141–150 of 247 posts
FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…
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Looks cool but wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just outlaw robocalling like the rest of the world has?
Most robocalls are illegal in the US. We have a do not call list and everything. I believe is it a name change is currently working its way through to change the name to "seriously, do not call... please list". [ https://www.forthepeople.com/class-action-lawyers/robocallin... ] The problem is that determining the source is difficult and even if you did it is most likely over seas where enforcing the fine is impossibl…
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> The problem is that the callers disguise their identity and in most cases are overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The problem is that the US telco providers let them disguise their identity. In Germany, there are anonymous calls, and calls where you see the caller's numbers. I've never once been called by a spoofed number. So, it's possible to prevent that, given the political will, and the necessary…
Recently, there as been a lot of calls where older people got called by a fake police detective. The display reads "110" (which is the emergency number for the police in germany). So, if there are countermeasures, they are not effective. Source: German Press release PD Westerstede early this year: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4174253 Follow-Up a few months later, warning that it's still an issue: ht…
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Many Americans are allergic to the idea of the government doing anything but managing national defense.
And yet, people blindly follow their GPS on their phones all day, all managed and run by the US government.
.. so it's national defence...
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The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.
I think it is because the phone companies (in the US) refuse to identify and block such calls.
Due to how ILECs and CLECs (incumbent/parent phone companies who own the infrastructure and then wholesalers/resellers who operate on top of them due to competition laws) integrate, how they share and allocate phone number prefixes and lists (this whole process alone is mind-blowingly arcane), and how all phone companies cooperate internationally, it's extremely hard - almost impossible - for them to identify and block these kinds of nuisance calls in real-time.
And don't get me wrong, they could do it.. But the amount of coordination and cooperation that would be required is a non-starter because most phone companies don't talk to each other enough to get this kind of initiative off the ground, even if the money and motivation was there.
Edit: Remember that most (Western) phone companies are 100-year-old institutions, and many still have 50+ year-old infrastructure that runs the underlying systems, and that they can't just throw that away and start over, due to how deeply integrated they are in the public/private communication infrastructure of society, and many of their modern systems are really just shims built on top of that older tech.
Unintended consequences are rampant.
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The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.
My bet is simply that you go where the money is[0]. [0] https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than...
Although this is in 2010, during the crisis, it would suggest a big difference in what I thought the outcome of such a study would be.
This doesn't include savings, it seems. Which are mandatory here.
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Many Americans are allergic to the idea of the government doing anything but managing national defense.
And yet, people blindly follow their GPS on their phones all day, all managed and run by the US government.
FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicite…
The problem is also very easily solved by not answering numbers you don't recognise. If they don't leave a message it can't have been important.
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I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.
I am in the same situation yet I know people who are plagued by such calls. There must be something that triggers this off? Having said that, these people will also give their phone number and email address to anyone who asks whereas I do not. If I have to enter a phone number on a form and it's isn't immediately obvious why I should do that then I'll make-up a number.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.
I am in the same situation yet I know people who are plagued by such calls. There must be something that triggers this off? Having said that, these people will also give their phone number and email address to anyone who asks whereas I do not. If I have to enter a phone number on a form and it's isn't immediately obvious why I should do that then I'll make-up a number.