FTC Targets Massive Car Warranty Robocall Scheme 361
coondoggie writes "Robocalls are a scourge, and the Federal Trade Commission today took action against one outfit by asking a federal court to shut down companies that have been bombarding consumers with hundreds of millions of allegedly deceptive robocalls in an effort to sell vehicle service contracts. According to the FTC, the robocalls have prompted tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the Do Not Call Registry or asked not to be called. Five telephone numbers associated with the defendants have generated a total of 30,000 Do Not Call complaints. Consumers received the robocalls at home, work, and on their cell phones, sometimes several times in one day. Businesses, government offices and even 911 dispatchers also have been subjected to the calls, the FTC said."
Reader powerlord points out that another such company, not named in the FTC filing, raised the ire of thousands of internet-goers, who struck back by rickrolling the company's voice mail and digging up personal information on the company's president.
Oddly enough... (Score:1, Interesting)
A few months into living in Seattle I got a call from a phone company to my cell phone and I proudly informed them that unsolicited commercial calls to cell phones were subject to a fine in WA. I didn't push for their info, but let them off with a warning. After that I never had junk calls to that phone number. Recently I was looking for the relevant law and it seems I mixed it up with WA's anti-spam law -- where you get $100 for every unsolicited piece of spam you report.
Re:How about.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It gets worse than simply ignoring the Do Not Call list. You see, in order to be compliant with government regulations, legitimate marketing firms need to purchase an annual subscription to the DNC list. They then need to purge from their prospect list any number appearing in the DNC list.
Unfortunately, the government sells this list to anyone who asks; thus, Russian telemarketing companies sometimes buy the DNC list as a source of pre-verified, valid phone numbers.
Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually called the number back to figure out what the scam was, the guy on the other side asked me for my auto information. I told him that since he called me up, he should already know what my information is. Then the guy hung up on me.
I hope there is a public lynching.
Please fuck them up (Score:5, Interesting)
So the Do Not Call list became "Cheap list of verified numbers for people who can give you money but whose government can't arrest you."
So as the title says, please, when you find them, make an example out of them. Call them terrorists. We'll agree then look the other way!
Wow, it only took 30,000 complaints... (Score:5, Interesting)
Holy crap, the FTC did NOTHING until more than 30,000 complaints were received. You'd think the threshold would be a hell of a lot lower. Your tax money at work- thanks assholes.
Vigilantism (Score:5, Interesting)
When people feel that injustice has been done, then justice must either be provided or else the will make their own.
Saying that vigilantism is always wrong or "against the law" is no use if no other alternative is provided to those with legitimate grievance. Unfortunately our legal systems have evolved, and continue to evolve, into artifices that deny their services to the ordinary person. The courts are a closed club, open only to those with inordinate amounts of money and influence.
Faced with this growing reality, it shouldn't be surprising when people take matters into their own hands. The sad fact is that these web vigilantes didn't another more acceptable legal route because they knew full well how futile it would be. Little people often have to make their own justice nowadays.
And now they have the means to do it.
Re:How about.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anything which makes unwanted bells go off in my house by remote control is an invasion of my peace and quiet. Get some laws passed that allow the victim to hit #5 on their phone to charge the caller $5.00, then I'll be happy. If someone WANTS these calls, that's fine. Don't push #5. Most people don't want these calls and the victims should be able to instantly make these groups feel the pressure back in a big way.
Groups like The American Teleservices Association [ataconnect.org] (rebranded to remove "Telemarketing" from their name) and The Direct Marketing Association [the-dma.org] talk U.S. Congressmen into passing laws which enable annoying, invasive and often fraudulent activities from this lowlife "industry". It's an industry to the extent that people get paid to ring bells in my house but jeez - earn a living some other way. Annoying everyone over the phone [I believe] is not an "industry" as the lobbyist associations claim. If there was money in ringing your doorbell and hitting people with buckets of paint ten times a day, I'm sure there would be a lobbyist group for that, too. Oh wait... that's PETA.
I love the car warranty calls (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hurray! (Score:2, Interesting)
But hey, you have to expect that sort of thing when you take a job you know is immoral and unethical.
What exactly makes the job immoral and unethical? I will admit that I myself have been annoyed by some in the industry who could care less about regulations, but the company I worked for did nothing to show either of these things. When I worked in QA, if I saw/heard anything even remotely questionable it was immediately reported to both my manager and the rep's supervisor. The problems rarely surfaced again after that. I really hate that people generalize an industry because of a few bad apples.
Re:Hurray! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree immoral and unethical are not the best choice of words. Words that come to mind are despicable, ugly, vile, slimy, unworthy...
By 'few bad apples' do you mean, 'overwhelming majority'?
Re:How about.... (Score:5, Interesting)
credit card companies (banks) watch account habits and WILL call you if you do something weird. My manager got a call last year from his bank asking if he was in the USA. There was someone at an atm in hong kong in the process of trying to guess his pin number.
They don't verify anything really, they just plain cancel the card and will send you a new one with a new number. There's no reason for them to verify you ARE who you are, they're more interested in verifying the OTHER guy ISN'T you and cutting it off ASAP. Since they have your number and you're agreeing with them there's a problem, they don't need any more incentive.
