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Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

bloomberg.com

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Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#71

Post by gowld »

pmcollins wrote: post #29
inetknght wrote: post #4

I've frequently wondered why, in this day and age, telcos are permitted to provide telephone service without any guarantee whatsoever of the originating phone number being accurate.

I'm baffled that telcos allow this, regardless of regulations. I get so many robocalls, I stopped answering my phone. But when I get a FaceTime call or an iMessage, I'm on it. Robocalls dilute the trust consumers have in the phone system. The telcos are rapidly ceding this trust to other forms of communication -- those provided Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook etc. As robocalls proliferate, tech companies win and telc…

Telcos are usually your ISP, so they win either way.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#72

Post by komali2 »

munk-a wrote: post #38

So reading through the article, his main argument seems to be "There are bigger fish in the sea so why are you even going after me?" In the US there is a real problem with selective enforcement in general but this is BS, the fact that someone else is breaking the law worse doesn't make your crime not a thing.

Reminds me of the time I was walking around New Orleans around 3am, passed a disheveled partier up against a wall being cuffed. In the brief moment of passing, I heard him say to the cop, in that paradoxical clarity only the uber-drunk possess, "You know serial killers exist, right?"

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#73

Post by ghaff »

gowld wrote: post #63
munk-a wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest against it. There are important calls that can come in from true unknown sources, people who just legitimately need to contact you out of the blue, especially officials (police, utility companies, etc...). If you feel like ignoring those, there's also the possibility that a contact of yours needs to contact you in an emergency can can't use their normal phone. As an example, assuming you're married, maybe…

This happens less often than being killed by lightning, which you do not take proactive measures against. People can leave a message. Officials can leave a message. When do you ever need to answer a call from a official? 911 is for getting instant help in emergencies. No one needs you to answer your personal phone immediately.

I tend to agree. It's probably in part that I can remember when someone reaching you required you to be at home. I can even remember before answering machines :-) Now, I don't make myself arbitrarily hard to reach. But I also don't buy into the idea that it's unthinkable to not be reachable 24 hours a day.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#74

Post by walshemj »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

We tried that in the UK with BT's service but it was blocking to may calls and as one of the household was on a transplant list that was some what suboptimal.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#75

Post by gowld »

mancerayder wrote: post #3

I'm glad something is being done and it's being reported. But it's only one guy, and there's an epidemic of these annoying calls. My elderly father gets dozens of them a week on his landline, and I get a spoofed number at least once a day, from an exchange very similar to my own. It's funny how freedom of speech is considered in light of for-profit stuff like this (in the Bloomberg article it was the misleading natur…

?

hate speech in USA is protected unless it directly triggers violence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

political speech in USA is also highly protected -- political calls are even exempt from anti-telemarketing laws that exist today.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0717.htm

Current law explicitly says that commercial speech is less protected than non-commerical speech.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#76

Post by gowld »

blang wrote: post #33

I was wondering aloud at work the other day if robocalls could actually spell the end of the phone number. It is extremely rare that I actually make a telephone call to talk to someone, it's been replaced with facetime and google hangouts, and it's very rare that someone calls me on my phone number that isn't a scam call. Pretty much the only time I get calls that I need to pick up are when my kid's day care is calli…

The phone number won't die -- it's your primary account id with your mobile ISP, and it's your login id for many internet services. Legacy phone calls are overdue for death, though.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#77

Post by arosier »

rubicon33 wrote: post #8

In the US we just had congressional hearings over Facebook. While Zuckerberg walked a fine line and performed as well as anyone could under such situation, I was left disappointed. He (more or less) took a beating from congress without ever pointing the finger back at them, or at the telecom industry, or the NSA, or anyone else who is breaking trust and downright abusing existing platforms and ignoring privacy. Robo…

>https://www.twitch.tv/kitboga

This is one of the best things I've ever seen.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#78

Post by gowld »

jakewins wrote: post #24

Ugh, this guy calls me several times a week. I'm on the no-call list, I report them to the FTC every time they call, and twice I've waited to get patched through to the "travel rep" to ask them to remove me. It's infuriating. On a related note, I'm curious about a scam that popped up when I added a Craigslist ad the other day; I normally include my number, because I live in the midwest and people buying construction…

Google search is amazing. #4 result for me is this article, which predates the popular usage of "MAGA" and doesn't include "magalife3" in the page content, but exactly answers your question.

http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2015/01/is-item-still-avail...

Gem of a line on that page: "In reality, only poor people use Western Union, so don't be a poor person and just stop using it. "

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#80

Post by gowld »

munk-a wrote: post #38

So reading through the article, his main argument seems to be "There are bigger fish in the sea so why are you even going after me?" In the US there is a real problem with selective enforcement in general but this is BS, the fact that someone else is breaking the law worse doesn't make your crime not a thing.

Answers to his question.

1. He's right, biased enforcement is a crime against society. It encourages increased criminality by those who are "above the law", and unfairly harms the personal social networks of prosecuted criminals, while the personal social networks on non-prosecuted criminals thrive and have relatively more social power.

2. Random(ish) enforcement is a cost-effective deterrent. Convict 10% of the crooks, make them pay 11x their gains, and the expected value of the scam goes negative, deterring rational scammers.

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