Tougher Rules On Telemarketer Robo-Calls

but will they work?

[lawman]

Virtually every telemarketer call I receive is either from an Unknown or spoofed number. Hard to imagine these characters, who have never followed the old rules, will suddenly follow the new ones..

The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday that it will now require telemarketers to obtain written consent from people before placing a robocall.

The new rules also eliminate a loophole that allowed telemarketers to place robocalls if they had an "established business relationship" with the consumer.

Telemarketers will also have to provide an automated way for people to revoke their consent to the robocall by pressing a few keys on their phone during the call.

[npr.org...]

[Old_Honky]

These pre-recorded calls are a nightmare, they are never of any interest and they are impossible to stop. In the UK we are told that they must by law give you a number to press which removes you from their database. 2 problems there:
1. It doesn't work
2. You have to listen to the whole message before you can press the button.

This is not telemarketing; it is a criminal waste of my time, no reasonable company selling a reputable good or service would stoop to this crass sledgehammer approach. It is all ambulance chasers and companies trying to obtain repayments that you might be entitled to if you were stupid enough to sign up for loan protection insurance in the past.

Why won't governments ban this intrusive and repulsive practice?

We have the Telephone Preference Service which effectively blocks all "human" telemarketing calls; I have subscribed to this free service at home and on all my work numbers and we don't get a single call, but the robocalls keep on coming. I get around 6-10 calls per day on each number. It is really annoying.

I would be interested to find out if anyone has every bought anything from one of these dodgy robocalls. Conversely if we have anyone on WebmasterWorld who has ever used this method of trying to alienate potential customers could they please tell me why?

[Marshall]

Why won't governments ban this intrusive and repulsive practice?

At least here in the US they won't as politicians use it to try to get votes. They are excluded from the rules other than the time frame they are permitted to make the call.

I would be interested to find out if anyone has every bought anything from one of these dodgy robocalls.

No.

Marshall

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I would be interested to find out if anyone has every bought anything from one of these dodgy robocalls.

I think you can take it that they do. Setting these systems up costs money so there must be a ROI. It's probably a bit like spam where they are working on a very low percentage take up.

[piatkow]

We have the Telephone Preference Service which effectively blocks all "human" telemarketing calls

I still get several a week from overseas. I filter calls through the answerphone so they usually cut off automatically. The robocalls are a real pain because they record.

[buckworks]

it is a criminal waste of my time

Yes.

IMHO, robocalls are several degrees more evil than email spam.