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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#351

Post by pwg »

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 problem is not that the originator can be found. The current, existing, legacy, phone system already can find the exact originator.

The problem is that enforcement of breaking the regulation is so non-existent that the criminals just place millions of calls knowing, at most, they might get a minor slap on the wrist that can be budgeted for as a "cost of doing business".

Every single call carried across the phone network is billed, and every hop along the path knows who to bill for their part of carrying the call. The billing system is the method to trace back to the originators, and then apply a fine sufficiently large enough to no longer be a cost of doing business.

But the regulators seem to have no idea that the billing system provides the traceability to find the criminals and then go after them. Instead we get things like stir/shaken that are trying to patch "authenticity" on top of a network never designed with that in mind.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#353

Post by deaton »

As nice as this would be, as an American (notably not a Frenchman), I find that 90% or more of the unsolicited calls I get are scammers, not telemarketing, so I don't know how much something like this would do. The US also has donotcall.gov, which no telemarketer bothers with.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#354

Post by account42 »

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.

Those calls won't be from a random country on the other end of the world that is outside the purview of EU regulations though.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#355

Post by plastic_bag »

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!

Not true. DND works great in India. You can also report a spam call or an SMS and your mobile network provider has to provide a resolution. They usually do it by banning that abusing number.

DND is available both on Android and iOS.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#356

Post by deaton »

timoth3y wrote: post #198

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…

As an American myself, I get multiple spam calls every day. Combine that with the fact that I am part of the generation that doesn't really do phone calls, and easily 95% or more of the phone calls I get are scams. Recently, for the past year or so, its mostly been the personal loan scams, but it changes over time. I clear out my voice mail box about once a week and almost always have 20+ messages using that same script.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#357

Post by WillPostForFood »

timoth3y wrote: post #198

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…

There is slow progress being made on this.

https://cyberscoop.com/fcc-robocall-action-operation-robocal...

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/fcc-proposes-new-numbering...

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#358

Post by marcosdumay »

pwg wrote: post #351
4bpp wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 problem is not that the originator can be found. The current, existing, legacy, phone system already can find the exact originator. The problem is that enforcement of breaking the regulation is so non-existent that the criminals just place millions of calls knowing, at most, they might get a minor slap on the wrist that can be budgeted for as a "cost of doing business". Every single call carried across the phone…

AFAIK, the problem is that the system works like international mail used to.

There are strict barriers at the borders to ensure everybody pays their dues. But once a call is accepted, there's no control at all about where it's going to.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#359

Post by DivingForGold »

You would think that of all the "great achievements" our current administration likes to boast about, they would put some serious TEETH into SPAM and telemarketing calls - - like prison time, and rabid enforcement. Everyone I know does not answer any live calls unless it's someone on their known "list", everything else is texting only. I discovered that when I respond to all unknown calls with "please text me", the spammers system won't take it and comes back with "error, invalid number" . . . then I know it's a scammer / spammer, and I block it. But blocking them is useless because the next time they use that fake number to try to call you it comes up blocked by you, so now they know they have a live connected number, and that encourages them to hammer away at you.

I heard they get paid by how many numbers they dial out -- NOT by making a connection to a live human being.

The fact that the Gov't cannot effectively block all these calls shows how insecure our phone system really is.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#360

Post by wolvoleo »

embedding-shape wrote: post #173
wolvoleo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes though most of the calls I get are scams. And most of them come from abroad now because Spain also banned them. It is not a very effective measure

Lista Robinson works great in Spain though, enroll there and enjoy the silence :) May take a month or two to really kick in, and if you've already enrolled but it's not working, check that the details are 100% correct. Worked both for me, my wife and tons of friends, although it takes time before it works.

I am on that list and have been for years but it doesn't help me at all. I did stop getting spam calls but not scams. Scammers are criminals anyway so they don't give a shit about that list.

I especially get a LOT of energy scams. They pretend to be from Endesa and they have my details somehow (some company must have provided it to them or it was leaked by a criminal employee).

They're usually calling from numbers in Mallorca or the Canaries. However in this day and age of VoIP you don't know where the hell they really are of course.

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