Re:So they get shut down and... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, they don't wait to get shut down, usually.
I used to work for one of the top level (*cough*) product companies in this type of scam. I was too naive at the beginning of my employment to truly know what was happening. I learned really quick after the FTC paid a house call and quit the company. No charges were ever filed.
In short, this is how the scam works: A company is selling suspect products, web pages, in my case (hey, it was the 1990s). The hire a shady parent telemarketing company who then sets up, or hires out, smaller boiler room telemarketing companies. These smaller companies are the ones actually placing the calls and rarely have much more than 50 employees. They sell the "product" and everybody takes a cut of the deal. The small companies are rotated out, as the parent post pointed out, with a similar company with the same office, equipment and employees under a new company name and official owner every 3-6 months. This is faster than the FTC and FCC can process complaint claims. When said government agencies question the upstream companies about the crooked deals, they point to the small boiler room company, now closed and with all it's paperwork destroyed, as the source of the criminal act and show the feds sham paperwork that states their "clearly legal guidelines that the rogue company clearly disregarded." Of course, everyone, at the managerial level, is in on the corrupt deal and are fully aware it's illegal. But, this shell game scam creates plausible deniability and prevents the government agencies from putting the top level companies out of business and their owners in jail.
The owner of this "warranty" company in TFA sounds just like the boss at the company I used to work for and is likely just as guilty. The biggest problem is that this system works so well that you have to put some really suspect laws on the books to have any hope of going after the people really responsible as you can never prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were having proxy companies commit a crime for them unless they make a serious mistake.
On a slightly related note: Why do government agencies never talk to the likely underpaid and abused file clerk(s) when they investigate a company? Why do they only interview the managers? The managers usually have a well prepared set of lies for the feds and self motivation not sell out the company. The file clerk(s), even if they've been given the company lie, will likely be more than willing to sell out the managers, especially if immunity and a cut of the fine are offered, and will have the documentation, if there is any, to back up any claims they make. (Guess what my position was at the web company?)
Good comment. MOD PARENT UP. (Score:4, Interesting)
First sensible comment. The state and federal governments have been doing NOTHING, for YEARS, about this scam. When I tried to report the scam, someone in the Oregon state government just laughed, happily telling me that the attorney general's office had gotten many, many complaints.
During the years of the Bush administration, the government became extremely disfunctional, in my opinion.
gadget manufacturing opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
I have often thought that someone needs to make a gizmo that you could install on your phone line that would automatically answer all incoming calls and say "Press *random number* to complete this call." If the random number is not pressed within ten seconds, or the wrong number is pressed, then the recipient's phones would never be allowed to ring.
That should defeat robocalls.
Re:Hurray! (Score:1, Interesting)
I almost miss getting telemarketing calls. It was kinda fun to have someone that you can mess with and insult in most disgusting ways without feeling the least bit bad about it.
I used to think like you but I've changed my mind. The economy is in the tank and many people are being forced to take jobs well below their qualifications. If the call is legitimate and the caller is polite, I try to consider what the situation would be like if it were reversed.
And yes, just because you are on the DNC list doesn't mean you can't get telemarketing calls if it's from a business whom you have dealt with in the past and whom you have not specifically requested they not call.
Re:How about.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I guarantee that all the loophole groups (charities, political groups, etc.) do that. Before signing up for the DNC, I almost never got called by them. Now I get several calls a day from them. And that's in addition to the "dead line" calls I now get.
Re:How about.... (Score:4, Interesting)
If this was coupled with the phone company appending the incoming Caller ID to your call record then it would be easy to enforce.
Say you get a telemarketing call with a bogus caller ID, you simply request the phone company send you that information for that time and date and with that you can prove that the company was violating this law (since it would be a matter of record). They would have the originating phone number + the ID they used on a piece of paper you can then forward to the necessary parties.
Re:How about.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was referring strictly to cold-target marketing (that is, contacting people who don't have a prior business relationship with the company). Hence my use of the word "prospect" in "prospect list" - as in, a list of prospective clients.
SIT Status tone (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So they get shut down and... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's time to rethink the justice system.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty = Only for living breathing human beings.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent = Only for fictional corporate personhood.
Make it more easy to go after the execs responsible for disregarding the laws and hold them responsible for the acts of the company they've signed off on. (IE. Sending their telemarketing to these suspect telemarketing companies for example).
My technique for irritation callers (Score:2, Interesting)
Play with them.
If it is a fully automated call, don't hang up - just put down the phone and let the machine keep talking as long as it wants to. It costs them to call me not the other way around.
If it is a real person, or it is one of those automated calls where you can get to a real person by pressing a button, play interested for a few seconds ("what a coincidence, I've my contract is up for renewal soon and I think I'm paying too much!") then ask if they mind you putting the phone down for a few seconds while you go take a pan off the boil in the kitchen. Then put the phone down and go off to do something else. Come back later and check your phone log to see how long the caller sat waiting for you at their cost. My record for this is 11-and-a-bit minutes.
Or for more interactive fun and games, try play them at their own game: http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html [xs4all.nl]
I've actually been getting less nuisance calls since starting to play with them these ways, though that is probably just coincidence rather than causation.