FTC Hangs Up On “Rachel From Cardholder Services”

It's time to outlaw them from earning money by making fake and leased numbers show up on our caller ids. Fake = Something to hide. Now why would people trust crooks that have something to hide, especially when they are the victims of these fraudulent calls.

This is a crock, I got two calls identical to the ones I've gotten all summer of the same nature as they say they shut down. This is baloney.

The scammers are now using unregistered pay-as-you-go cell phones. These are impossible to be traced.
If you do a call return on the number you get a message that the mailbox is full or has not been set up yet.
Best thing, hang up.

Ann is still going strong.  Got 2 calls yesterday, number was 701-671-9224.  I'm beginning to think that the only penalty that might work is to deny any person affiliated with these people any access to the telephone network forever.

The problem will not go away until the US Congress has the balls to pass legislation to regulate how calling line ID works - that everyone must do it right. In the old days, it was impossible for someone to get an invalid number to display on your phone when they called you. When we interconnected the Internet to the phone system, all hell broke loose. If this was completely regulated and enforced, we could at least trace back to those who were making these calls. Now, it virtually impossible since many are coming over the Internet from India. Adherance to the American National Standard defining Calling Line ID needs to be enforced. (I helped write it - you'll find my name in it.) A big problem today is that the operation of the Internet has been left to the IETF, a bunch of geeks who have very little concept of logic.

There will always be con artists and scammers.  Really the victims should be more dilligent in who they trust and be more aware.  If you blindly let people rob you then you are partly responsible as well as the crooks..

These idiots must be stopped, need to find their address

Unfortunately the FTC does not seem to have any teeth when it comes to criminal prosecution of these company's or people. What they need is to have laws which impose jail time for them instead of giving them a slap on the wrist. Homeland Security doesn't seem to have any problem listening on our private conversations but can't seem to intercept any of these criminals calls and block them on our behalf. Does the government even care?

I'm sorry... but didnt anyone notice that in the 2nd line of the original article.. the word : illegal is spelled "illigal"???

Sorry... back to our rants...

Rachel seems alive and well -- she called my cellphone from 516-472-9017 the Monday after the elections and 567-209-411 (yep, missing a digit tho an extra 1 shows on another page her) last Thursday. I started getting robocalls from her and Heather at a whole bunch of different phone numbers a couple of years ago after objecting to alteration of my electronic medical records, and refused to pay bills based on those altered records, My insurer stressed their "friends" in "all regulatory agencies" and inside knowledge that the laws aren't enforced (particularly in Virginia and by HHS which got delegated enforcement powers from the FTC), plus that the courts don't care about their big data privacy violations. Yup, HHS, MD and VA all summarily accepted my insurer's don't ask, don't tell arguments, and methinks elected officials both federal and state all got big political contributions from United Healthcare and its affiliates. FYI my insurer told me to check out my policy's gag provisions (which I'm following, since the record-altering insurer and record-altering hospital group are both self-insured affiliates of United Healthcare not the behemoth itself).

Medical debt collection is a big business and methinks their robocallers were mustering up political support early in November, probably "hedging" by big contributions to both sides, as well as by using carefully misleading group names and vacuous advertising arguments in the nonsense robocalls that deluged me and lots of other voters before Nov. 6. For what it's worth, my insurer repeatedly invited me to get other insurance since they would only use proven ineffective treatments for the medical condition they diagnosed soon after I joined (plus then altered the diagnosis date to reflect only my first multi-party complaint letter that they claim to have lost all copies of).  In midOctober I learned United Healthcare and its friends planned to lobbying congress and regulators and the courts to eviscerate various anti-healthcare fraud provisions, Transparency battles fraud, and I find it particularly sad that Virginia's current administration chooses to forget those 18th century lessors of George Mason and Thomas Jefferson for hide the ball tactics of the 17th century's John Robinson? or Atria (formerly Phillip Morriss)??..

These scammers are using PBX's which allow injecting any name and number they wish into the caller-id signal.  

The last time I got a call from "Rachel", I decide to press 1 to see if I could get them to provide their business address (fat chance), or even a number that I could call them back on to verify their "legitimacy".

The person who answered asked something like "Are you calling to lower your interest rates".  To which I answered "You called me; I pr.." "That's impossible" he interrupted,  "I don't solicit business. You called me".
So I said, "No... I just answered my phone and heard an automated message saying "press 1 to speak to an agent..".  He again interrupted, saying "there!  When you pressed 1, you called me!".  When I said "I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just wanted to find", <click>, he hung up!

- Michael

P.S. That bit about "who was calling whom" reminded me of when I bought my second used car, at age 21, from a dealer who had used ether to mask the blue smoke that would soon resume coming from the tailpipe, and had used other tricks as well.  They would not take it back, saying that used cars are sold "as is", so I went to see a lawyer. The lawyer's ears perked up when I mentioned that the salesman had picked me up at home, but he was then disappointed to learn that I had called the dealer first, as I would have had a legal "out" if the saleman had initiated contact to solicit my business.  But the salesman had only picked me up because I had no transportation to the dealership, having totalled my previous ride.

(the story had a good ending, though.. Since I had made the initial call to the dealership, the lawyer couldn't help me get my money back, but he did get the dealership owner to agree to let me exchange the car for any other on the lot. It was near the end of 1977, and the dealer had told me they had no new '77 cars left, but I had a friend call, and sure enough they did have one that I would like.  I accompanied my friend on the test drive, after which he negotiated (&got approved) an unbeatable price with a salesman who had not previously met me.  I then took my checkbook out to pay the $1400 difference between that price and what I had paid for the used lemon.)

Well, it appears "Rachel" got a new number for herself last night, which I referred to the do not call website (631) 773-1002

Well, Rachel is still calling.  Is she like a vampire that we have to stake through the heart, chop off the head, and then burn the body and coffin?

But then we will also have to do the same thing to her buddies Ann and Heather. When one goes down, up pops another. Who knows what name will show up next.

That's when you get a call blocker that lets you program only the numbers that you need and it automatically blocks out Stalkers, Nutcases, Criminals, Slaves, Greedy wimps, Heather, Ann, Rachel's daddy, mommy etc.