FCC Approves Rules Allowing Phone Companies to Block Robocalls

Megalith

Megalith

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The FCC voted on Thursday to let phone service providers proactively block robocalls from fraudulent numbers. Service providers will now be able to block calls from numbers with certain signs that indicate that they're fraudulent. For example, companies will be able to proactively block calls from numbers with area codes that don't exist or that can't make outgoing calls.

Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel voted to approve the proposal but said it didn't go far enough. “While the agency offers carriers the ability to limit calls from what are likely to be fraudulent actors, it fails to prevent them from charging consumers for this service," Rosenworcel said in a statement. "So this is the kicker: the FCC takes action to ostensibly reduce robocalls but then makes sure you can pay for the privilege. If you ask me, that’s ridiculous.”
 
I'm going to venture a guess that, if phone companies do charge for this as a service, then a portion of said charges will go to the government as a "deal" they struck...
 
No more. "Hello, Congratulations on winning the International Lottery jackpot of $546 million. To verify your identity and deposit your winnings, we need your SSN and the bank account which you wish to have your winnings deposited in."

When I receive calls to lower my mortgage rate, I stay on the line to speak with someone and ask them
Me: "So, how much money are you giving me"
TM: "Sire, we don't give money, we just provide a way to decrease your mortgage rate."
Me: "I don't have a mortgage. My house is paid off. So if you decrease my mortgage rate, then that means you'd be giving me money."
TM: <click>
 
dgingeri said:
Hooray! the FCC is allowing companies to do what should have been their right to do all along.
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Meh, you do know its not that simple... Freedom of speech and all that jazz.. but hey irritating phone calls vs shit boring freedoms?
 
Retronym said:
What about blocking IP ranges?
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As with mail, phone evolved waaaaaay back when the US government and companies at least did some lip service to these things... Talking about IPs and shit goes into net neutrality and all that shit, and the fucking mess that is.
 
Yea, except Wheeler wanted this a long time ago-

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-f...dustry-action-on-robocalls-idUSKCN12Q2UB?il=0

Probably Pai puffing up some bullshit news before the NN vote. He is such a complete waste of a body. Wheeler repeatedly said the FCC had no rules or regs on the books preventing robocalls. I hate Pai. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. He just needs to leave the damn planet.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Meh, you do know its not that simple... Freedom of speech and all that jazz.. but hey irritating phone calls vs shit boring freedoms?
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It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. The first amendment only states that the government cannot make laws abridging free speech, it says nothing about private businesses.
 
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this shit isn't going to work, just like the Do Not Call list does not work.
I get a bunch of spam calls everyday, and I'm on the DNC list.
Phone companies won't be able to do shit about this until we have a way to block calls like Google Voice does it.
 
I don't even know why I have a home phone anymore


Nothing but scammers from the revenue service or Bindere Dundat telling me I have a virus in my computer.

I love my cell because I block them and never set up voice mail so it just goes dead as far as I care.
 
"Juan, here's the job you were asking about!" ... problem is, my name is not Juan but I get at least 5 of these 'Juan' text every day. Will this robocaller ID'er also screen text stuff?
 
I just got a new cell phone, with a new number. I didn't port the old number because I was getting far too many BS calls and texts, and I really don't mind the hassle of telling friends and family about my new number. I'm trimming some TV and home phone costs down, so I'm going to have the new cell be my only phone, no more Mediacom VOIP home phone. My old number was registered with the federal "Do Not Call" system. I'm going to try that again with my new number, I guess.

Is it effective at all?

Thoughts?
 
NeghVar said:
No more. "Hello, Congratulations on winning the International Lottery jackpot of $546 million. To verify your identity and deposit your winnings, we need your SSN and the bank account which you wish to have your winnings deposited in."

When I receive calls to lower my mortgage rate, I stay on the line to speak with someone and ask them
Me: "So, how much money are you giving me"
TM: "Sire, we don't give money, we just provide a way to decrease your mortgage rate."
Me: "I don't have a mortgage. My house is paid off. So if you decrease my mortgage rate, then that means you'd be giving me money."
TM: <click>
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I've got to try this next time, though I rarely get scam calls anymore.
 
If you are on the DNC list, you can already file a claim against them for cold calling your cell and get reimbursed up to ~1k. But there are a couple problems.

1- The numbers are all spoofed now. Most of the time it's a fake number from my own area code. At least half the time, the spoofed number matches the first 6 digits of my own number, and the last 4 are randomized. This makes it hard to use the number to file a claim or know what company it's from/for.

2- If you start asking who they are calling on behalf of, or for callback info, they will just hang up. They have wised up to the fact that if you get that info, you can proper fuck them.

3- They are all robo calls now, so you can't even get a person to try and extract the info from. If you hit 0 to try and get the operator it does nothing or causes the call to disconnect. If you manage to wait through the message and get a person, you run into problem 2.


If anyone has time and wants to try and start getting these assholes fined, your best bet is to get a person and tell them your wife/husband/cat/whatever handles financial calls but aren't available. If you are lucky, they'll give you a company/personal name and callback number. If you manage to get that far, you can then tell them they are fucked for cold calling a cell on the DNC list and that you are reporting them to the FTC. Enough people do that, and they'll get hit with a huge fine like dish did a few months ago.

Or just stop answering any calls from a number not in your phone book, which is what I've started doing (I get 2-3 calls per day, been on DNC since 09).
 
