Live data from Hacker News

France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

lemonde.fr

161–170 of 525 posts

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#161
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…

You don't need to ban telemarketing, you just need to make void and nulls contracts made by phone.

Do so, and 99% of telemarketers no longer have the incentive to call anybody.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#162
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume ownership of the caller's number can be logged/checked. I haven't had too much trouble with telemarketers lately but there is a crowdsourced app in France called Saracroche that can be easily installed on your phone and blocks spam numbers by becoming the caller id service. You can also use the app to report a number and help build the huge database.

> I assume ownership of the caller's number can be logged/checked. Alas, last time I checked numbers were something that was announced in-band, so it could be trivially faked by the caller. But I'm not sure if that's still true.

In France, thanks to STIR/SHAKEN, this is not possible any more for the fixed phone numbering plans (and telemarketers have to register their phone numbers in a subset of this numbering plan). For mobile lines, this is still not 100% implemented due to the difficulty of handling roaming, but I think it is becoming efficient as I didn't have a telemarketer with a mobile number since a long time (they seem to hide their number now).

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that would fall under freedom of religion rights, and it couldn't be banned. Especially as proselytizing is a well known and well established religious practice.

Don't conduct your religious practices onto me please.

I'm personally atheistic, and thus have no religious practices whatsoever. However, just like it's legal to build churches, to ring church bells, to wear visible religious imagery, it's also legal and highly protected to talk to others, even strangers, about your religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#164
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 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.

There's multiple scenarios where this has occurred to me:

1. when travelling, hotels or car rentals may need to call or update me with some information

2. friend/family member was abroad and had issues with its own phone

3. some service I was paying for had customer care in a different country

4. buying something from a seller abroad, especially in the nicher categories (like a custom made standing desk) required the seller to call me a bunch of times

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#166
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…

In Spain we have something called "Lista Robinson" (in Sweden exists something similar, called "NIX-registret") which are basically opt-in lists where you can enter your phone number, then once the new lists been distributed, the telemarketing companies cannot call you, if they're doing things properly. If they call anyway, you just mention you're on the list, they hang up, and remove your number from the list they have, eventually you stop getting calls.

I think in both countries these methods are supported by actual laws, one via "advertising-exclusion systems" that the companies need to respect, and in Sweden via the Swedish Marketing Act which forces companies to not call people who've "clearly objected to that method" or something similar. I'm sure similar laws and lists exists in other countries too. Obviously hospitals, doctors, utility companies and similar don't cross-reference against these lists, as they have actual relationship with you already.

Both in Sweden and in Spain I used to receive a lot of spam calls, like multiple per week, and once enrolled on these lists, the calls are non-existent, the only telemarketing calls I get now are from the companies I already have relationships with, which happens maybe once a month.

If you suffer greatly by the constant spam calls, like I did once before, do take a look and see if there are similar opt-out lists in your country :) They may take a month or two before actually eliminating all calls, but they do work, apparently.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#167
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't just do that, she is an autonomous person, and quite willful also. Despite her age, she is not only as lucid as it gets - she still works (although from home) as an applied mathematician!

> I can't just do that You can in fact just do that. Whether or not you should is another question.

In context, "I can't just do that" means "I shouldn't do that".

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#168
Telemarketers here have been banned in various ways for i don't know... ten times? in the last ten years.

As long as service providers are not held accountable for, and they let the scammers spoof the caller ID, the problem will not be solved

__then you start investigating, and see where these call centers come from and who they are tied with..__

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#169
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…

Here you are finally Kon5ole. I've been to reach you regarding a car accident that wasn't you fault, is that correct?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#170
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whitelist managed by the government is not a bad idea. I’ve been thinking how to turn the table so that you could allow only certain parties to reach you if you allowed them to (say you are waiting for a call from the auto repair shop). I like the idea of a whitelist. But there needs to be a way for you to also manage that white list so that you can allow that repair shop to call you in the next few weeks.

Have you tried call screening? I know for sure apple phones can do this but I believe some android phones can too? For me, all unknown calls are screened. Which means if someone who’s not in my contacts calls me, they get some automatic voice saying something like “this is apple screen calling, please let me know who you are and why you are calling” The person calling then either hangs up or says something, if they s…

There we go again, technical solutions that doesn't actually solve the problem, yet works for the individual with the right technology :)

Jokes aside, besides just outlawing telemarketing as a whole, there are "bigger" solutions that can help more, like the opt-in "do not call" registries that bunch of countries have, that actually work, and works across landline/mobile phones, regardless of OS or manufacturer :) I'm not sure those lists exists in every country, but every country I've lived in (so far) has had a variant of those, that works.

Post reply on HN