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France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

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Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#91

Post by eru »

ValentinPearce wrote: post #72
eru wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the business says 'That wasn't me?' I mean, everyone can call anyone and name any company already.

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.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#93

Post by PunchyHamster »

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.

I don't want to sit thru the phone call just to get the company name to report, that can also be just their competitor name they want to sink.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#94

Post by eru »

petu wrote: post #73
eru wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the business says 'That wasn't me?' I mean, everyone can call anyone and name any company already.

Phone number always belongs/registered to someone?

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.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#96

Post by PunchyHamster »

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.

Someone is paying for the number, make them responsible.

And if that is a company that offers service of lending number for such calls, they deserve to suffer too

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#97

Post by Telaneo »

suslik wrote: post #52

"God! I only asked her to be a hooker. It's not like I wanted her to work in telesales". I stopped picking up unsolicited unknown calls perhaps a decade ago, and nothing was lost. It was impossible, however, to convince my 99-year-old grandma to do the same; she vehemently refuses because that would be 'impolite'. It would be great to have a tech solution for this, really, but I doubt printing another law is going to…

> It was impossible, however, to convince my 99-year-old grandma to do the same; she vehemently refuses because that would be 'impolite'.

Assuming you can get access to their phone, only allowing calls from saved numbers would probably be the best solution, assuming she doesn't get random calls from hospitals and the like. If she's still using a landline though, that's a tough one to solve.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#98

Post by PunchyHamster »

tuetuopay wrote: post #55
ttoinou wrote: post #26

In the last 2-3 years, my impression is that most french numbers receive daily unsolicited phone calls. In 2026 they even started sending scammy “missing delivery” text message with your real name printed on an attached MMS picture (on a parcel to deliver), making it even more real. Related, there has been dozens of private data leaks in the last years in France

Yup, having a French number is unbearable without automatic blacklist apps. I definitely notice it when it breaks after an iOS update, is start getting multiple calls a day. For any french here with an iPhone: Begone works great and has community lists for spam numbers. The SMS are getting out of hand too, they send you a pre-recorded MP3 in addition to the picture too. At least they don't have enough information to…

> goldmine of a data leak.

It's a number out of not so big pool of numbers. Spam caller can iterate every number in the country in a month

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#99

Post by nehal3m »

Gigachad wrote: post #40
jurgenburgen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should shits be given? Find a better way to advertise than harassing people.

Advertising is such a zero sum game as well. The only reason companies have to cold call market is because their competitors are cold calling. So you have to participate to keep up. If no one can do it, no one is getting a leg up over the rest.

You’re making a lot of assumptions. What is the cost benefit for cold calling? You could conceivably be better off letting the competition bleed. But I suspect a legit cost benefit analysis is hard to come by, mostly because marketing sells itself to management first.

Re: France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls

#100

Post by Telaneo »

flyingshelf wrote: post #59
suslik wrote: post #52

"God! I only asked her to be a hooker. It's not like I wanted her to work in telesales". I stopped picking up unsolicited unknown calls perhaps a decade ago, and nothing was lost. It was impossible, however, to convince my 99-year-old grandma to do the same; she vehemently refuses because that would be 'impolite'. It would be great to have a tech solution for this, really, but I doubt printing another law is going to…

It's funny and sad to see polite people run into scammers. I witnessed to a young man being almost unable to keep saying "no" for the 20th time to an insistent seller on a beach. When it happens to me, they're met with silence or "GTFO" after the 3rd question. I am impolite.

To me it's just sad. Scammers and pushy sellers aren't acting in good faith, but polite people seem to be unable to recognise this, or unwilling to change their modus operandi in spite of it. Like, if you know the person in front of you is a knobhead who wants nothing more than for you to part with your money in exchange for nothing, why are you even entertaining the idea of treating them with even a sliver of respect?

Add in the fact that the person on the other end isn't even a human (it's not a human spam calling you; at best it's an automated call which get dumped on a human when it connects), and the whole thing gets even more absurd.

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