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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

lemonde.fr

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#141

Post by fryanyway_swe »

johncoltrane wrote: post #49
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.

Morocco is just where lots of french-speaking call centers are located. The industry generates a non-negligible part of Morocco's GDP and most of the clientele is from France. So yeah, Morocco may be right to be concerned by an eventual shrinking of the market. The call centers themselves are in Morocco but the calls never come from +212.

>Morocco is just where lots of french-speaking call centers are located.

"just"?

Or is it deliberately done because it is cheaper?

Why not have these in France proper giving jobs to French people?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#142

Post by mrweasel »

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.

As someone else pointed out, it's not about the scammers. The scammers could however be hampered if the phone system was safer.

There's no reason why the phone system should allow my number to be spoofed, but that's what happens. There might be some companies that benefit from having all outgoing calls shows coming from some main number, but in that case a solution where a set of numbers are allowed to pretend so be some other number could be implemented. The majority of scams I've encountered and have heard about involves someone calling you from a random number, belonging to someone that's not involved, but who are just having their number misused. I assume this is to avoid getting blocked or looking legitimate if the target looks up the number.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#143

Post by altern8 »

Using the web is basically impossible without an ad blocker, and having a phone is basically impossible without a call blocker.

Spam has taken over every form of communication, but luckily there are easy ways to stop it.

I use AdGuard as ad blocker, blocks ads as a browser extension and ads on websites and apps as a mobile app. For telemarketers I use Should I Answer, it works GREAT. Never ever receive a single call from a telemarketer, they all get blocked automatically.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#144

Post by jambalaya8 »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #105

I wonder how this will affect their economy and unemployment rate?

Interesting someone voted this down when literally I was asking how it will affect unemployment rates, not suggesting I am a fan of robocalls and telemarketing. Guess I was not being clear enough that was not a rhetorical question or some sort of pleading for unsolicited calls. Note, not posting to complain about the vote down but to be more clear.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#145

Post by inferniac »

showsover wrote: post #69
Kon5ole wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The company name can be reported to police (or whatever authorities are going to handle this) who can then fine the telemarketers. This kind of happens today, but I think the problem is too big. You'll need to employ thousands to process all the complaints and by the time you issue a fine, the company has closed and a new one has started.

That's why you go after the people who run the company if they do that.

So they setup an LLC, or the owner is a homeless guy who signed the paper for $50, or dozens of other options you could do to avoid

I wonder how enforceable that France thing will be

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#146

Post by clan »

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…

You cannot trust which number which is signalled to the end user.

Most spam calls I get is shown as legit numbers. If I call them back they will go to an innocent and unsuspecting user.

Google is already collecting this information and shows numbers as "probably spam". It is hard to enforce this harder even with collateral damage as you cannot trust the number which is signalled.

Legislation is in this case a good thing which might get the telcos to take this more seriously. This needs to be handled on an operator level. Nothing will happen without legislative incentives.

The world is run on SS7 which has a lot of problems which inertia and lacking incentives makes hard to overcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_System_No._7

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#147

Post by inferniac »

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…

there are some apps that do this, I used to use truecaller, but here in poland orange phone seems to have better data

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#148

Post by cuu508 »

Raudius wrote: post #74
Gigachad wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much we even need international calls from unknown numbers. In my life I have literally never legitimately had a call from an unknown number outside of the country. I guess it could be different if you have many connections or business deals internationally. But I feel like the average person could restrict inbound international calls to contacts only and be better off for it.

In the EU its not uncommon to receive phone calls from other countries. Just the other day I received a large package and the driver called with an international number to make sure I would be home to receive it.

Delivery companies would adapt and drivers would have work-only dumb phones with correct country SIMs. Problem is, spam & scam callers would adapt as well.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#149

Post by AussieWog93 »

williamdclt wrote: post #21
ChrisRR wrote: post #12

I suspect the data may be misleading. Unsolicited sales calls from genuine businesses are not the same as spam/scam calls

not the same as scam, but how is it not spam?

I run a few small businesses and quite regularly get unsolicited emails/calls.

There's absolutely a real, qualitative difference between contact from a real human being who respects everyone's time and has done actual research, and someone who is just playing the numbers game and blasting as many people as they can (regardless of how "warm" the leads are).

It's a bit of a spectrum, but if someone has taken the time to handwrite and research an email or call, I'll at least try to give them the courtesy of a response.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#150

Post by embedding-shape »

msh wrote: post #86
Gigachad wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much we even need international calls from unknown numbers. In my life I have literally never legitimately had a call from an unknown number outside of the country. I guess it could be different if you have many connections or business deals internationally. But I feel like the average person could restrict inbound international calls to contacts only and be better off for it.

I dont think unknown numbers should be allowed at all, esp for business. I think its a reasonable requirement that if a business wants to call someone they are willing to identify them self.

Yeah, Spain went this route. We used to get telemarketing calls from random mobile phone numbers (or straight up "hidden" number), so was hard to really know where they came from, unless the person admitted it in the phone call. A year or so that was made illegal, and now every "unwanted telemarketing" call has to come from a landline with a regional code, or the toll-free numbers, which leads to them actually having to register first, so easier to crack down on the ones that don't follow the "anti-spam" lists like Lista Robinson and similar, or break the rules in other ways.
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