
The FTC reveals more about robocallers - hhs
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/05/why-are-you-getting-all-those-robocalls-ftc-indictments-explain.html
======
isomorphic
I made it to this quote:

> "We have a strong robocalling enforcement program"

...and literally could not make it further. The FTC may have legal or
technological problems not of their making, and by some arcane measure may
have a "strong" enforcement program, but whatever they are doing is by no
means _effective_.

~~~
quaquaqua1
Allow me to translate the government speak for you,

"You all have no real way of forcing us to do more currently, so we are going
to avoid making a blunder and simply we will say we are super commited to the
idea that we are having literally any effect at all"

~~~
endymi0n
For me, it’s incomprehensible how toothless US institutions have become over
the past decade — and even more, how okay the American public is with that.

There are no robocalls in Germany, where I reside. It’s a completely non-
existing problem. And the FTC would have all the power to stop this right now
instead of complaining about it.

If you don‘t believe me, look at what the CAN-SPAM act did to corporate
communication (worldwide).

It‘s as easy as slapping a 10.000$ fine on every single robocall that‘s either
made by a participant or relayed through an operator network. Problem solved
in days.

But hey, it‘s „good for business“ (while probably bad for overall GDP), that
explanation seems to always work to keep Americans at bay.

~~~
raverbashing
I'm not even sure it's "bad for overall GDP", I'd say the average american has
to spend a lot of money on BS services like credit protection, robocall
protection, tax filling services, crazy prices for common drugs and other
rackets that wouldn't exist if regulation was better

~~~
rectang
_Somebody_ makes that money. It is very important to this small but
influential group that individual American citizens continue to be ripped off.

Those people spend a certain amount of money via the legalized bribery of
campaign contributions to ensure that the government remains incompetent at
tasks like reining in robocalls.

------
dredmorbius
My prediction is that we're less than five years from the death of general
telephony, defined as no longer being able to rely on a person or business
having a direct-dialable voice contact, whether land, mobile, or VOIP. Instead
there will be some mix of messaging systems or apps, most requiring pre-
arrangement for contact.

There will be hangers-on (older businesses, government offices), but expect
that a major firm (F-100) will announce shutting off phone service entirely in
this window.

(Busineses are hit as hard as households, or worse, by phone scams.)

And I think telcos actively want this.

~~~
ravenstine
This is exactly what I've been saying this whole time. I'm glad people are
catching on. Just a couple years ago, I was considered a kook for never
answering phone calls and only calling back if someone leaves a message.
Already, I know of more people who are doing the same thing. More business's,
even in the medical industry, seem willing to communicate over email. The
writing is on the wall for ye olde telephone system. Everyone in positions of
power seem complicit with phone scams, probably because it will effectively
force people off it.

~~~
johnpowell
A few months ago I was bored and ran some email addresses in my contacts
through haveibeenpwned. Turns out my radiologist uses his work email (a .edu
address) for Kickstarter, Disqus, Dropbox, and 11 others. Now I call his
landline when I have a cancer related question. I used to just email him.

~~~
lugg
There goes my afternoon.

------
pauljurczak
"Bartoli sent 57 million calls to registered phone numbers in a six-month
period of 2017 alone, the complaint says. He is now subject to a proposed
court order permanently banning him from calling numbers on the Do Not Call
registry."

I'm sure he is shaking in his boots. Where are up to $40,000 per violation
fines? This is a toothless pseudo-enforcement and political hay.

~~~
tyingq
The proposed punishment is here: [https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-
proceedings/182-3105/d...](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-
proceedings/182-3105/derek-jason-bartoli)

There was a $2M fine, but it's suspended if he complies. Argh.

------
zw123456
I still think the simplest way to get rid of spam calls is to charge a small
fee for each call, perhaps 5 or 10 cents but instead of the money going to the
telco have it passed through to the person being called. For people who are
friends, family or who call each other back and forth it will basically cancel
out over time. But it would put the spam callers out of business.

~~~
lonelappde
If you can do that, you can just do call blocking which is far simpler.

And your version creates a whole new abuse vector for tricking or hacki g
people into making toll calls.

~~~
dredmorbius
Whitelist >>> blacklist.