The problem is that these changes won't really change much. What this allows carries to do is block ranges that they know shouldn't be able to make calls. So for example if for the area code 678 is only set up to allow people to give out numbers between 1000 and 4000 your telephone company can now block all other numbers from being able to call you. The problem is that with how scam calls work now due to blocking like this is that they use other numbers around you and in many cases will end up accidently pick a number that you know. I have received calls from people in my contact list only to find that it was a scam that just happen to select a number close to mine and happen to be that of a coworker's cell.
 
A while back, I found a sound-effect. It is the phone-off-the-hook sound. I looped it until it was about 1-1/2 minutes long. Whenever I got a call from ANY 800 number, I would play the sound (LOUD), and answer the phone. My 4 to 5 calls per day went down to 4 or 5 a week. Which may say that several of those are from the same caller. I think their operators are instructed to remove calls that don't connect.

In addition, I would occasionally answer the phone by saying "Washington County Sheriff, how can I help you?". One time, a smarta$$ woman said, "What? This number is listed as belonging to a resident". I said "That's correct maam, who is the resident you wish to talk to?". She gave my name! I then said "That man has been placed under arrest, you might as well remove his number". I'll be go to hell, I haven't gotten a call from that company since.
 
Can someone explain why iOS doesn't allow developers to make applications that will allow you to send calls not in your favorites straight to voicemail? I know there is iBlacklist, but I don't want to root my phone. All I want is the ability to not deal with constant spamming of calls. I don't want to use the "Do Not Disturb" feature I need it to make sure my phone is completely silent at night.
 
i hang un on any call that i do answer where they have the pause for a live operator then add it to blocked caller

legit or not, you wana call me and its important youll have a real person call me.
 
Wyodiver said:
I just got a new cell phone, with a new number. I didn't port the old number because I was getting far too many BS calls and texts, and I really don't mind the hassle of telling friends and family about my new number. I'm trimming some TV and home phone costs down, so I'm going to have the new cell be my only phone, no more Mediacom VOIP home phone. My old number was registered with the federal "Do Not Call" system. I'm going to try that again with my new number, I guess.

Is it effective at all?

Thoughts?
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No, it won't be very effective for long. The problem with robo calls is that they are randomly called numbers done by a computer. It just randomly dials numbers and hopes somebody will pick up. They even get "clever" by dialing the first 6 digits of your number to make it look more authentic. For example; if your phone number is 222-334-5567, then the robocall will often look like 222-334-5632 in an attempt to trick you into answering. It's never worked on me, but I'm sure some less observant people have answered accidentally. So you see, since the numbers are random they don't really have your number, they are just randomly dialing it with a computer. Changing your number a billion times would have no effect on that.

I auto block nearly all numbers I don't recognize. If it's important, they'll leave a message.
 
May I ask, with a smart phone, how do you auto block numbers?
 
dgingeri said:
It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. The first amendment only states that the government cannot make laws abridging free speech, it says nothing about private businesses.
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Weeelllll... Its not like google and youtube... Public utilities and all that jazz.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Weeelllll... Its not like google and youtube... Public utilities and all that jazz.
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A LOT of people have serious misconceptions about that. The Bill of Rights was always and only intended to restrict the government from making laws restriction certain rights. So many others have pushed it beyond the purpose of such things, and pushed more and more power into government hands, doing exactly the opposite of the intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
 
dgingeri said:
A LOT of people have serious misconceptions about that. The Bill of Rights was always and only intended to restrict the government from making laws restriction certain rights. So many others have pushed it beyond the purpose of such things, and pushed more and more power into government hands, doing exactly the opposite of the intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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Soo lets push more power to the public utilities? Is that any wiser?... I wouldn't KNOW if regulations prior to this made telephone companies not to block phone numbers due to free speech considerations, but iy would make sense to do so.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Soo lets push more power to the public utilities? Is that any wiser?... I wouldn't KNOW if regulations prior to this made telephone companies not to block phone numbers due to free speech considerations, but iy would make sense to do so.
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There shouldn't even BE the public utility monopolies we have today. That has come about specifically because of an overbearing government and crony capitalism.
 
dgingeri said:
There shouldn't even BE the public utility monopolies we have today. That has come about specifically because of an overbearing government and crony capitalism.
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Weeeellll... Again, not everything is cut and dry, even without public monopolies not everything in your life is buying a shirt at the store, and shouldn't be regulated the same.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Weeeellll... Again, not everything is cut and dry, even without public monopolies not everything in your life is buying a shirt at the store, and shouldn't be regulated the same.
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It shouldn't be regulated at all. The government should have the lightest possible footprint on law abiding people, and come down hard on people who don't abide by the law. Regulations simply serve to restrict competition to help those who are politically connected. They punish those who follow the law and don't do anything against those who don't. It's completely the opposite of what this country was founded on.
 
dgingeri said:
It shouldn't be regulated at all. The government should have the lightest possible footprint on law abiding people, and come down hard on people who don't abide by the law. Regulations simply serve to restrict competition to help those who are politically connected. They punish those who follow the law and don't do anything against those who don't. It's completely the opposite of what this country was founded on.
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Ah yeeeeehaaaa anarchy or course!
 
Boy I hope they didn't spend too many millions coming up with this crap. It'll do nothing to stop the calls but will likely be a revenue stream for the phone companies.
 
Wyodiver said:
My old number was registered with the federal "Do Not Call" system. I'm going to try that again with my new number, I guess. Is it effective at all?
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Probably not.

I'm doing my part. I keep them on the line as long as possible so the one calling me can't bother anyone else. I pretend I'm about 90 years old, live alone, and am lonely as fuck, and ask them all kinds of questions about their life, their family, what they think of x y z politician, etc.. If it's a female sales person, I eventually get around to making it an obscene phone call, but since they called me, it' cannot be prosecuted as such.
 
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