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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#191

Post by ainiriand »

4bpp wrote: post #184
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 never understood what are the technical obstacles to building the phone network in such a way that caller numbers can not be spoofed or suppressed. Then, you could just build a system where receiving an unsolicited phone call from a commercial entity entitles you to a compensation in small claims court, to the tune of 50 EUR, unless the caller can prove that you explicitly authorised them.

The only limitation is cold hard cash. The phone companies make big bucks from telemarketers by providing an endless list of new numbers and multiple lines. The whole racket wouldn't work without the companies' greenlight.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#192

Post by elromulous »

embedding-shape wrote: post #166
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…

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 h…

We have a "do not call" list in the us. It's effectively worthless.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#193

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

vjk800 wrote: post #46
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…

There doesn't need to be any kind of technical solution. If a telemarketer wants to sell something, they must declare the name of their company. The company name can be reported to police (or whatever authorities are going to handle this) who can then fine the telemarketers.

Sounds like a great way for unscrupulous companies to attack their competitors.

First, I am 100% for this legislation, but, as has been mentioned numerous times, here, it needs to be enforced.

We probably also need to marry it with a technical solution, that ensures that unverified numbers cannot be used (no spoofing possible).

Maybe a national "blacklist" of bad numbers, with a "three strikes and you're out" kind of thing.

But, human nature, that nasty old spoiler, is likely to raise its ugly head. I suspect this would be a great place for corruption to take hold.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#194

Post by embedding-shape »

ferngodfather wrote: post #183
embedding-shape wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Most countries have these no call lists but they are fairly useless as there is no enforcement. I've even heard stories of some scammers exclusively using such lists, as they are pre-verified!

> Most countries have these no call lists but they are fairly useless as there is no enforcement

What country are you in that it doesn't work in? I know for a fact it works in Spain and Sweden, but it'll really depend on the country. You'd help by others by being a bit more explicit :)

> I've even heard stories of some scammers exclusively using such lists, as they are pre-verified!

That does suck and seems counter-productive indeed! Even more curious what exact country you're talking about now.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#195

Post by johncoltrane »

fryanyway_swe wrote: post #141
johncoltrane wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, "just". Because the Morocco bit of the article is mostly inconsequential. Those unsolicited telemarketing calls are extremely annoying no matter who is calling and from where. That's what this is all about.

> Or is it deliberately done because it is cheaper?

Well, of course it is.

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

Because you would have to pay them French wages, which would make no economical sense. If anything, the fact that most of that industry is abroad probably makes it easier to pass such a law.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#196

Post by embedding-shape »

topato wrote: post #190
embedding-shape wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There are a ton of us who are from one country, but moved to another, maybe more in EU than other places (not sure), but I really wouldn't say it's uncommon or even out of the ordinary. And I think most of us in this si…

I think its way different in the EU vs the USA. In the United States, the number of people with passports HAS dramatically increased in the past 30 years, going from ~5% to a little more than 50%; but we mainly use them for traveling once or twice / getting into bars when you’re a 22yo with a misplaced driver’s license. More relevant to the topic at hand, it’s extremely rare to receive an unsolicited call to an Ameri…

> it’s extremely rare to receive an unsolicited call to an American phone number from a number outside the +1 country code.

Can't be THAT rare, can it? Isn't 15% of the current population in the US immigrants? Most of us immigrants do receive and make calls to our "mother country" every once in a while, even introverts like me. Or maybe you were excluding immigrants in that as you mention immigrants later?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#197

Post by MiddleEndian »

stymaar wrote: post #18
ZeWaren wrote: post #8

The previous system never blocked scams because scammers didn't bother to check if your phone number was in the block-list before calling you. That new law is not going to change the number of spam calls most people will get, as they're not from properly registered businesses.

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…

>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).

This is good but not far enough. They should not show up as "private number" they should simply now show up at all. After some time, any networks that even allow spoofed outgoing calls should be disconnected from the phone system.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#198

Post by timoth3y »

This is a great move by France, but most of the rest of the world does not suffer from the telemarketing scam hell that Americans do.

I am a US citizen living overseas. I have a US cell number that is only used for 2FA for US financial institutions. No one else has that number. I get more scam calls every day on that number than I do in a year on my local number. It's crazy.

Most of the world has solved the worst of the problem by simply not allowing caller-ID spoofing and by blocking bad actors the way that ISPs block email coming from known bad IPs.

The US already has the STIR/SHAKEN authentication protocols, but the telcos seem to feel no financial or regulatory pressure to clamp down on all the sketchy intermediate carriers the scammers use to bypass them.

Maybe it's America's love of "market-based solutions" that prevents of from solving this problem the way everyone else has?

Rather then actually solve the problem via regulation, the US prefers to turn it into business opportunities to make the situation suck slightly less by letting the telcos sell subscriptions to moderately effective blocking programs and an creating an ecosystem of moderately effective apps.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#199

Post by flgggd »

bocytron wrote: post #108

Note that in France, telemarketing calls are already required to use specific number prefixes. This is already very useful: you can immediately tell whether a call is from a telemarketer just by looking at the number prefix.

> Note that in France, telemarketing calls are already required to use specific number prefixes. This is already very useful: you can immediately tell whether a call is from a telemarketer just by looking at the number prefix.

This is useful only for the few who care enough to operate legally. I activated a white list mode that prevents any call from a number that isn't in my current phone book because there's a constant flood of calls from regular mobile numbers (prefixed 06), most likely from spoofing. The phone network is unbearable in France without a white list mode.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#200

Post by embedding-shape »

elromulous wrote: post #192
embedding-shape wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

We have a "do not call" list in the us. It's effectively worthless.

That just sounds like you don't actually have a "do not call" list, you have something that is trying to be a "do not call" list ;)

Speak with your local politicians to fix the issues that bothers you. They don't listen, out on the streets and protest. Same way civilians communicate with their governments in every other democracy :)

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