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AT&T CEO Interrupted By a Robocall During a Live Interview (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the sweet-karma dept.

At an Economic Club event in Washington, DC today, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was interrupted on stage by a robocall, pausing an interview in front of dozens of people and driving home that absolutely no one is safe from the spam epidemic. From a report: Over the past few months, regulators at the Federal Communications Commission have been feeling the pressure from lawmakers and consumers who are urging them to put an end to the relentless onslaught of robocalls people receive every day. Last year, consumers received over 26.3 billion of these scammy calls and the problem only appears to be getting worse. "I'm getting a robocall, too," Stephenson said during the Economic Club event, ultimately declining the call on his Apple Watch. "It's literally a robocall."

6 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Shenanigans!!! by Major_Disorder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm calling it. Who wouldn't shut off their phone ringer while doing an interview? BS, pure unadulterated BS.

    --
    First law of people: People are generally stupid.
  2. Re: Caller ID is a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When people pull those "swat" pranks, they are spoofing their number so it appears they are at the house they are swatting.

    Guess what, some people have died from this.

  3. Why would the telcos want to stop this? by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They make far too much money from people answering spam calls.

    1. Re:Why would the telcos want to stop this? by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fine the phone company for any robocall that they cannot trace. That will motivate them to make the necessary changes to track the originator of the calls, or cut-off those intermediate telcos who refuse.

  4. Re:Anyone else had FEWER calls last 2 weeks? by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have had none this year and one last year. Unsolicited commercial call, that is. Robo-calls I never had a single one in my life. Of course, here the robo-caller pays a $50'000 fine per incident and repeat offenders may go to prison. Europe is a bit ahead of the US in these matters.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  5. The advice on robocalls is wrong by Vermonter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We're always told - don't pick up, don't engage. But the truth is, if we want to stop these robocalls, then if you can you *should* answer, you *should* engage, and you should try to keep a live person on the line with you for as long as possible. This will cost the scammers money... after all, talking to a human isn't free; that human is getting paid. Or if they aren't paid by the hour, then if they are busy with you who (presumably) knows its a scam, then they are unavailable to be scamming others.

    If we as a culture decided to waste a few minutes of the scammers' time with every phone call, then they would quickly lose their value, and many scammers would go out of business.