Why are scam phone callers allowed to continue?

[putzdown]

From time to time I receive phone calls from a "Tech Department" that offers to help fix my computer by installing—I assume—their own malware. I'm tech-savvy enough not to fall for these criminal schemes, but no doubt they find many victims. This is daylight robbery—open crime that goes on continuously and obviously. By its very presence it undermines the trustworthiness and value of an essential utility. HN, please tell me: why are these schemes allowed to continue? Why doesn't someone—the phone companies, the FCC, the FTC, the FBI—crush these things? No individual has the power to attack them; caller ID spoofing ensures that you have no way of getting back to the caller. But if the government can listen in on all our conversations, why can't it stop people from using the phone for blatant fraud? How can we fix this?

[CatsoCatsoCatso]

It's the same trick as gaining entry to a house by pretending to be from the electric company, or by claiming the tile on the victims roof is looking 'a bit off'. It's just a different medium.

People need to learn that you absolutely must check their identification and credentials. People still get tricked by the old face to face method of pulling this stunt off, and that medium has been around since people have existed.

I don't think it's a problem you'll ever be able to fix, people will always be falling for these simple confidence tricks.

[putzdown → CatsoCatsoCatso]

Fair point. Except that for most of the history of the telephone, scams of this kind were prosecuted with immediacy and violence. Somehow they've become just another thing we have to tolerate—but we never tolerated them before. What changed? We've gotten used to spam and malware in the computer age, and the sheer volume and inherit openness of email (for example) makes policing that medium impossible. But the phone companies still have real control over the phone system—it's far less open—and the FCC has responsibility for policing it. You can report scams like this to the FCC, but what's the likelihood they'll follow up? So it's true we've gotten used to being scammed, but it's not true that phone scams are unavoidable.

[lizziefaust]

I'm glad you raised this. I share your sentiment, I've been getting a lot of nuisance calls that I reported to www.callercenter.com in the hopes of bringing the issue to the attention of the proper authorities. I'm afraid these laws are not as effective as we hoped.