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U.S. Senate Passes Bill to Cut Down on Robocalling
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I never had this happen here in Germany. Meanwhile I got a SIM card in Miami and got calls from Cuba on a daily basis like wth
I just hope there's something (anything) in iOS 13 related to handling calls like this.
Same here, but we do get some calls from for instance utility providers and the like, but you can get around this by registering your number with a do not call registry, it helps a lot, they get fined €5000 if they still do without your consent.
Interesting that our European friends here don't seem to have this problem. I didn't know this was such a US-specific thing. Anyway, I hope somebody figures out something on how to fix it.
What does "passing a law" do? Was law enforcement able to catch these guys & not able to prosecute for lack of laws so far? If law enforcement cannot catch the crooks, then any law is not worth the paper its written on...
I hope this actually does something, I don’t even pick up the phone anymore from numbers that aren’t in my contacts.
This is really a good news!
I still remember last year when I received way too many spam calls after an online insurance quote. It was so annoying that I tried all kinds of blocking apps to reduce the number of spams. It is really easy to miss important calls when you thought it is yet another spam. But using apps only is not enough since they use dynamic numbers.
Finally, I gave up and changed my phone number.
I still remember last year when I received way too many spam calls after an online insurance quote. It was so annoying that I tried all kinds of blocking apps to reduce the number of spams. It is really easy to miss important calls when you thought it is yet another spam. But using apps only is not enough since they use dynamic numbers.
Finally, I gave up and changed my phone number.
One of the reasons might be that most countries in Europe don't have/use English as their main language.
A related one, we mostly (almost always) get contacted by local native service instead of Indians or services based in other English speaking countries (Low cost), not that most of us can't understand/speak English, reason might be we just don't want it or think service should be local amongst other reasons.
*European friends: Thanks for being so polite.
I’d appreciate political groups be removed from the Do Not Call registry exception list.
Call me jaded, but some way, somehow, this will create a monetary opportunity for business ... and to get what we expect from this it will cost us in one form or another. Don't ever think the Government is here to protect us little guys just because they're our heroes (hint, they're not
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The main problem is that you could call anyone in the world and have your number show up as the Whitehouse for example. So if technologies are implemented that make that impossible, it would cut down most of these dodgy calls overnight. Then for the rest, they can be traced and punished. I wish the UK would implement this (which would actually be a lot easier because we basically have one telephone company (BT).
The issue is US phone calls are significantly cheaper than European calls. The US FCC has been restricting the cost that a long distance carrier pays to another in order to terminate the call for more than 2 decades. It actually has been set to zero recently, eliminating the main cost of long distance calls.
This is in direct contrast to many parts of Europe that have calling party pays on cell phones, which means a single call can be a few cents per minute. Compare to US wholesale long distance rates on the order of 0.06 cents/min (6 cents per 100 min). That is, you can make easily 50 calls in the US for the price of 1 in Europe.
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Anyone who has taken the time to actually read the bill would agree that it does absolutely nothing to curb robocalls and spam texts. Zero.
Among the highlights:
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Charging for phone calls is not the solution. It's time to put people in prison.
Among the highlights:
- No criminal penalties for robocalls or spoofing phone numbers - instead the civil penalties increase from $1,500 to $10,000 per call (people who engage in robocalls could care less about potential penalties)
- telecoms can obtain exemptions and extensions to the requirement to provide call screening and blocking to consumers - it will be years before we get theses tools, if ever.
- consumers can't pursue individual actions against spammers and robocallers - critical given how ineffective the FCC has been in enforcing the Do Not Call list
- no changes to give some teeth to the useless Do Not Call list and associated regulations
[doublepost=1558650126][/doublepost]
Charging for phone calls is not the solution. It's time to put people in prison.
That’s about as smart of an idea as fining consumers who answer these calls. The carriers can’t stop every single call.
If the carriers get fined, who do you think will actually pay the penalties?
Oh, yeah—back to my first sentence.
You'll never see that because it's the political groups that created the ridiculous exception that makes zero sense.
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It can't be enforced. Robocallers and spammers are generally based overseas, unidentifiable, or are scumbags who could care less about civil judgments. There are no criminal penalties so no one has to worry about prison time.
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Read the details.
Most of these calls come from shady VOIP providers who buy minutes through layers of middlemen. Just search "short duration termination". Legit carriers impose a hefty fee if the average call length is too short; the major one we use at work requires a 1 minute average length (1 second rounding) or the fine is something like 1.5 cents per call with threats of service cancellation.