Washington's New Anti-Robocall Law Won't Stop the Calls. Here's Why. (wsj.com) 88
In a rare bipartisan achievement, Congress has moved to combat the scourge of robocalls inundating Americans. Just don't expect the phone to stop ringing any time soon. From a report: Lawmakers, industry and consumer groups say the bill represents significant steps forward, but they also concede that the calls are likely to continue -- a reflection of how a lasting solution continues to elude the companies and regulators that control the telephone system. "This isn't going to eliminate every robocall," said Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), one of the bill's prime sponsors, in an interview. "But we think it will go a long way toward getting at some of these not only annoying nuisance calls, but more importantly a lot of scam artists that prey on vulnerable populations." Even the new law's name -- the TRACED Act, for Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence -- makes clear the goal is to deter robocallers rather than eradicate them.
Lawmakers have previously tried and failed to stop robocalls, most prominently with the opening of the National Do Not Call Registry about 15 years ago. (Criminals ignore the list of off-limits numbers.) Implementing this latest anti-robocall law is likely to take years, telecom industry executives and robocall experts say. New consumer-protection rules will take months to craft and longer to implement. Lawmakers also left aspects of the problem for future study, calling for eight new reports and two new working groups. Some of the billions of robocalls Americans receive are legitimate, such as calls from a pharmacy telling a customer a prescription is ready. The calls are illegal when used for scams, or when they violate consumer-protection rules such as those against calling someone without their permission using a recorded message.
Lawmakers have previously tried and failed to stop robocalls, most prominently with the opening of the National Do Not Call Registry about 15 years ago. (Criminals ignore the list of off-limits numbers.) Implementing this latest anti-robocall law is likely to take years, telecom industry executives and robocall experts say. New consumer-protection rules will take months to craft and longer to implement. Lawmakers also left aspects of the problem for future study, calling for eight new reports and two new working groups. Some of the billions of robocalls Americans receive are legitimate, such as calls from a pharmacy telling a customer a prescription is ready. The calls are illegal when used for scams, or when they violate consumer-protection rules such as those against calling someone without their permission using a recorded message.
International problem = international solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The core problem is that this crime may easily be committed from a different country. A real solution would require a real international law with real international consequences. Harsh ones.
As in, if the country does not enforce the laws, that country gets disconnected from international phone service.
This is unlikely to happen.
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International phone service? It's VOIP that makes this so prevalent, not India or Nigeria Telecom so they shouldn't hardly be punished. Unless these calls can be tracked and rejected when they hit the PSTN whilst leaving the Internet, nothing will ever change.
Re: International problem = international solution (Score:2)
I agree, the telcos have to implement methods where the caller is identified before allowed through. Only calls to emergency services may be relaxed somewhat.
But services for the public should avoid robocalls unless the recipient for some reason can't be notified through other means like a text message.
Re:International problem = international solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Nuke them from high orbit
Its the only way to be sure.
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Indeed. They know. There is no free and anonymous access to the phone system.
I am fully ok with just the police raiding them a few days later, which is what happened to the last company trying to do spam-calls here in the country I live in in Europe. Oh, and there is a 40k fine per call and it does get collected. No telco here will even think about doing anything that could make them complicit.
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The other core problem is that the system is broken (by design). It's still way too easy for anyone to spoof phone numbers from anywhere.
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^ This! Commenting to elevate... "Legitimate" robo-dials should at least come from "real" extensions owned by the legitimate company in-question. If we could eliminate the spoofing then we could trace the source of these calls and nail the scammers OR block those numbers if they are just nuisance.
Much like email sender I'm sure there is/was some legitimate reason for the source of these calls to be able to dictate their supposed "source" so may not be as easy as turning the feature off BUT there's got to b
Re: International problem = international solution (Score:3)
Re: International problem = international solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Having Deployed VOIP service at my place of work, I can assure you that the Vendor Service Provider for our SIP won't let us use any number as CID, it HAS to be one of ours or at worst, blank (empty/null). Empty/Null reads as "Invalid" as Caller ID, which is often rejected on Telecom systems.
I also deal with email systems, and having something like SPF/DKIM/DMARC on our phone systems would help a great deal. I realize that they aren't the same thing, which is why I said "something like". I am not in the details enough to know if it is or isn't possible.
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The system is actually fine. It is the US telcos that are broken. I never have received a call from a spoofed number in Europe.
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Well, seems there are some exceptions, then.
Re: International problem = international solution (Score:1)
Yes, unlike Norway your country (and therefore the majority of Europe) isn't doing well economically and is of little interest to scammers as it is to investors.
