FTC Bombs Massive Robocall Operation 154
coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today had a federal court in Chicago halt a major telemarketing operation that made at least 370 million illegal phone calls pitching worthless extended auto warranties and credit card interest rate-reduction programs. According to the FTC, one telephone service provider told the FTC that during a single day in April 2009 the defendants — SBN Peripherals — sent 2.4 million calls to consumers — more than 27 calls per second."
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:3, Funny)
No, actually, you should bring it up.
There's apparently good money in selling telemarketers. Or so I've heard.
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:3, Funny)
What a Freudan slip... SUING. I meant SUING.
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:4, Funny)
Is it wrong to hope that I someday see a black and white combat video on Wikileaks of an Apache gunship pointed at the blown out wall of some skyscraper with a wounded telemarketer or auto-dialer operator laying next to a headset and the gunners voice come over saying, "Just pick up the #%&$ing headset, just give me a reason, motha$%#@er!"
Not even a little.
sad news (Score:5, Funny)
Now I won't have anybody calling me.... :-(
They wouldn't sell me an extended warranty! (Score:1, Funny)
"Ooh, yes, I'd LOVE to have an extended warranty"
"Great! What kind of car do you have?"
"96 Ford mustang. It only has about 80,000 miles, but has a different color door as it was wrapped around a tree by the previous owner, the previous owner never changed the brakes in the 6 years he had the car, and ummm, oh yeah, a couple of nuts rusted through and the front left tire just fell off last week while I was parking it."
*CLICK*
i've been screwing with these people.... (Score:4, Funny)
every call they made showed on the caller id as "SBN Peripherals", so at least they weren't trying to spoof that. i usually got the credit card rate reduction, or claims that i won a cruise. the funny part is i have no credit card debt.... i have no debt of any kind.... so i just talk in the crank yankers voice and demand "i want the lowest rate, lady".... over and over. they'll read their script for 4 responses and then hang up. i'm pretty sure that's where things get illegal... you can't just call me and hang up. I WANT THE LOWEST RATE!#^!&#)!
screw you, SBN. you call me = i waste your time.
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:4, Funny)
Why is it that you get in trouble for distributing marijuana for a bigger fish but you don't get in trouble for working as a call operator at some telemarketer who is making illegal telephone calls?
Maybe it's a matter of who is enforcing those laws. Maybe if we put it on the police to track down telemarketers instead of the FTC, we'd start seeing headlines like "Suspected telemarketers accuse Chicago cops of brutality."
Perhaps law enforcement has been less successful at the task of making sure you can't smoke pot. Sure, I'm just saying, I've never had a pot dealer wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me "This is your second notice that your stash of pot is about to expire..."
Re:I remember them (Score:3, Funny)
"Of course, you know that you will never ever get any money from me, and the only reason I'm still talking to you is because I'm bored, and so you don't bother someone else at dinnertime."
35 minutes was my record.
After only 370 million! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm glad to see it takes only 370 million illegal phone calls to get the FTC interested. The Do Not Call list works!
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:3, Funny)
I liked it better when you said selling. You can grind them into a fine pink powder to make Torgo's Executive Powder [wikipedia.org], it has a thousand uses!
It's One of Those RoboDays (Score:5, Funny)
true, but aren't we talking about robo-calling? Is the job slump so bad that robots have to accept these crappy jobs in call centers?
The FTC really needs to see the other side of this (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's One of Those Days (Score:3, Funny)