FCC proposes $10 Million fine for spoofed robocalls

Fri Dec 20 22:43:31 UTC 2019

On Fri, 20 Dec 2019, Keith Medcalf wrote:

> On Friday, 20 December, 2019 10:57, Mark Milhollan wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Dec 2019, Keith Medcalf wrote:
>
>>> You should ALWAYS talk to the call center behind the robocaller.  The
>>> robocaller (the one playing the message) is relatively local and the
>>> cost of that call is minimal.  When you select to talk to the
>>> robocaller, that generates an international handoff to a call center
>>> in India.
>
>> Generally the call center phone number is also "local" even if the warm
>> body is in some other country as that usually occurs via SIP.
>
> Be that as it may, every minute you keep the call center person on the
> line is a minute they are not busily scamming someone else.
> Furthermore, while it is merely anecdotal, I can indeed report that
> since instituting a policy of ALWAYS answering robocalls and ALWAYS
> keeping them talking as long as possible, the number of such calls has
> decreased markedly, from several per day to now only one every couple of
> weeks / month.
> 
> Because there *is* a cost associated with robo-scams, they must keep
> score in order to maximize return for the resources consumed (unlike
> e-mail spam scams which have effectively no need to prune the potential
> target list) you simply have to make the "cost" of dialing your
> telephone more expensive that the other couple billion potential
> targets.  Its like being in a group being chased by a bear.  You needn't
> run faster than the bear, merely faster than the slowest in the group.

This assumes my time is worth less than nothing, which is not the case, and
that my time will make a material negative impact on these operations,
which it will not.

I do not believe that all people receiving these calls will spend the time
to screw with them at a high enough rate to make it cost-ineffective for
the scams to continue, unfortunately due to the high enough rate of success
that keeps them in business.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------