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I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

impactdialing.com

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Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#101

Post by biot »

alain94040 wrote: post #11

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well. Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering suc…

This is one area which would be good for the government to get into. They have the resources to actually follow up and do something about it. Create a number of fake residential numbers, publish them in the phone book, add them to the do not call list, publish them on websites, and so on. Then watch for the calls to come in. They could do the fake credit card thing and prosecute the offenders to hell and back. It'd be self-funding too.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#102

Post by webjprgm »

Yay! I hate telemarketing calls.

There are 3 I tend to get. 2 of them are from places that I clearly did give my number too, one of which is a non-profit I've asked to stop calling me and the other is a car company that keeps trying to get me to trade in my car. The third is something in spanish that starts off with "felicitations, eres el ganador ..." which is where I hang up every time. Fortunately those have become rare lately. All are to my personal cell phone.

I'm glad to hear someone did something in one case.

My grandpa has long had the habit of shoving junk mail into the business reply envelopes for other junk mail. Hilarious, but I'm not quite that mean. But my grandpa used to work for the USPS, so maybe it's his way of supporting his old employer. :-)

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#103

Post by dminor »

alain94040 wrote: post #11

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well. Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering suc…

> Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering such a service? If I ever use the magic number, the transaction is perceived to go through, but it's actually tracked and no money is exchanged. Not sure if it's doable with respect to Visa and Mastercard networks.

A credit card that allows you to make purchases but never transfers any money? I'm not sure you've quite thought that through.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#104

Post by eli »

pcopley wrote: post #57
eli wrote: post #50

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but none of this (do not call list, TCPA) applies to a business phone line, correct? I get constant sleazy robocalls on a business line.

Correct. Business phone lines (generally) exist to get unsolicited phone calls from people with whom the owner has no existing business relationship.

It might be true that business owners are more willing to receive business calls... but I assure you that nobody wants these robocalls for obvious scams.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#105

Post by gelgels »

alain94040 wrote: post #11

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well. Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering suc…

Some credit cards have "virtual numbers" that you can use for shopping online. You set the limit that can be charged on the numbers and you're notified if someone charges over the limit to the virtual number. (citi credit cards)

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#106

Post by septerr »

I don't know, the part about faking interest in order to get their contact info seems kind of like stooping down to their level. I don't think I could bring myself to do that. I might get on their do not call list and tell them straightforward that I am thinking of suing them if they don't stop calling me.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#107

Post by paulgb »

septerr wrote: post #106

I don't know, the part about faking interest in order to get their contact info seems kind of like stooping down to their level. I don't think I could bring myself to do that. I might get on their do not call list and tell them straightforward that I am thinking of suing them if they don't stop calling me.

I did that (faking interest to get their info) once and they harassed me for weeks. If you don't intend to take them to court, I wouldn't recommend it.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#109

Post by rawwebdesign84 »

biot wrote: post #101
alain94040 wrote: post #11

Great, but the main problem is to find out who is calling you. I wish the phone company had some kind of obligation to give me that information, so I could trace back annoying telemarketing calls. Stringing them along until they reveal who they work for just doesn't work well. Another idea would be for banks to offer special credit card numbers, that get automatically flagged as bogus purchases. Any bank offering suc…

This is one area which would be good for the government to get into. They have the resources to actually follow up and do something about it. Create a number of fake residential numbers, publish them in the phone book, add them to the do not call list, publish them on websites, and so on. Then watch for the calls to come in. They could do the fake credit card thing and prosecute the offenders to hell and back. It'd b…

Business Idea:

Instead of the government doing this (and being self-funded), why not do it commercially? Just set up thousands of personal phone numbers (honeypots) and just wait for the calls to roll in.

Naturally issues like tracking down the callers and filing mass lawsuits would generate problems the startup would have to overcome, but you'd be at an advantage because you'd have plenty of data at your disposal. Eventually you'd learn more about the branch of law that deals with these infractions and how different jurisdictions handle the cases.

What are the ethical side effects?

1. If your business became large enough, and it became a realistic outcome that telemarketers who use illegal tactics would have to pay damages like the 4k one in this article, the ROI for telemarketing may decrease to the point that it's not used any more.

Re: I sued a telemarketer and got $4,000

#110

Post by MichaelGG »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #85
michaelrkn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to Voice over IP, this is pretty much impossible to regulate any more. The telephone networks were built on a trust model that VoIP destroyed. Now, you can originate a call on the internet that's nearly impossible to trace.

> you can originate a call on the internet that's nearly impossible to trace. // Why do the phone networks route calls with faked originator numbers. I can see why they don't block genuine numbers (that terminate at an actual phone) -- to get you to pay for blocking. But surely they can tell that an incoming call from a foreign call centre with a local number is fake. Recently I've had calls, in the UK, from numbers…

Phone numbers are not necessarily symmetric. A given number might legitimately place a call via someone else's network. For instance, think about roaming. You're calling with your local number, via another country's network. So, it's not a super simple problem to solve everywhere.
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