Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/09/fcc-robocall-fine.html
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It may be a record, but it still seems small to me, assuming they’ve made billions and billions of robocalls.
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Maybe next they can go after the people who call me telling me the warranty on my vehicle has expired and yet cannot tell me what type of vehicle I supposedly drive.
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So the robocaller still made a profit of 775 million? There should be a bounty on robocallers that would be enough for employees to profit from turning in their employers.
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It’s still just the cost of doing business. Until I hear about these companies going under, or my phone stops ringing every day thanks to one of these assholes, I’m not impressed.
Add to that, how easy is it for these companies to abandon their name and just rebrand and relaunch?
Finally, about a year ago this was an important topic to me. Today, this is barely even a distraction.
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I had one of those calls today. I looked up Russian car brands and have decided next time I will tell them I have a 2002 Lada. Find out what they offer. Depending on the response, they will discover that I have to pay in rubles, that the engine has been “hacked” by my cousin for better mileage, etc. No fake Russian accent.
In reality the problem is that I kind of feel sorry for the people that have to do this, so am not very likely to take it too far. Or even do it at all.
But it was something to google for a few minutes.
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LOL, they don’t profit $1.00 per call.
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It’s not worth the effort to have a story, just a) try to get a human on the line; then b) string the conversation out as long as possible. "Just a sec, there’s someone at the door. " (three minutes pass). The commissions for a successful transaction with a human are so high, they’ll endure all kinds of abuse. If you want to find out how much they’re hanging on your wallet, keep them on the line, then tell them “OK I’m done wasting your time on purpose. G’bye.” They’ll inevitably call you names.
I’m missing how that applies to what I said, but okay then.
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I got one today, even as they get fined they continue to call.
This is Robert with 2020 health care Central we look through our records and notice you submitted a request in the past for some information regarding a more affordable health insurance policy this is a follow up and we’d love to hop on the call to discuss some options please press 2 to speak to an advisor
I immediately filed an FTC complaint, you can do it here https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/GettingStarted?NextQID=412&Url=%23%26panel1-5&SubCategoryID=0#crnt
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You know what’s cheaper than a $225 million fine? A $2 million contribution to a re-election campaign, in the name of Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom. The word “propose” is the only one that counts in this article, folks.
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I’d prefer it if when we find robo callers, we go in with some kind of destructive force, break all their stuff and burn their building to ashes, then salting the ground.
Perhaps this is what police SWAT units should be exclusively used for.
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I would add life imprisonment. A single robocall is a minor offense. But multiply it by a billion, and you have enough evil to send the perp to a hundred life imprisonments.
Of course, fraud is much worse. I don’t know how many of those happened but the idea is similar.
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I guess they can “propose” all the fines they want. It makes news, momentarily.
The history of collecting those fines is pathetic.
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Exactly. This is one of those cases where the punishment should be tied into the profit reaped by the crime. A law that establishes fines of particular dollar amounts could put a struggling person into bankruptcy or barely slow a wealthy person down on their way out the door to do the same thing again.
Now, if the fines were defined as a percentage of their taxable income (for those at or below the Federally-defined poverty line) or a percentage of their PRE-taxable income (for those earning a particular multiple of the poverty-line) we might actually upset enough wealthy people to see them change their behaviors… But it’s more likely that they would then increase their spending on PACs and their own ‘pet’ lawmakers to de-fang or de-legislate any such laws.
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Dead or alive, dead preferred unless they know enough to inform on other robocallers.
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Ha! I’ve got them all beat! I’ve never had a vehicle with a warranty!
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