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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

lemonde.fr

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#131

Post by nephihaha »

jplrssn wrote: post #24
SpecialistK wrote: post #15

Are calls originating in France a major source of these unsolicited calls? According to the article, a lot of the calls are coming from Morocco, outside of their jurisdiction. I'm in North America and most of the calls I get are using local numbers, often spoofed from (I suspect) South and South East Asia. Good luck enforcing Canadian or American law in literal slave camps on the China-Myanmar border.

Is there a technical reason why phone numbers would be easier to spoof in North America than other places? Anecdotally I’ve not heard as much about it being a problem in other places such as the UK.

It is possible to "spoof" numbers in the UK. I've seen it. Calls from outside the UK masquerading as UK numbers. They tend to use London numbers which is the main giveaway.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#132

Post by petcat »

branko_d wrote: post #123
Kon5ole wrote: post #11

Great idea! Telemarketers have ruined the phone network for me. I haven't answered an unknown call for the past 10 years, which sometimes means I miss important ones. 99.9% of all calls are an attempt to get money, and the 0.1% that's a dentist appointment, a friend that changed numbers or whatever become collateral damage. A ban is the right idea but I wonder how they can handle it, logistically. I think there needs…

I feel this could be solved by crowdsourcing, assuming the support from the major phone manufacturers and possibly governments. - After a call from an unknown number concludes, the phone could offer an option to the user to mark it as "spam" (blocking the number in the history would have the same effect). - The spam mark would then go into the central database. If a phone number was marked as "spam" too many times, i…

My google android phone already does this. I get basically no spam calls at all except very rarely. But I go to the spam tab in the phone app and I see there are dozens that got blocked

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#133

Post by tuetuopay »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #98
tuetuopay wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, having a French number is unbearable without automatic blacklist apps. I definitely notice it when it breaks after an iOS update, is start getting multiple calls a day. For any french here with an iPhone: Begone works great and has community lists for spam numbers. The SMS are getting out of hand too, they send you a pre-recorded MP3 in addition to the picture too. At least they don't have enough information to…

> goldmine of a data leak. It's a number out of not so big pool of numbers. Spam caller can iterate every number in the country in a month

It's worth quite a bit: the numbers on that list are live, with people smart enough to care, etc. Random numbers are worthless.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#134

Post by amelius »

72deluxe wrote: post #117
amelius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you cannot hide behind "but I'm not selling anything". Because then a marketing person could say "but I'm only trying to make you aware of $PRODUCT; I'm not trying to sell it!"

Yes of course. But I was saying of the people I've had at my door, only some have been trying to sell things, which is what a "salesman" is. The guy from the local baptist church gave me a some book about being saved by Jesus (it had instructions on how to pray I think? dunno threw it away) but he didn't ask me for any money. By contrast, the Lithuanian girl who was trying to sell religious books (no idea who they we…

> The article is about sales calls, not general nuisances.

So someone calling you to "make you aware of $X" does not count as sales?

And they would be permitted to call you?

I hope they fix this loophole quickly!

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#135

Post by maelito »

Actually, people that installed the open-source Saracroche app don't really have this problem anymore.

Credits for this incredible independent app, available on third-party stores. Even better, the dev has added OpenStreetMap information about legit enterprises calling you.

https://saracroche.org

(of course its better to forbid them)

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#136

Post by matsemann »

Norway has the same law. I get no spam calls like this from Norway.

What I do get is spam calls from abroad. Often with a spoofed Norwegian number. Why can't operators block this? I know call centers and various things need to "spoof" a number they own, and when I myself call from abroad my Norwegian number will come from outside Norway.

But why can't they attest the numbers somehow? Owner of +47 XXXXXXX is currently not abroad. So why allow someone from the other side of the world to call me pretending to come from that number? Why does the Norwegian operators allow that?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#138

Post by ValentinPearce »

ascari wrote: post #63
flyingshelf wrote: post #56

Essentially useless. My country also banned them and has a "do not call" registry, doesn't stop scammers from calling my phone non-stop. Also legally speaking all you need is "Check this box if you don't want spam" and the floodgates are open, legally. You need telco-level detection and blocking. If a cellphone number makes 1000 calls today maybe it's not a real cellphone, is it. Block the calls.

Exactly, I think all these regulations in the Europe fail to understand the enforceability of these, any legitimate business won't be making unsolicited calls already. For instance, I weekly get unsolicited calls from a legit recruitment agency in the UK, never ever shared my data with them, they don't even email but directly call in absurd times. I requested removal of my data after months of ignored calls but they…

In France the CNIL is pretty good at enforcing regulation IIRC. And for any small to medium company, the fine should be enough of a deterrent.

I don't think companies big enough to just shrug the fine away resort to much telemarketing here.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#139

Post by tlb »

mcv wrote: post #76
stymaar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about scams, it's about commercial telemarketing calls. Scams have been heavily hit in January when the French regulator mandated the telcos to implement a complete block of spoofed phone numbers (it's not an actual hard block, but unauthenticated calls will be market as "private number" which are ignored by most people already). There will always be scammers who register an actual phone number to run their…

> the French regulator mandated the telcos to implement a complete block of spoofed phone numbers That is really great. I've had a lot of trouble with calls from spoofed numbers a couple of years ago (it ended when I installed a scam blacker on my phone), and when I looked into it at that time, my impression was that phone companies couldn't block spoofed numbers. On the other hand, if the scam blocking app can block…

It's shocking that anyone can spoof the number of, say, my bank. At least large institutions should have authentication.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#140

Post by Macha »

riffraff wrote: post #6
amelius wrote: post #2

And what about those marketing people who approach you on the streets? Can we make that illegal too? And the people going from door to door?

How many door to door salesman do you encounter? Where do you live, if you can share? I haven't seen one in decades, and even then it was usually some pamphlets or books to support a cause or the other. On the phone (Italy), OTOH, I used to get daily scam call to buy "Amazon stocks" or change utility providers or install water filters. That seems to have massively faded out due to new regulations tho.

Ireland, small town, average reputation housing estate: 1-2 per week. Primarily charities, ISPs and energy companies
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