[telecom] FCC gently tightens rules on "robot calls".

Rachel's real name is Rajani and she is calling from a call center in Bangalore, far out of the reach of the FTC. Cheap long distance providers using VoIP have made it much less expensive to call friends abroad, but they have also made it much less expensive for fraudulent operations abroad to call you.

--scott

- - "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

The solution is simple: wait until Rachel finishes her announcement, tap through to speak to a human, and waste as much of that person's time as possible. If only 1/10 of Rachel's targets did that, she and her friends - wherever they are - would be out of business in a month.

Bill Horne Moderator

Rachel may be out of the reach of the FTC, but the sleaze who hires her employer almost certainly is not.

-GAWollman

They reported that on ABC nightly news last nite and my reactions were:

- "What a load of crap! Don't these news people even bother to look into the stuff they're reporting?"

i.e. Call centers going offshore and using VOIP with multiple relays to become totally immune to No-Call List prosecution.

- Typical Washington legislative activity: do something that gives people a warm fuzzy in a sound byte, but has virtually no substance.

They're not "news people". They are performers, reading from a script that someone else wrote while concentrating on looking sincere and trustworthy. Their only marketable skill is that they look good on television.

-- Bill Horne

"This is not what I expected I did not expect to feel this good I always kept my heart protected I crossed my fingers and I knocked on wood" - John Gorka

A few moments' investigation would make it abundantly clear that this is not true. (I assume you weren't intending to libel any particular ABC News reporter, just television reporters in general.)

-GAWollman

Again: if they are calling Americans, then they are working for someone who does business in the United States and is within reach of the Federal courts. They don't annoy people for the fun of it: they actually reap some economic benefit from doing so, and the people who pay them must in turn be engaging in some sort of economic activity with the people they are soliciting, which places them (even if they are not U.S. nationals) under the jurisdiction of U.S. law.

-GAWollman

Per Garrett Wollman:

The logic sounds unassailable - but the practice seems to be that nobody's getting prosecuted anymore.

If my scanner hadn't bitten the big one months ago, I'd scan and post a couple of the lame letters I've been getting from the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office - basically denying any more responsibility for enforcing the Penna Do-Not-Call List.

snipped-for-privacy@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote in news:jhm5i1$1ka1$ snipped-for-privacy@grapevine.csail.mit.edu:

To make enforcement and reporting easier and more efficient, we need a vertical service code which would work similarly to *57, which could be dialed after receiving such a call. Giving details and followup might be by AVR right after dialing the code, or through a web site at some time afterwards.

I don't know about wherever you live, but here in California, even if you pay for *57 it has no effect because the telco won't cooperate with law enforcement against junk callers. at&t company policy seems to be that junk = revenue and is therefore good.

John David Galt wrote in news:jhp6fj$2d0$ snipped-for-privacy@blue-new.rahul.net: