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  •   about 10 years ago

FTC Challenge is at odds with what consumers really want.

The FTC challenge was hopelessly flawed from the start. Most people want to stop ALL robo calls, not just the illegal ones. Do a search on the number of people annoyed by the political calls around November 2012.

The value of the DNC was destroyed by the many exemptions (i.e. political and charity calls). According to my call logs, eliminating all illegal robo-calls would only reduce my total robo calls by 25-35%. No thank you, I want to block them all.

Blocking all robo-calls, as well as most human telemarketers is very simple to do.

Apparently the FTC does not want us to block all robo calls, just the illegal ones. I beg to differ, and differ big-time! I now block all robo-calls, and even most telemarketer calls by humans too. I do not have to maintain any (constantly changing) Call-ID black lists or white lists.

An auto-answer solution is 100% effective against all robo calls from the moment you plug it in. The unit asks you to dial an extension to “ring through”. Robots cannot do this. There are several of these call blockers on the market, and some small PBX units can do an auto attendant function as well.

To discourage the human telemarketers one needs to add the right wording to your auto-answer outgoing message. Say something like this, “We do not accept any sales, political, charity, poll or market research calls. Telemarketers please hang up now.” In my experience, few if any telemarketers will ring through after such a message.

  • 5 comments

  •   •   about 10 years ago

    The auto-answer is similar in function to what we propose, but our GuardTM services uses a central database and rules and means for positively identifying callers. See - An Easy to Implement Solution that Meets All FTC Requirements. What we have there is a system designed to the requirements of the FTC. We can go way beyond that and establish individual rules for callers and more.

  •   •   about 10 years ago

    Yes, a central database could permit legitimate robo-calls to bypass the auto-attendant and ring through.

    But just in case the lawbreaking DNC violators began spoofing legitimate callers in the database I would like to have a way to revert to full 100% auto-attendant blocking, ignoring this database.

    To prevent spoofing the FTC (or other agency) would have to enforce laws that prevented it. Judging by the anemic enforcement of the DNC, I would not hold out much hope for this.

  •   •   about 10 years ago

    We do not use Caller ID to identify callers. We identify the caller and then process calls based on their identity. The StopRoboCallsTM service is dumbed-down to meet the FTC requirements. Our service manages relationships between individuals and companies so the phone only rings when you want it to.

  •   •   about 10 years ago

    How does a PSTN land line identify the caller. How does it access the database. Does this require a lot of new infrastructure.

  •   •   about 10 years ago

    What if I (as a land-line subscriber) do not want to receive _any_ robo-calls, whether from DNC violators or from the many DNC exemptions, such as charities, political, polling, and market research?

    That is the point of my original post. I believe that the vast majority of land-line subscribers (VOiP or analog) have no desire to differentiate between legal and illegal robo calls. Like me, they want to stop _all_ robo calls.

    No database is required to accomplish that.

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