You can ban these practices as much as you want, but what we really need is ENFORCING. I have to be able to report a phone number that called me, and have them either fined or blocked at the national level for spam.
"International rates" aren't a thing anymore since the advent of VOIP. It doesn't matter whether you're connecting from France or Fiji, with VOIP you pay the same rate.
There are three kinds of VOIP you could be talking about.
The first kind sends your call out from a local number in the country you're calling to. So someone in France has a French number, and you can use it following French local tariffs + a bit. The owner of this number would be prosecuted if he didn't cooperate with enforcing the law.
The second way is that you use IP to connect to your own country's PSTN. Normal international rates apply.
The third is that you use a platform like WhatsApp with no relation to the PSTN. In this case I don't know how the law applies.
The fourth kind (which you are not talking about) is that your PSTN carrier privately uses IP to connect to the French PSTN carrier but it looks like PSTN on both sides.
At least in the US, VOIP providers (think google voice or twilio) interconnect with telephone companies similar to how landline/cellphone companies interconnect with each other, so #1 and #4 are essentially the same. The only difference is what the "from" number appears as. If you look at the price lists of voip providers, you'll note that the only factor that determines the price is where you're calling to, not where you're calling from.
That provider is either only providing service to one country (very likely because this is separately regulated in every country), is showing you prices specific to your country, or is doing #1 and making themselves liable for spam.
Does there have to be a alternative? Companies preying on the elderly and uninformed is not something we necessarily need as a society.
(99% of my telemarketing calls are scams where they pretend to represent my current power company to get me to sign a contract with a different company).
What's the status of discounts granted in exchange for marketing consent? Because that's how they bait many older consumers into receiving these calls.
There is a grey area here of calls from businesses which the customer is signed up to, or has had previous dealings with. Many will be unsolicited but not all will be.
Many of these calls are coming out of the Third World countries which are barely regulated in this regard, so good luck with enforcing it.
> There is a grey area here of calls from businesses which the customer is signed up to
Pretty much exactly how it is in Switzerland. I once had a rather unpleasant experience with my old internet provider (Sunrise) where I asked the telemarketer who called me not to do so again, and was told they "had a right to do so, because I was a customer". I immediately cancelled, quoting this as the reason why (Sunrise would later try to tell me this never happened, but that's another story).
With that said, I think it does make a difference: if some random company calls, they can't lose my business because they don't have it; if a company I am a customer with calls and refuses to stop when I ask them to, they risk losing my business. I don't know if this is the reason why, but I barely get any telemarketing calls (never heard of anyone else here who has either).
Another moment of potential irritation: companies being bought out or losing their network supplier giving that third company a business relationship with you.
Which is why nowadays I never take calls if the prefix is from a country I don't have connections with, it is private, or doesn't map to any of my contacts.
If it is someone that I actually know, they will be aware how to actually reach me.
If I remember correctly, a recent Gallup in Sweden indicated that about 25 % do not take calls from any unknown number. I don’t know whether this result has been corrected to take itself into account. :)
I'd like to see forced legislation requiring marketers to disclose the exact source and campaign they acquired your data in.
I've been getting a barage of non-stop harassment via unwanted magazine subscriptions. People Inc claims some company called "Subco" signed me up and won't allow me to cancel, only "Subco" can do that. "Subco" then claims they got my information from someone else down the line. They then blame someone else, someone else...
... and I still have no clue who the hell decided to sign me up for 20 magazines in the mail.
https://www.acma.gov.au/telemarketing-and-e-marketing they give out million+ dollar fines which sort things out. Just being a customer doesn't allow them to send marketing, you have to opt in.
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