Latest Spam Scam Is Political
from the of-course-it-is... dept
Spammers and scammers are known for their use of recent news events to reel in more suckers, so it's no surprise to read that some scammers are spamming people about the US Presidential election, telling them that they're taking a poll and to call a specific 1-900 number to vote. The number, of course, is a premium rate number that charges $2 to the user's phone bill. Not a huge amount, but for doing not very much, it could certainly add up. The supposed "pollsters" appear to be working out of the Czech Republic, so it seems a bit unlikely that they're really out to help with the polls. Though, it must be said that the callers are told they're going to be charged $2. They're just not told who's actually behind this and what they plan to do with (a) the vote sand (b) the money. Amusingly, the BBC article notes that while such emails are illegal in the UK, they're perfectly legal in the US, thanks to our spam legalization law, CAN SPAM. Of course, there are other laws this might be breaking, but the details aren't entirely clear from the article.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Our strange system
If we have to have a people's jury system, it seems to me that in a democracy, people should have the freedom to forego any such obligations. Instead, we have a system that forces people to become jurors against their will. I was once forcibly summoned to court, and filled out the juror's forms, and said I don't want to do this, but they demanded I come anyway. Luckily, I happened to be leaving the country for the summer at the time, so I didn't go to the trial.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]