Norway was smart enough not to fall into the actual scam that Europeans as a society should actually be talking about, which is the Euro.
Unfortunately, Europeans like yourself are still stuck with dogmatic views that "Europe is the best", while the facts clearly say otherwise.
Broken by design for Telco profits (Score:3)
Years ago I switched from TimeWarner phone service to Verizon, only to find that Verizon's anonymous call rejection was total BS. In their system, unknown or spoofed numbers weren't considered anonymous, and were thus let through. Verizon was collecting money for every completed call, and there was no way they were giving up any of that revenue, not matter how much it annoyed their customers. TimeWarner got me back in short order.
As long as the companies make money by connecting any caller to you, they w
Re:International problem = international solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Well; we could start by having compliance requirements for carriers INSIDE the US
(1) US-Based VoIP providers required to verify that their subscribers are located inside the US,
and implement strong authentication; Require VoIP providers and carriers selling service to customers to
NOT allow arbitrary caller ID spoofing or presentation – mandate they obtain proof of ownership of their customer
for any number whose Caller ID they wish to use in connection with VoIP service which shall be caller ID-locked to a list of approved numbers,
(2) Prohibit US-based companies from originating calls to their US-based customers from outside the US, and, finally,
(3) US-Based carriers/providers which interconnect with an overseas carrier or accept an overseas customer Required to ensure that any call originating from an overseas carrier or customer does NOT present a domestic caller ID, and presents a caller ID reflecting
its source country, and,
(4) Establish a minimum connection fee for calls into a US destination originating from an overseas origin interconnecting to a US carrier of $0.20 per call.
For example: 100 telephone calls = $20.
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Well, most "US" customer service locations are overseas. You can see this either as a bonus (getting rid of lower quality CS experience), or a failure of your rules.
But at any case one should expect **significant** resistance from customer center operators against such rules. They need to provide a US 1-800-AMERICAN number while calling you thru Voip from an unknown country. They are also probably one of the largest customers of US telecoms (and they are probably clients of US telecoms, providing their cust
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Well, most "US" customer service locations are overseas. You can see this either as a bonus (getting rid of lower quality CS experience), or a failure of your rules.
Its neither.... I don't care where their customer service location is physically located,
so long as they originate their calls into the Telco network Inside the US and
therefore accept full liability under US law for however that telco interconnection is utilized.
The purpose of having such a rule is to ensure that anyone technically capable
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HFT provides extreme liquidity in the market, something that while unseen has unmeasurable value to our system. The problem with HFT is that it seems to only benefit those with the shortest/fastest interconnects to the exchanges. It only seems that way.
A better cure for HFT would be something like price averaging every transaction every (as example only) 20 seconds (three times a minute) (or some other number that makes sense) that would eliminate the "first to trade" arbitrage game makers. And allow for an
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A better cure for HFT would be ...
Why do we need to "cure" HFT? You already explained why it is not actually a problem.
price averaging every transaction every (as example only) 20 seconds (three times a minute) (or some other number that makes sense) that would eliminate the "first to trade" arbitrage game makers.
It would replace it with "last to trade" arbitrage. There would be a big advantage to being as close to the end of the window as possible so as to incorporate all available information.
Also, much HFT activity occurs in dark pools, [wikipedia.org] not public markets, so would be unaffected by your proposed regulation. The most likely effect would be to accelerate the movement away from transparency. That is not in the public interest.
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a person (which has a cost) is only connected after pressing some button.
This is correct, and which is why I always press the button. Always.
If everyone did that, it would DDOS the call center scammers with useless connects occupying their employees. I can imagine that if their response rate was over 50% for pressing a button, and 99.9% of those were people like me, it would become useless and go away in short order.
Always answer those calls and press the button.
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Re: International problem = international solution (Score:1)
not unprofitable = profitable, so you are saying if it was profitable, people would not do it. Seems backwards.
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And don't forget that when the scammer does come on the phone, keep them on their as long as possible. Every second that you keep them occupied is a second that they are not scamming someone else.
Very soon your telephone number(s) will be blacklisted and you will receive no more calls.
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I'm not wasting any of MY time talking to these assholes.
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Short term outlook. You make it possible for them to not lose money, thus wasting everyone's time, including yours.
And I feel sorry for you if you think your 30 seconds is "wasted" on helping everyone else.
