First Caller-ID Spoofers Punished 156
coondoggie plugs a NetworkWorld story that begins, "The first telemarketers charged with transmitting false Caller IDs ... to consumers were fined and barred from continuing their schemes by a New Jersey District Court judge.... [T]wo individuals and one corporate defendant have been barred from violating the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule and its Do Not Call requirements ... They were also found liable for $530,000 in damages ... [T]he case was the first brought by the Commission alleging the transmission of phony caller ID information or none at all."
I hope that this set precedent... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://what-is-what.com/what_is/spam.html [what-is-what.com]
Jesus Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a whole lot of money for getting called.
You know who else should get slapped with a fine? Companies that hire telemarketers.
Ban them from using phones (Score:5, Insightful)
why waste their time and money? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe someone can help me understand something here. Why would a company want to waste their resources marketing to people who have made an overt effort to opt-out? Do they really think that people will make a purchase if they could through?
Personally, I've put my number on the "do not call list" and I wouldn't buy anything from a telemarketer purely as a matter of principle - I'd pay more elsewhere just to avoid encouraging this form of marketing. I've never met anyone who didn't feel similar about getting sales calls at home.
Re:Never did understand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why waste their time and money? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the DNC lists went into effect, many telemarketers tried to spin it into a positive thing, saying that the gov't was actually helping them by cleansing their lists of the people who wouldn't buy anything anyway. It was cute, because the DNC lists really killed their old business models. Looks like the survivors out there are relying heavily on loopholes in the law and the relative lack of enforcement.
to remove yourself from this list, click here (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ban them from using phones (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ban them from using phones (Score:1, Insightful)
"have been barred..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why waste their time and money? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what about those 000-000-0000 nums? (Score:3, Insightful)
Grom he actual bill that was passed:
IN GENERAL - It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, unless such transmission is exempted pursuant to paragraph (3)(B).
Unless the Obama camp was attempting to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value from you it is perfectly legal for them or any other organization to spoof their caller id.
Re:Jesus Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
There are *no* legitimate telemarketing companies. Nobody has ever asked you to call them on the telephone and try to sell them something; stop trying to pretend otherwise. If you call me with a sales pitch, regardless of what it is or who you represent, I'll want your head on a pike.
Re:I hope that this set precedent... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Christ (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How did they track the telemarketers down? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spam and Telemarketing ARE profitable which is why people do it. As they say there's a sucker born every minute. Also the odds are high that this is a 'separate company' spun off by someone to do telemarketing and thus avoiding the actual judgments on their legitimate businesses.
Re:why waste their time and money? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've worked in 2 telemarketing companies when I was a young lad-- degrading work, but indoors and no heavy lifting-- and I can tell you that the First Rule Of Spammers applies to them: They're dumb.
As far as I could tell none of the floor managers had any interest whatsoever in making sales. They cared about other critical metrics such as minimizing bathroom breaks, total number of calls made, how many "objections" we "overcame" before disconnecting, script adherence, etc, but not about sales. I mean, of course they *officially* cared about sales and were paid on it, but they were generally too stupid to realize that forcing someone with a talent for salesmanship to 100% adhere to a poorly written script was NOT making anyone money.
Some of my favorite boneheaded moves I had to work with:
It was a dumb industry. Good riddance to it, even though it helped pay my rent for a while.
Just hang up? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that a simple hang-up is just as (not very) effective at stopping telemarketing as a phenomenon, and takes about 1/100th the time.
I try to be considerate to other persons: let them merge in traffic, hold the door open, not stand in front of the shelf they want to look at, and so forth, but I'm not really inclined to martyr my own time so that someone somewhere won't get a call. That person can do the same as I: just hang up.
Re:Jesus Christ (Score:4, Insightful)
I do believe you have a point that there are no legit cold-call telemarketing companies.
Re:why waste their time and money? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I hope that this set precedent... (Score:2, Insightful)
Pity more than half of my "telemarketing" calls are these pre-recorded message so I can't really truly counterscript them. Also they drop the line before I can get any information on them. I would like to send these people to Abu Ghraib or some other gulag.