FTC Continues Going After Robocallers

from the good-news dept

Tue, Dec 8th 2009 9:08pm — Mike Masnick

Earlier this year, the FTC started going after those annoying and misleading car warranty robocallers, and I've noticed that -- for the most part -- I've stopped receiving such calls. Instead, I've been getting lots of robocalls about credit card "interest rate reduction" programs. So, it's nice to see the FTC is cracking down on those as well (noting, in case you didn't know, that most of those offers are total scams). Now we'll see what sort of robocallers show up next. Still, it does feel like the FTC is starting to respond to these types of things much more quickly, which is a good thing.

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Filed Under: ftc, robocallers
Companies: ftc

25 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2009 @ 9:10pm

Too bad we still have to listen to political robocalls.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2009 @ 9:12pm

You mean our government is actually responding to what's best for the people? It's amazing.
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Theranos, 8 Dec 2009 @ 9:50pm

I just miss the, "This is your captain speaking!" one... That was just EPIC to get at work and start ghost transferring it from department to department...
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Only time will tell, 8 Dec 2009 @ 10:46pm

I want to be an asshole moderator
Will this comment need to be reviewed by the staff?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2009 @ 10:54pm

Please moderate this comment
Personally, I like robocalls that sound like idiots. But that's just me
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Moderation in one's due time, 8 Dec 2009 @ 10:55pm

These are funny.
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Moderation in one's due time, 8 Dec 2009 @ 10:57pm

These are funny.
Ooops..

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humor and the like).
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Bob the hugger, 8 Dec 2009 @ 10:59pm

ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable. If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn't anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet. It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.
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Vincenzo Rivera, 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:14pm

Re: ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
I disagree with you. Some robocallers can be very helpful, for example, my grandmother had a stroke and it helped.

To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

Do you understand?
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keepaustinbeard (profile), 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:15pm

how is this different?
i'm totally with all of you on the fact that these are anoying, but i do see a similarity between this and the whack-a-mole game played to shut down file sharing sites. since they will inevitably come back, shouldn't we be more concerned about a way to come to prevent this from happening? i would assume this would be similar to the way email spam is dieing out because of advanced spam filters. going after the specific cases will never solve the over all problem.
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Bob the hugger, 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:16pm

Re: Re: ROBOCALLERS ARE INSANE!
I do and, I concur.

You're right in this sense. Sorry if I offended you.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:20pm

Re: how is this different?
To some extent. You see, in a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided.

Does this make sense?
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Jerry Whiteside, 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:35pm

Re: Re: how is this different?
You're wrong. You see, keepaustinbeard doesn't understand, Coward.

You're trying my patience! Just explain to him how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system.

He has no idea of that which we speak of.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:54pm

Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
Will this comment need to be reviewed by the staff?

Hmm. I just went and looked in the held comments around the time you posted eight comments complaining about being moderated -- not a single one of which was held. I don't see any comment that was held around that time from you, so I'm not sure what your complaint is.

We do have a spam filter. It catches approximately 10,000 spam comments per day. About once every 3 or 4 days it catches a legit comment. If you happened to have been caught, I apologize, but we usually release such comments after a few hours.

None of that necessitates bombarding the site with bitchy comments about our spam filter. Posting 8 off-topic comments are actually the sort of thing that the spam filter *learns from* and increases your likelihood of the spam filter assuming you're a spammer.
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Barack Obama is asleep, 9 Dec 2009 @ 12:03am

Re: Re: how is this different?
Meh, I kinda agree, but not totally.

If you step back, in all actuality, the real teachings of the great explorer of the truth will be the master-builder of human happiness.

And THAT is the problem with your logic and also with cracking down on these parties.

I'm not saying the FTC is wrong, but I am saying that in certain circumstances, owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted.

The question is if the FTC is right to enforce robocalls or if it's more right to enforce privacy of customer information so it can't be shared between companies.

Doing the latter seems to prevent the former. Am I wrong?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 12:08am

Re: Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
I was just whining about not being among the first posters, in the much earlier Bobby Iger story, but you know...
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 12:11am

Re: Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
Mike Sez:
Posting 8 off-topic comments are actually the sort of thing that the spam filter *learns from* and increases your likelihood of the spam filter assuming you're a spammer.

That Mike Ho is a good one, eh? You make him Employee of the Month Yet?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 1:14am

Employee of the month
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/08/wireworlds-platinum-starlight-hdmi-cable-is-only-1-000-better/

The guys that sell a $1000 dollar HDMI cable are really good at what they do.

Seriously who wouldn't buy a better cable to transmit digital signals?

Can that "Mike" beat that?
LoL
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 4:27am

Re: Please moderate this comment
What you can do is just leave the phone off the hook and wast the callers linespace (or whatever) while it talks until the line disconnects (hence preventing it from calling others).
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DS, 9 Dec 2009 @ 5:23am

Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
"I am an asshole, moderator"

I fixed it for you
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DS, 9 Dec 2009 @ 5:23am

Re: I want to be an asshole moderator
"I am an asshole, moderator"

I fixed it for you
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 6:42am

What's up with all the BS ?
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technomage (profile), 9 Dec 2009 @ 7:00am

Who'd you piss off Mike?
Seems your story on robocallers flagged you for robospammers instead. 8 legitimate comments on this out of 22 (at the time of my reply).
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RD, 9 Dec 2009 @ 8:37am

New version of this
There is a new version of this type of scam (actually worse) that has been going around lately, since about Thanksgiving. Some scam outfit is spamming cellphones with text messages saying that your credit card/bank card has a problem and to call a number to "reactivate" it (there are several variations). Once you call, you get a standard sounding voice bot that walks you through entering all your personal info (you need 3 pieces of personal info to "reactivate" your card). It all looks pretty legit, excepting the fact that NO CC or bank ever does notification this way. The voice bot even knows if its a legit card number (by format, I imagine). Its all an attempt to mine/phish for account info on people, and is a flat out scam. Many of the people being sent these messages arent even members of the bank or CC in question. Now, the messages have morphed again and say a generic "there is something wrong with your account. They all have the same account number too, 4460533xx and use several 8888/800 numbers. People are getting spammed multiple times a day with these. The FTC needs to get on these guys too.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2009 @ 2:24pm

Re: New version of this
Yep, and that is theft of service.
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