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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#471

Post by umeshunni »

OrangeMusic wrote: post #435
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.

"It's useless to make laws, bad guys will ignore them".

But in this case, that's essentially what's happened. No one gets legitimate telemarketing calls anymore. They're all scam calls from some slave compound in Cambodia.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#472

Post by riedel »

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…

In Germany it is assumed illegal without prior consent or with calling machines [0]. However, practically you get a few of those calls per week. Also often from international numbers.

[0] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/__7.html

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#473

Post by garciasn »

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.

Some politician reached out to ask me what he would need to do to get my vote:

I replied, "Stop providing politicians exemption to spam constituents." Strangely, they didn't respond.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#474

Post by Kon5ole »

embedding-shape wrote: post #389
Kon5ole wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless we're being clear what lists/countries we're talking about here, it's borderline FUD rather than helpful to the conversation. Why would a no-call list work well in one country but not others? I don't get it. At least explain what makes them work in Spain or Sweden if you are convinced they are the reason you don't get calls? I think what you have noticed is that the GDPR made it harder for legitimate companie…

> Why would a no-call list work well in one country but not others? I don't get it. At least explain what makes them work in Spain or Sweden if you are convinced they are the reason you don't get calls? My parent (or parent-parent) comment made this clear, why a list in one country might work but in others not: > I think in both countries these methods are supported by actual laws, one via "advertising-exclusion syst…

>It has not, why would GDPR have an effect on the telemarketing companies

The GDPR has fines up to 4% of the company's turnover if they contact people without consent or prior business reasons. If that doesn't work, then a "please don't call me" list where there are basically no consequences sure as hell won't.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#475

Post by blitzar »

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…

> A national "whitelist", where hospitals, doctors, utility companies and such can register to get their numbers whitelisted perhaps, combined with a setting on phones that block any non-whitelist number.

Of course it would be abused, but a properly verified caller id system for all the big ones; the inland revenue, the major banks, would mitigate 9/10 scam calls I get each day.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#476

Post by flyingshelf »

OrangeMusic wrote: post #435
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.

"It's useless to make laws, bad guys will ignore them".

You're not wrong, but with anything digital it's as easy as moving outside the country.

With the EU being one and many at the same time, all you need is to set up shop in Bulgaria and good luck prosecuting me. I'm actually in Turkmenistan anyway. There's a reason why a lot of scam calls actually come from India.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#477

Post by mcv »

Fnoord wrote: post #401
mcv wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if, they shouldn't call me again after I tell them not to.

Next one who calls you is likely a colleague of the one who just phoned you. Don't inform the colleague you cannot be converted to a sale. Let them waste their time, not reaching their targets.

Yeah, but then they're also wasting my time.

Maybe I'd need an app that recognises the scam call, and then lets an AI waste their time.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#478

Post by Kon5ole »

infogulch wrote: post #467
saidnooneever wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its unlikely going to be worth the costs involved for the telco to do this reviewing. perhaps AI systems and other filters could be used but ultimately its tons of time needed because audio takes time to play. a lot of cases will be clearcut instabans but for the ones that are not it requires all of them to be reviewed with _some_ depth and then some with much more. its also prone to mistakes which is another process…

Why? They get paid $10 every time spam is reported regardless of the outcome. Trained staff listening at 3x speed with AI assistance could classify 3 obvious spam calls in a minute. If you can't turn $1800/hr per employee into a profit center I don't know what to tell you. That's a lot of money to cover for extreme outliers. Eventually the obvious spam callers would all quit and the volume would reduce to a handful o…

But your idea is basically that the telco pays anyone 90 dollars per spam call they receive, how does that become a profit center?

They can't get the money from the spammers, if they could this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#479

Post by infogulch »

Kon5ole wrote: post #478
infogulch wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? They get paid $10 every time spam is reported regardless of the outcome. Trained staff listening at 3x speed with AI assistance could classify 3 obvious spam calls in a minute. If you can't turn $1800/hr per employee into a profit center I don't know what to tell you. That's a lot of money to cover for extreme outliers. Eventually the obvious spam callers would all quit and the volume would reduce to a handful o…

But your idea is basically that the telco pays anyone 90 dollars per spam call they receive, how does that become a profit center? They can't get the money from the spammers, if they could this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

They get the money from the peer networks that are the source of the spammers. If they don't cough up then you void your peering agreement. If they try to route around through a different trusted peer then that peer takes the hit. If its your own customers then you can do something about it. VOIP peers would quickly run into trouble and they'd probably require new customers to keep a spam deposit, carefully monitor their calls, and have a ramp up period that limits their outbound call rate and lifts it over time.

I don't see a downside yet.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#480

Post by Kon5ole »

embedding-shape wrote: post #321
Marciplan wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those lists exist everywhere. They don’t really work so well :)

I guess it's my word against yours :) What should we do?

>I guess it's my word against yours :) What should we do?

It only takes one example of someone on the list getting scam calls to prove they don't work. And also, no matter how many on the list are not getting calls it doesn't prove it was because of the list.

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