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obituary_latte
One of the more annoying things about battling these fools I’ve found is the
pain it is to report these companies via FTC official complaint form. They
should make this process as easy and unobtrusive as possible. Even if it led
to more noise, getting people to participate is one of the most important
steps to solving the issue IMO (second only to effective enforcement of law
and punishment of abusers).

~~~
dredmorbius
A friend reports that their state's AG phone spam report form requires
reporter info be passed on to calling party.

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oceanghost
The thing about solar panels and calling a single number 1,000 times really
hit home for me.

Once or twice a day for _years_ my (ex)wife would get calls trying to sell her
dead father solar panels. The calls just never stopped coming. Why call
_every_ day? I wasn't able to find out anything more about the company than
they were located in Irwindale.

I always pondered this type of spam in particular. If I pretended to be
interested in their product, someone would eventually show up at my house to
sell me panels. Would _THAT_ person know who was calling me?

One time, I became so frustrated, I think the call had interrupted some alone
time my wife and I were having. I told the guy I'd come down to Irwindale with
my assault rifle (which I don't own) and "stalk from office to office pumping
round after round into colleague and coworker." He didn't recognize the Fight
Club quote but proceeded to tell me threating him was a federal crime and that
he would be filing a police report. I begged him to put his name on a police
report so I'd know who he was. He then called me by name, and told me my
address and that the police would be on their way soon. Except, it wasn't my
name or address, it was my dead father-in-laws. After this, the calls stopped
for a few days. But eventually they resumed.

~~~
cmurf
Another irony is, in a pure free market, your solution of violence, both the
threat of it let alone acting on it, is a natural conclusion. The only way we
have a civil society is trust that there can be effective intervention before
there's violence.

And as most states have no meaningful regulations for payday loans, my
position if I'm ever called to be a juror in an assault or murder case by
someone with such a loan against the owner of a payday lending company, is
juror nullification. It's not murder. It's the free market taking care of
things.

~~~
oceanghost
I couldn't agree more. Calling every day isn't marketing, it's harassment.

One of the consequences of only allowing law enforcement to commit violence
is, anything they aren't interested in enforcing becomes de facto legal.

The irony of an illegal phone scammer threatening to call the police was not
lost on me.

------
dredmorbius
And yet, from 3 months ago: The FCC has fined robocallers $208M and collected
$7k

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19514201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19514201)

[https://www.foxnews.com/tech/the-fcc-has-fined-
robocallers-2...](https://www.foxnews.com/tech/the-fcc-has-fined-
robocallers-208-million-its-collected-6790)

------
sschueller
Isn't the whole issue that DIDs numbers aren't properly regulated an anyone
can buy any number and also forge caller ID?

If you buy a US number or sell them you should be required to identify
yourself or your company. If your numbers are used for fraud you should held
liable in some form.

Most of these calls don't come from hacked voip systems but legit sellers of
trunking and DID services.

------
paul7986
The option to silence unknown numbers in iOS13 has killed their annoyance for
me. Soon though they'll flood voicemail boxes making just as annoying to
figure out u missed something important or not. If that happens then captcha
for voicemail needs to be a built in option. Though for now they arent a
bother.

~~~
mehrdadn
> Soon though they'll flood voicemail boxes making just as annoying to figure
> out u missed something important or not.

Consider yourself lucky if that hasn't already been happening to you...

~~~
isomorphic
I have a landline for business reasons, and that thing gets a dozen robocalls
a day. The telco's voicemail apparently has trouble understanding that two
seconds of static followed by a hangup is not worth saving.

The cell spam is relentless. I even get three calls a week (always from new,
different numbers) to my iPhone that leave messages in Mandarin. I don't speak
Mandarin. I've never done business anywhere that would warrant that.

I needed a VM spam filter years ago.

~~~
syntheticnature
Your cell number is from an area likely to have a lot (i.e. 5%, maybe) of
Chinese folks (especially visitors rather than permanent immigrants), it's a
scam aimed at them and you're just among the collateral annoyed. It is
easy/cheap/etc. enough for the robocallers to just hit all the numbers in your
area in hopes of a few bites from those who speak Mandarin and fall for the
equivalent of the IRS scam in Mandarin.

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chillacy
One interesting side effect of declining phone use is that political polls
rely on calling people. The Democratic Party is currently using landline
polling as a debate entrance criterion. With declining usage among certain
groups the phone polls will have bias.

~~~
dredmorbius
"Dewey Defeats Truman!"

[http://www5.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sampling01.htm](http://www5.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sampling01.htm)

[https://www.metafilter.com/125917/DEWEY-DEFEATS-
TRUMAN](https://www.metafilter.com/125917/DEWEY-DEFEATS-TRUMAN)

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gandalfian
In the UK indigenous cold callers are once a month, low rent Indian based
callers are three times a day. It's hard to see how local enforcement would
help. I wouldn't like a penny on all incoming calls but it might be worth it.

~~~
Nextgrid
Local enforcement would penalise the carriers that deliver the garbage to you.
They’ll figure out a solution to not interconnect with scummy VoIP providers
used by the scammers.

~~~
sethammons
They wouldn't figure out how to avoid scummy VoIP callers, they would drop
VoIP support.

~~~
Nextgrid
There’s no such thing as VoIP support, or rather, all telephony is now VoIP,
even if not exposed to the consumer.

Even good old analog PSTN is only analog up to a point before being converted
to digital IP-based stuff.

------
bredren
I honestly think the only reason something is happening with this is people
who speak with President Trump complain about it.

Otherwise you can basically do anything you like in the US right now. I
realize how salty that sounds but I think this is the theme unfortunately.

