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Complaints about automated telemarketing calls jumped steeply last year, and have quintupled since 2009, according to a recent FTC report. The report says that in fiscal year 2017, the agency received over 375,000 complaints per month about automated robocalls, up from only 63,000 per month in 2009. That’s a total of 4.5 million robocall complaints, plus an additional 2.5 million complaints about live telemarketing calls. For comparison, there were 3.4 million robocalls and 1.8 million live calls in 2016. (The FCC also regulates robocalls, but has received far fewer complaints — only 185,000 since August of 2016.)
The report says that robocalls are steadily increasing because of cheap access to internet calling services and autodialing, and because it’s getting easier for spammers to hide their true identity and location. People reported more “neighborhood” number spoofing, where calls appear to come from a local area code, in 2017. The most popular topic by far, according to complaint responses, was debt reduction. People also reported spam calls about vacations and timeshares; warranties and protection plans; prescription medication; and “imposter” calls ostensibly from businesses, the government, or family and friends.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/1/16837814/robocall-spam-phone-call-increase-2017-ftc-report
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:16PM (2 children)
Sounds like that Do Not Call List that was supposed to solve all the telemarketer problems didn't actually solve any problems?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:52PM
It works just as good as Ofuckacare.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday January 03 2018, @03:54PM
In America, legislators do what they are paid to do. We have the Direct Marketing Ass(ociation). (DMA)
Example: back in the 1990's effective anti-SPAM legislation was proposed. The DMA fought it long and hard, and effectively killed it. Thus guaranteeing an ever increasing amount of SPAM. Effectively SPAM then required a technical solution which is probably not quite as good as a legislative solution. But we eventually got fairly effective technical solutions -- despite the fact that the internet is literally flooded with SPAM that is rejected by filters.
Fast forward to today. Why would anyone expect a Do Not Call List to actually effectively work in the United States when organizations like the DMA can bribe congress critters to "protect" us from such legislation.
Now we are starting to see technical solutions to robo calling. Newer Android phones, for example, offer "Block and Report Spam" if you long-press on the log entry of a call you just hung up on. Google, AT&T and possibly others are working together to implement effective blocking before your phone gives off the first ring. After I began reporting all robo-calls, which takes about ten seconds after hanging up, I noticed within several weeks I stopped getting robo calls. Many months later I started getting them again. I reported them again, and they abruptly disappeared again.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.