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Nope. I have got one single spam-call in the last 5 years and not a single robo-call, ever. This is in Europe. The solution is simple: Callers from outside Europe pay for the calls. Callers from Europe pay 40k per robo- or spam-call. The company that did the spam-call I got was shut down a few days later by a police-raid, with the bosses arrested and every name taken. That is what things would look like if these corrupt US politicians were actually serious. Incidentally, political calls are not only subject
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The problem is, it makes money for the carrier because no shits given. So just imagine if ISPs took the same attitude with email spam, no filters a big ole fuck you to the customers and just meh, spam your problem, we make money delivering it.
So the carriers need to be penalised for failing to take action against what is totally readily recognisable behaviour. One group of outgoings from a location to a whole bunch of people, over and over and over again, continuously and they know exactly what is happenin
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I think that the only way to ultimately force legitimate caller ID info would be for the destination phone to effectively do a ring-back on the number it is being told is calling it, and try and make the final connection that way.... only when both ways are complete would the call finally go through.
This would, of course, break POTS... so a compromise would be that a call could still go through as normal, but the number be considered "unrecognized" until the source calling phone has responded correctly t
Unlikely to fix... (Score:2)
What are even more annoying are the robo-calls that fill up your voicemail without ever ringing your phone. Of course then I also have one another one plaguing my cellphone that I'm playing whack-a-mole with. The calls show my area code and prefix and a different last-four digits each time. I block that number and damn if they don't call back with a different last-four. VERY annoying and not likely to get any better with this law, but I do wish it well...
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What makes it worse is when the city they're calling from by 'coincidence' is somewhere a relative or friend lives. Hmmm...wonder how they were able to piece that information together. ecause I don't use Facebook, Twitter, or any social media site.
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You're blocking a spoofed phone number.. playing whack-a-mole only continues to block numbers that one day might be legitimate.. they have nothing what-so-ever to do with the robo-dialer using them so blocking them is pointless if not counter-productive.
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Not just counter productive, it's stupid. You build a big block list of numbers that did nothing and could in the future block legitimate calls.
Caller ID will remain worthless until the FCC takes a hard line on it and allows the phone companies to shit can calls with fake caller ID.
Re: Unlikely to fix... (Score:2)
Re: Unlikely to fix... (Score:1)
my solution (Score:2)
I don't pick up the phone if the number isn't in my list of phone numbers. If it is important the caller will leave a message.
Or not...
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I'm not answering random calls on the off chance it might be someone calling from a different phone. Those that know me know to leave a voice mail. A few seconds wasted in a rare occurrance is better than time wasted answering the phone for any random telemarketer. If the number doesn't appear on my list, I don't even see the call. Direct to my voice mail. Period.
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i don't even allow voice mail. if it is important people will know how to reach me. if anybody doesn't, he doesn't have a valid reason to reach me anyway.
if i have something going on with a doctor or any other service, we surely will have appointments or some other communication means, i will reach them in due time.
i simply don't understand this mentality that everyone has to be available for everyone and everything else at any time. i am not. i don't expect others to be. actually, i spent half of my life w
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I don't pick up the phone if the number isn't in my list of phone numbers. If it is important the caller will leave a message.
Or not...
iOS 13 allows you to route all of those straight to voicemail No ringing or irritation involved. The few that do leave an actual the vm->text feature means I don't even have to listen to them to know they're junk.
Most of us already know this (Score:2)
Most of us already knew that this would not help. This is probably why it passed.
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It's like when the radio DJs go on Christmas break and we get a 3 day long playlist. It's not a big deal.
Fine the enablers (Score:5, Informative)
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How to sue a telemarketer (Score:2)
But the law allows you to sue the telemarketer. You are entitled to sue them for $500 per call. Yes, per call. And if the company knowingly broke the law by calling you, the amount triples to $1,500.
https://www.consumerfraudrepor... [consumerfr...orting.org]
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You do not need to find them. The local telco took part in the conspiracy and you can sue them (they accepted money in order to complete the harrassing and illegal call). None of this class action shit which you Americans seem to love so dearly. Sue in person. Millions of lawsuits for millions of dollars each against the telco.
Make sure you claim compensation which puts the claim within the exclusive jurisdiction of the high court in your jurisdiction -- the one where the defendant telco needs to spend
Re: How to sue a telemarketer (Score:2)
Spend some time with them. At some point they will want money. They have to tell you where to send the money.
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Good luck with:
A) Finding them to serve the papers
B) Getting them to stick around long enough as a company to show up in court.
