FCC Fines Robocallers

[Lee B]

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a record-breaking $299,997,000 fine imposed on an international network of companies for placing five billion robocalls to more than 500 million phone numbers over three months in 2021.

The fined companies operated as Sumco Panama, Virtual Telecom, Davis Telecom, Geist Telecom, Fugle Telecom, Tech Direct, Mobi Telecom, and Posting Express.

The enterprise violated a multitude of robocall prohibitions by making pre-recorded voice calls to mobile phones without prior express consent, placing telemarketing calls without written consent, dialing numbers included on the National Do Not Call Registry, failing to identify the caller at the start of the message, and failing to provide a call-back number that allowed consumers to opt out of future calls," explained the FCC press release."

 

Finally these calls are so annoying!

Probably 90 % of calls to my office landline are robocalls!

[Abby Normal]

Yay!

[Catherine]

A good start. Personally, I'm about ready to push for televised public hanging of the heads of the companies (not [at least most of the] poor drones in the call centers trying to make a living).

[Max W]

In 2022 there were 58 billion robo-calls placed.  The 5 billion that were stopped by the FCC only represents about 8% of the total.  It's hardly enough to be noticed.

These rogue companies will just by pass the FCC and use text messaging and social media.

BTW, if you get a call and think it may be a robo-call, answer by saying "Good Morning, (or Afternoon) how can I help you."  The calls are programmed to respond to 'Hello' and 'Yes'.  If you say something else they will turn off in a few seconds.

[Lee B]

It seems to me that any answer lets them know that your number is active?

[mcb39]

It appears that if you answer as a business, they will hang up.  However, that doesn't cure the annoyance and wasted time to both my landline and my cell phone.  If they identify on Caller ID as a spam risk, I just ignore, but it is still annoying and  interrupts whatever you might be doing.  My patience is getting short.

[Catherine]

On those occasions I do answer a suspect call (frequently the caller "ID" comes up as a town's name - with the wrong area code or exchange) I'll answer with, "Who's calling and what do you want?" which the robo-program can't handle. On the very rare occasion that it turns out to be a real person I want to speak to, I'll just mention I thought it was the umpteenth robo-call of the day. We then usually have a lovely mutual grump-fest and enjoy the empathy.