"Celebrating" The Do Not Call's 10th Anniversary

As with everyone else we are swamped with these calls.  The calls have not stopped but I never answer them.  If a message is not left I do not pick up the phone.  I do write the phone number down and check the internet and as far as I can remember every one is a spam call or the phishers and everything else that is not a human caller.  We no longer get the calls that say This is so and so calling for someone, if you are not someone hang up.

Only 2 things required for spam calls to be stopped: law changes to knowingly opt in or 50 thousand fine per call when registered as a complaint with half of fine going to person that was irritated. Congress has no "%alls" to stop their special friends (aka, bribers)

Regulus writes "It would be nice if someone came out with a Telephone Answering Machine that could determine if a call was from a Human Being or a Computer". I think it's quite feasible if any phone service would offer it. The method would be, instead of ringing the phone, to say "press five to be connected". A person on the line will get through very easily by pressing the key, and the target phone would then ring. Recorded messages would not go through, and predictive calling would not have a person on the line fast enough to hear the instructions.

I already have VoIP and would be happy to switch to a service offering this feature, assuming they are otherwise reliable.

I can think of variations. Allow me to change the key to be pressed. Make the key random. Use two digits. (I would NOT want a longer explanation as part of the message, since that would give predictive calling a better chance of getting the request and would just annoy legitimate callers.)

In theory the spammers and scammers could start using voice recognition to deal with this challenge. But I think it will be a long time before they have the economic incentive to do so. Probably at least 10% of phones would have to be using this before they would bother.

I agree that such screening would block innocuous notification calls, but I'm willing to do without those. I already get email from pharmacies about scrips, and text messages from airlines (the only outfits I allow to text me). Yes, some useful autodialed calls will be blocked. But the systems depending on these calls are already suffering because people aren't answering their phones. In the long run what we need is for Caller ID to be trustable again, but I don't know how that's going to happen.

Telemarketing needs to be made a Capitol Offense. Penalty:

Plead "Guilty" or "No Contest" - Life in Prison with Hard Labor.

Plead 'Innocent" and are found Guilty - Death.

Why can't they stop these calls??? I thought that's what the DO NOT CALL LIST was for.  I've continually reported them, and  I've complained to everyone from the TEXAS Attorney General's office, to the Local LEO, to the phone company.  NOBODY CARES!!!   The politicians must be making money on it somehow or they would put a stop to it!!!   My number is unlisted, and it's a cell phone.  When I asked the phone company for the identity of the caller I was told I would need a court order.  When I pointed out that I WAS the one paying for this I was told it would violate their policy. WTF???  What about MY right NOT to be HARRASSED by unwanted calls????

They can't stop these calls because the caller ID technology is not secure and the computerized dialers that make these calls can create a fake number for the caller ID to see and the computers do not look at names when calling, they just start dialing numbers from (xxx)xxx-000 to (xxx)xxx-9999 one at a time and count up and if it is a bad number, it just goes to the next number and if someone answers it, it plays the recorded message (the most common) or transfers the call to a person in a call center to harass you with some pre-written words for you to ignore and hang up on.  If you do actually talk to a person and complain about them calling your do-not-call-listed number or simply unlisted number, they often laugh at you and use profane language to ridicule you because they are in some foreign country and know the chances of you doing anything about it are non-existent  The NSA has enough computer power and data collection ability to find these people, but they feel no pressing need to help us with this grievous annoyance as it does not affect the safety of this country, only the safety of our sanity :-).

But the numbers have to be of Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian, etc politicians. American and Canadian politicians can complain all they want, but unless they shut down phone connections between us and "them" (which won't happen), there really isn't anything they can do. I get hundreds of calls a year, most of which I report on here. Of those hundreds maybe 5 or 6 actually come from domestic things like misguided charities, or the local RV dealership. The rest all come from call centres located in countries where DNC lists and American or Canadian laws mean diddly.

Nah, worse than the death penalty, forbid them from ever owning a computer, smart phone or landline for life. These days, that really is worse than death.

I don't know what the big celebration is seeing as how scam calls are at an all time high.

My hat is off to those DECENT companies that abide by the do not call list, but as far as the majority of the scam calls I pray that one day this nonsense stops. But I am not holding my breath.

Guys, remember. The telephone is the mother of the internet. It was from the phone that we got the internet back in the days were the 9 hours of downloading from a Dial-Up modem was our "high-speed internet". The hacking that goes on the internet is just the modern form of scamming that happens in phone lines. We need hackers on our side to trace back those damn scammers and make them pay, figuratively and literally.

It is easy to address this with technology. The big problem is that it would require the land and cell phone companies to do things that would not profit them.

Simply build into the phone accounts the ability to first receive calls from ONLY certain numbers; any other numbers do not ring at all, but their number is stored. Every so often you log onto your account and see what numbers are queued up. Any that you recognize, or your know the source of, you select and now future calls from that number will go through. Or you could assign a caller ID to that number that allows it to pass your filter and ring. There are many ways this can be made flexible to suit ones needs.

This is not rocket scientist - just putting existing call screening/blocking technology BEFORE the point where the request reaches your phone, not after.

However... since the phone companies make money on calls, they will never do this. The more calls the merrier. And they provide very few options on their own to block - eg. Verizon wireless allows you to blocks calls, but only for a maximum of 5 numbers. And a number only stays on that list for 60 days.

So don't just go after the folks generating the calls. Go after the companies who are not providing the flexibility to determine who calls you and when. The analogy is browsers and home routers - you can choose which sites can be accessed from your home, as well as blocking the ability for cookies, popup windows, etc.

Show up to Abbott's campaign for Governor, lets make this a Top Issue in Texas!!!!

There are so many scam calls it takes the DA's office months to even respond to the complaint.  If I reported every one I would be spending too much of my life on these.  The legitimate companies do not call and now we are left with the frauds, thieves and scam artists.  I have started spoofing them, it is more entertaining.

Our land line is with Century Link and three months ago, we changed to a package that includes their "No Solicitation" feature.  When anyone calls, they get a message that our number does not accept solicitation calls and to press "1" for the call to go through.  So far, we've only gotten three robocalls in three months.  Obviously, some robocallers have already figured out the "press 1" feature and programmed their auto dialers accordingly.  In the future, I'd like Century Link to change the feature so that each user can choose their own one or two digit number and calls from a source (not a number - they can be spoofed - but a source) making three wrong guesses would be blocked until the receiving party unblocks the source (just in case a friend or family member "fat finger" dials).  The feature also includes a "white list" of numbers that can go through without having to press 1 - but it only has room for 25 white list numbers.  After white listing our own cell phones, family land lines and cell phones, doctor, dentist, etc, it left no room to enter friends' numbers.  So far, no one has complained that they have to press 1 to get through.  It's been very quiet around here since getting the No Solicitation feature!