes my phone to ring.

But robocallers are stopped cold. The autodialer pushes the call to the next operator in the call center, but that process takes several seconds. By the time the guy in the call center connects to the call, all he hears is silence, at least until the "disconnected number" tone is played by the Obi110 after another 20 seconds. My phone never rings.

In nearly three years, not one robocall has made it past the Obi110. Call logs show that scam call attempts have dropped from 5 to about 1 per day over the past three years, so my home number is clearly falling off the phone lists of the big call centers.

The pickup-to-handoff delay is built into the robocall system. Scammers can't afford to have a live person listen to every call. Give consumers the ability to implement a similar system for home and cell phones, with a challenge / response that can be modified, and you'll cripple the robocall industry.

Fine seems fair

[TimMD909]

$1.24 per nuisance call seems pretty fair. Hell, even $5 per unwanted call seems reasonable and would quickly end robocalling.

Re:Fine seems fair

[zifn4b]

$1.24 per nuisance call seems pretty fair. Hell, even $5 per unwanted call seems reasonable and would quickly end robocalling.

In addition, he should be forced to listen to random scam call scripts using text-to-speech for the rest of his life via a cochlear implant.

Florida Man strikes again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Florida Man strikes again!

Fry the shit bag

[Chewbacon]

Zero sympathy. Takes a lot of work to set up such an operation to scam grannies out of their credit cards.

Re:Not a Florida Man

[Anonymous Coward]

Florida Man Accused of Making 97 Million Robocalls While High On Bath Salts and Boxing an Alligator .

Fixed That For Everyone.

Re:Easily solved

[Scoth]

I haven't gotten any of my own recordings up yet, but I've had a great time working on getting scammers to a Lenny bot I run at home, as on https://www.reddit.com/r/itsle...

Re:Key word: touch of a button

[bluefoxlucid]

There shouldn't be prison gangs. Prison should reflect society--the community we want to create--so that people come out of prison ready to thrive in society, to go on to be productive individuals. Prisons that create insecurity and fail to treat people with basic human dignity fill with gangs and violence, and emit violent and damaged criminals to terrorize our communities.

By creating an environment in which the prisoners are secure, treated humanely, and given attention to their individual needs, we develop a better community within the prison, and release into society those well-adapted individuals who are brought up and made whole by the support of such a community.

Prisons such as we see in many areas of the United States are cruel and unusual punishment.

Solution for Nerds

[SinGunner]

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".

Obligatory

[DontBeAMoran]

Hello. This is Homer Simpson, a.k.a. Happy Dude. The court has ordered me to call every person in town to apologize for my telemarketing scam. I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to Sorry Dude 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power.