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Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via The Atlantic, written by Alexis C. Madrigal: No one picks up the phone anymore. Even many businesses do everything they can to avoid picking up the phone. Of the 50 or so calls I received in the last month, I might have picked up four or five times. The reflex of answering -- built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture -- is gone. There are many reasons for the slow erosion of this commons. The most important aspect is structural: There are simply more communication options. Text messaging and its associated multimedia variations are rich and wonderful: words mixed with emoji, Bitmoji, reaction gifs, regular old photos, video, links. Texting is fun, lightly asynchronous, and possible to do with many people simultaneously. It's almost as immediate as a phone call, but not quite. You've got your Twitter, your Facebook, your work Slack, your email, FaceTimes incoming from family members. So many little dings have begun to make the rings obsolete.
But in the last couple years, there is a more specific reason for eyeing my phone's ring warily. Perhaps 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. [...] There are unsolicited telemarketing calls. There are straight-up robocalls that merely deliver recorded messages. There are the cyborg telemarketers, who sit in call centers playing prerecorded bits of audio to simulate a conversation. There are the spam phone calls, whose sole purpose seems to be verifying that your phone number is real and working.
But in the last couple years, there is a more specific reason for eyeing my phone's ring warily. Perhaps 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. [...] There are unsolicited telemarketing calls. There are straight-up robocalls that merely deliver recorded messages. There are the cyborg telemarketers, who sit in call centers playing prerecorded bits of audio to simulate a conversation. There are the spam phone calls, whose sole purpose seems to be verifying that your phone number is real and working.
We do punish the companies and many times the individuals behind them. The fines are ridiculously high compared to the income. This is why there is very little domestic spamming. But there is an idiot born every minute who will be the fall guy for the off shore party.
The underlying problem is the lucrativity of the US market and the slow pace the human part of the system moves to catch these offenders. How do you catch an off shore company that springs up, makes a few million calls, and then closes shop; all in less than a month? They are only around till they get paid or start showing up in the complaint registry. Plus they don't need to maintain contact with the sucker; just offload the verbal contact at pennies on the dollar to legal businesses such as timeshares/travel agencies/money laundering scammer/etc.
If only a few receipants respond, they made their investment. By the time the user complains and enough do and the investigation starts, the originator has moved on leaving fall guys behind.
Look at the Florida case. 100 million calls over just 3 months. That's how long it took the legal system to pin him. BTW, that is ridiculously fast! Less than 2% of the calls were even interacted with. 98% weren't even picked up; yet the guy minted. He now has a $120 million fine! Many times more than his revenue. Identity tarnished for life.
But he was just the domestic forwarding agent, using simple off the shelf free software. He accounted for less than 3% of all robocalls! And none of the off shore companies who actually scammed the recipiants were traced nor held accountable. They moved onto another sucker.
I think the way to stop this is to pollute the system. Pick up, give false information, and move on. Eventually their DBs will have such pointless information that they will be worthless. A few suckers' info that is valid won't help if you can't tell who they are in the table.