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There is no need to "change the law". The phone company is already liable. The conspired to act in furtherance of the commission of a crime/tort by charging their co-conspirators for accessing your phone line. This gives grounds for action against the phone company.
make them pay (Score:2)
Easy, stop spoofing of the phone number. Also if the phone # is not white-listed by the consumer, the person/individual must deposit the equivalent of 2USD to towards the the consumer's phone bill, if that is not done, no connection.
Thus if someone you know is calling you using another number, they can get through by paying. And if you are nice you refund the 2USD to them
Make it expensive for robocallers, also no exceptions for anyone, including political and government calls
I Miss antitelemarketer.com (Score:2)
I miss the web site antitelemarketer.com They had tactics and fun games to play with telemarketers, many of them focused on wasting the telemarketer's time as much as possible so that they're not calling someone else. It can be fun if you have the time.
My favorites are the guys who call claiming to be Microsoft tech support. One would think that telling them that I have 22 years of desktop and server support experience would make them go away, but no. They have a script to follow, and they will follow t
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wasting the telemarketer's time
"Hello, This is Lenny!"
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The telemarketers calling me seem to know Lenny's voice now and are dropping the call when they hear him.
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My personal favorite was a fake "You've been infected with a virus." call from 'MicroSoft' who I unloaded thirty seconds of invective laced abuse on telling him exactly why he couldn't possibly know what he said he knew about my machine. After I was done, a few seconds of silence.
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I've tried to get them to specify the virus name, manner of infection, what port it's using, etc. They have no clue how to answer or even what an appropriate answer would be, they only know what's on the script and any attempt to deviate leaves them floundering. It can be an amusing way to pass the time while doing something that doesn't require much thought, like chopping vegetables or raking leaves.
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" My personal best was keeping one bozo on the phone for 23 minutes, and then I only hung up because I had all my prep work done and had to toss stuff in the wok."
You really need to look at some scambaiting calls on YouTube; 23 minutes would be an abject failure to them. Kitboga is my fave.
Do Not Call List (Score:2)
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“Criminals ignore the list of off-limits numbers“ - as do members of Congress. In fact, they exempted themselves from having to obey the “Do Not Call” list (fairly typical behavior on their part).
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This is why in civilised societies (of which the USA is not one) all politicians are required to "go walkabout" their constituencies without benefit of weapons or bodyguards. Sometimes their constituents perform "hard recalls" on them.
Use market forces (Score:2)
This is a tragedy of the commons situation. The calls don't cost the spammers anything, so they abuse the phone system. Implement an interchange charge-back system, whereby every company has to pay to forward a call to another company's system, and the carriers will quickly put a halt to volume callers, or charge them back so that it becomes more expensive for them to stay in business.
At least the Indian guy calling me claiming to be from the "Windows" company and asking for my password won't be able to s
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This system is already in place and is why the telco's are disinclined to do anything at all. The majority of their revenue comes from completing scam calls. They have no reason whatsoever to want to change anything at all, and in fact every incentive to keep the status quo.
This will only change when the revenue stream generated is discontinued.
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At least the Indian guy calling me claiming to be from the "Windows" company and asking for my password won't be able to stay in business long.
You touch on a greater problem. One reason for the volume of robocalls is massive youth unemployment in places like India and the Philippines (itself a result of large-scale urbanisation). Until that problem is licked, technological solutions will only go so far.
It's fixable, but not easily (Score:1)
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"Caller ID" is a euphemism for "Advertizing ID". It was called "Caller ID" by the telephone companies so that they could convince the prole's to buy it because they knew that if the called it "Advertizing ID" it would not sell very well.
it's not rare (Score:2, Funny)
SHAKEN/STIR (Score:2)
Lawyers may be shaking their fists on Capitol Hill but Pai told the telcos to get authentication done this year and it seems like it's working. My VoIP provider sent a note the other day to check my outbound strings to ensure correct formatting before 1/1 or they'll refuse transport. I plan to send anything unauthenticated to voicemail in the short term and drop it soonafter.
Why not whitelists? (Score:2)
stop using telephone numbers as identity (Score:1)
after the first hop from the PSTN (if at all), it's a pretty SIP-y world out there. telephone numbers (e.164) were used as identity because there was nothing else to use. but it doesn't have to be that way. SIP messages have a From: address that we can use which looks identical to an email address. also: they keep telling us that the latency and jitter of 5G is going to be much better and thus suitable for running VoIP all the way to my phone. The STIR/SHAKEN stuff is very backward looking and full of reall
I don't understand any of this (Score:2)
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Just for legit robocalls (Score:1)
Politicians are NOT trying to stop them! (Score:1)