FTC Continues Going After Robocallers
from the good-news dept
Earlier this year, the FTC started going after those annoying and misleading car warranty robocallers, and I’ve noticed that — for the most part — I’ve stopped receiving such calls. Instead, I’ve been getting lots of robocalls about credit card “interest rate reduction” programs. So, it’s nice to see the FTC is cracking down on those as well (noting, in case you didn’t know, that most of those offers are total scams). Now we’ll see what sort of robocallers show up next. Still, it does feel like the FTC is starting to respond to these types of things much more quickly, which is a good thing.
Filed Under: ftc, robocallers
Companies: ftc
Comments on “FTC Continues Going After Robocallers”
Too bad we still have to listen to political robocalls.
You mean our government is actually responding to what’s best for the people? It’s amazing.
I just miss the, “This is your captain speaking!” one… That was just EPIC to get at work and start ghost transferring it from department to department…
I want to be an asshole moderator
Will this comment need to be reviewed by the staff?
Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
Will this comment need to be reviewed by the staff?
Hmm. I just went and looked in the held comments around the time you posted eight comments complaining about being moderated — not a single one of which was held. I don’t see any comment that was held around that time from you, so I’m not sure what your complaint is.
We do have a spam filter. It catches approximately 10,000 spam comments per day. About once every 3 or 4 days it catches a legit comment. If you happened to have been caught, I apologize, but we usually release such comments after a few hours.
None of that necessitates bombarding the site with bitchy comments about our spam filter. Posting 8 off-topic comments are actually the sort of thing that the spam filter *learns from* and increases your likelihood of the spam filter assuming you’re a spammer.
Re: Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
I was just whining about not being among the first posters, in the much earlier Bobby Iger story, but you know…
Re: Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
Mike Sez:
Posting 8 off-topic comments are actually the sort of thing that the spam filter *learns from* and increases your likelihood of the spam filter assuming you’re a spammer.
That Mike Ho is a good one, eh? You make him Employee of the Month Yet?
Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
“I am an asshole, moderator”
I fixed it for you
Please moderate this comment
Personally, I like robocalls that sound like idiots. But that’s just me
Re: Please moderate this comment
What you can do is just leave the phone off the hook and wast the callers linespace (or whatever) while it talks until the line disconnects (hence preventing it from calling others).
These are funny.
These are funny.
Ooops..
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ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
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Re: ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
I disagree with you. Some robocallers can be very helpful, for example, my grandmother had a stroke and it helped.
To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
Do you understand?
Re: Re: ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
I do and, I concur.
You’re right in this sense. Sorry if I offended you.
how is this different?
i’m totally with all of you on the fact that these are anoying, but i do see a similarity between this and the whack-a-mole game played to shut down file sharing sites. since they will inevitably come back, shouldn’t we be more concerned about a way to come to prevent this from happening? i would assume this would be similar to the way email spam is dieing out because of advanced spam filters. going after the specific cases will never solve the over all problem.
Re: how is this different?
To some extent. You see, in a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided.
Does this make sense?
Re: Re: how is this different?
You’re wrong. You see, keepaustinbeard doesn’t understand, Coward.
You’re trying my patience! Just explain to him how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system.
He has no idea of that which we speak of.
Re: Re: how is this different?
Meh, I kinda agree, but not totally.
If you step back, in all actuality, the real teachings of the great explorer of the truth will be the master-builder of human happiness.
And THAT is the problem with your logic and also with cracking down on these parties.
I’m not saying the FTC is wrong, but I am saying that in certain circumstances, owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted.
The question is if the FTC is right to enforce robocalls or if it’s more right to enforce privacy of customer information so it can’t be shared between companies.
Doing the latter seems to prevent the former. Am I wrong?
Employee of the month
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/08/wireworlds-platinum-starlight-hdmi-cable-is-only-1-000-better/
The guys that sell a $1000 dollar HDMI cable are really good at what they do.
Seriously who wouldn’t buy a better cable to transmit digital signals?
Can that “Mike” beat that?
LoL
What’s up with all the BS ?
Who'd you piss off Mike?
Seems your story on robocallers flagged you for robospammers instead. 8 legitimate comments on this out of 22 (at the time of my reply).
New version of this
There is a new version of this type of scam (actually worse) that has been going around lately, since about Thanksgiving. Some scam outfit is spamming cellphones with text messages saying that your credit card/bank card has a problem and to call a number to “reactivate” it (there are several variations). Once you call, you get a standard sounding voice bot that walks you through entering all your personal info (you need 3 pieces of personal info to “reactivate” your card). It all looks pretty legit, excepting the fact that NO CC or bank ever does notification this way. The voice bot even knows if its a legit card number (by format, I imagine). Its all an attempt to mine/phish for account info on people, and is a flat out scam. Many of the people being sent these messages arent even members of the bank or CC in question. Now, the messages have morphed again and say a generic “there is something wrong with your account. They all have the same account number too, 4460533xx and use several 8888/800 numbers. People are getting spammed multiple times a day with these. The FTC needs to get on these guys too.
Re: New version of this
Yep, and that is theft of service.