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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#201

Post by tecleandor »

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…

Can't remember right now if it's a EU or a Spain thing, but here they made mandatory to use real numbers on the Caller ID, so you can't use fake or hidden numbers for telemarketing. That way, of you're abusing, your line can easily be tracked, blocked or fined.

There has been some waves of spammer calls, more like "fake job offer calls" or things like that, coming from cell phone numbers, and there's still some telemarketing, but it is way way lower than, say, ten years ago. Orders of magnitude .

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#202

Post by jareklupinski »

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…

hospitals, doctors, and utility companies are the last ones i want to have direct contact to me :(

they can continue to send me junk mail and unsolicited texts which already gets filed correctly

friends and family only

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#203

Post by elfly »

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.

It would work until you need to route an international call.

And there's a lot of telemarketing and scams happening across country lines.

I mean, they should still do it. It's just the first problem they'd face.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#204

Post by natebc »

alistairSH wrote: post #188
joenot443 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a similar list in America [1] and Canada [2]. Unfortunately, like any regulation, its efficacy is only as good as its enforcement, so my understanding is they're both routinely ignored. Particularly grim for the Canadian case - > In January 2009, numerous media and consumer advocacy organizations reported that anyone can use false information pretending to be a telemarketer and download a set of numbers from…

From what I can tell, many/most of my “telemarketing” calls are really scams. And the rest are political calls, which are exempt. This the most annoying, come election time, I get 5-6 texts or calls per day asking for money or votes.

[dead]

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#205

Post by Telaneo »

jraph wrote: post #186
Telaneo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In context, me saying 'You can just do that' means 'You should do that' (barring there being good reason, which I haven't seen so far). I hate that phrasing. It was weaponised by teachers in my youth. It's still used by some people to close doors and remove options without good reason. I'll make fun of it whenever I can.

Ah, I see! I was a bit annoyed by you seemingly pointlessly correcting the parent, but now I understand your PoV. > In context, me saying 'You can just do that' means 'You should do that' That's not very consistent. You wrote that whether they should was another question. > (barring there being good reason, which I haven't seen so far) I disagree with you. Someone being autonomous is a good reason for not wanting to…

> I disagree with you. Someone being autonomous is a good reason for not wanting to take a decision for them against their will.

Tell that to society at large. No man is an island.

It's a sensible default and should be enabled as such. They wouldn't know the difference if it already were. If they can articulate a specific and valid reason as to why they don't want it that way, then fair. It should be an option open to change. It simply being 'impolite' is somewhere between 'open to interpretation in specific cases' and 'wrong'. Many aspects of what is normally called politeness are constructs that have no or limited use in the current world. This is one of them. My conclusion is thus that their reason is invalid.

I'm making some assumptions. If any are counter to the reality of the situation, then there might be good reasons not to change it.

Edit to your edit:

> That's not very consistent. You wrote that whether they should was another question.

Emphasis is a common literary tool.

> This didn't happen here. No doors were closed without a good reason, because there is one.

I disagree on the reason given being good.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#206

Post by fryanyway_swe »

johncoltrane wrote: post #195
fryanyway_swe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>Because you would have to pay them French wages, which would make no economical sense.

So, same for any profession. Why have any jobs in the EU at all then?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#207

Post by klez »

embedding-shape wrote: post #150
msh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suppose this is better than nothing, but how do they track companies that don't comply and still use fake/mobile/hidden numbers?

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#208

Post by natebc »

embedding-shape wrote: post #196
topato wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[dead]

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#210

Post by vanviegen »

Gigachad wrote: post #39
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 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 hardly ever get international spam calls. Nowadays they seem to mostly come from domestic (Dutch) numbers in the range reserved for mobile phones. When answering the line is silent for two or three seconds (a lot of internet round-trips to somewhere in Asia, I imagine) before hearing call center background noises and a heavily accented English voice saying Hello and trying to pronounce my name. At which point I hang up, so I have no idea what comes after that. :-)
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