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Communications United States

Lawmakers Are Ready To Crack Down on Robocalls (washingtonpost.com) 87

Posted by msmash from the about-time dept.
A shared hatred of robocalls is one issue uniting the House during a divisive impeachment inquiry. From a report: House lawmakers yesterday passed a bipartisan bill aimed to crack down on the fraudulent auto-dial callers by a nearly unanimous 417-to-3 vote. The legislation, known as the TRACED Act, now moves to the Senate, where it is co-sponsored by Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and is expected to pass. The bill's passage amid broad Congressional gridlock -- on the very day the House Judiciary Committee hosted a heated impeachment hearing -- underscores just how bad the robocall epidemic has become. Americans received more than 5 billion such calls last month alone, according to the robocall blocking app YouCall. Congress's move to intervene could score points with Americans across the political spectrum who are fed up with the fraudsters.
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Lawmakers Are Ready To Crack Down on Robocalls More

Lawmakers Are Ready To Crack Down on Robocalls

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  • IEDs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by spudnic ( 32107 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:34PM (#59488696)

    I wonder how many IEDs have been erroneously triggered due to a robocaller?

    • All they really need to do is outlaw the use of fake numbers. Any phone that calls out would need to be a real number, paid for by the caller, that can be called back.

      With that done, robocallers, debt collectors, etc. would have to own giant swaths of phone numbers to do their nasty business.

      • Itâs not that easy. CLIP spoofing is currently needed to correctly display numbers for call forwarding. Itâs a hopelessly antiquated technology without any authorisation features that would never be approved today but there is as of now no modern replacement.

  • Any bill this popular is going to get a lot of BS attached to it and won't pass. One party won't be able to resist being able to point the finger at the other and blame them for not blocking robocalls

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      Did you even read the first sentence? It passed already 417-3

      • Presumably he was referring to the bill passing the Senate, but even that's a bit of a stretch since the summary says it has broad bi-partisan support and is expected to pass. However, since there's nothing in the bill about stopping political robocalls there's no real reason for the representatives to vote against it unless they're trying to make some kind of principled stand.

        • It already passed in the Senate in May. Even if Trump doesn't sign it there was enough support to override a veto.

          https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]
          https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )
          It's my understanding that the bill is supposed to only stop *fraudulent* calls, whether the call is a recording or not. When I call my ISP, it gives an estimate of a wait time and gives me an option of a callback when I am coming up next in the caller queue so that I don't have to wait on the phone the entire time. If I choose that option, I am definitely going to receive a robocall... the fact that I will eventually be talking to a human during the call is irrelevant.

  • I wonder (Score:3)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:42PM (#59488726)
    who are the three that voted against it and why

    • Re:I wonder (Score:5, Informative)

      by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:49PM (#59488744)

      who are the three that voted against it and why

      Justin Amash (I-Mich.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) voted against the legislation. Each of them had voiced concerns over giving the FCC too much authority.

      • It has already passed in the Senate too (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve ( 949321 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @03:06PM (#59488828)
        The Senate approved it 97-1. Care to guess who the 1 vote against it was? It's not hard. If you are familiar with American politics, you'll know who would vote against it. But I'll give you some time to think about it.

        Ready to talk about who the 1 vote against was? I predicted it before I looked it up. It was, of course, Rand Paul. Another famous "Just me" vote by him was the one against helping sick 9-11 first responders earlier this year.

        • Yea... he is following in the footsteps of his father. They called Ron Paul "Dr. No." because he would usually always vote no regardless how many puppies were saved.

          New to politics I see. Welcome.

        • Re:It has already passed in the Senate too (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @04:02PM (#59489060) Homepage Journal

          His protest against the 9/11 responders bill wasn't on covering the illnesses, but that it had no time limit, and that we might be paying for someone's illness 60 years later.

          Yes, Sen. Paul, that happens. Sometimes it takes a long time for a workplace injury to have its effects. We've seen it in black lung and asbestos-related diseases.

          • Sometimes it takes a long time for a workplace injury to have its effects.

            Yeah, I guess the Ol' Randmeister was sick the day they taught that in his med school classes.

    • I would vote against it, because it's not going to do $hit. They'll all pat themselves on the back and brag to their constituents that they "solved" the problem. And robocall you up next November to say "vote for me again" because the law doesn't apply to them, of course.

  • Watered Down Bill (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @02:43PM (#59488730)

    Lawmakers are not ready to crack down on robocallers. This bill just takes the roadmap the FCC is already moving towards and codifies it into law. It merely gives the appearance Congress is doing something.

    Frank Pallone's (D - NJ) Stopping Bad Robocalls Act had actual teeth, and was passed by the House as well. But it was never picked up by the Senate so we have this watered down bill instead. The TRACE Act was the one the collection agency lobbyists hoped would be made into law so they wouldn't have to change their practices.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rho ( 6063 )

      Is the collection agency lobby that powerful? That seems weird.

      I'm more concerned about the number of bogus robocalls that originate out of (I presume) India. The fake IRS scams, the Windows support scams, etc. I'd like to see Washington clamp down on those by instituting crippling tariffs and immigration restriction until there are no call centers left east of the Rhine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        Is the collection agency lobby that powerful? That seems weird.

        The push back for this legislation comes from legilators who are against giving agencies such as the FCC more power. This is the reason this vote wasn't unanimous, and it is why the more harsh bill was never voted on by the Senate. Everyone pretty unanimously wants the robocalls to stop, but too many politicians hate the very concept of government regulation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nomadic ( 141991 )

          It's a stupid argument since this is basically taking power away from FCC by ordering them what to do rather than allowing them to do it on their own discretion.

        • Maybe they are in the wrong profession. If you want to limit government power you create very specific legislation focused on outcomes. You provide clarity on what you do not want. Being a pure idealogue on either side is stupid, but you have many clear problems with clear solutions that just need some fscking leadership to implement.

      • I wouldn't look at the collection agency lobby as an island. The collection agency exists so that other consumer sales-based businesses can continue to offer misleading products and services at unrealistic prices through deceptive marketing.

        Once consumers go tits up on these sales and stop paying, it's the collection industry they turn to make good on these bills.

        I've done consulting work at a collection agency, and some departments are so ingrained in the companies they collect for it's almost like they'r

    • > This bill just takes the roadmap the FCC is already moving towards and codifies it into law. It merely gives the appearance Congress is doing something.

      Isn't this the proper way to do it? I find this way a lot better than the FCC deciding by itself how to move forward on any regulatory expansion.

      Congress is giving legitimacy to the FCC's action by actually doing it by law. That is the job of Congress.

    • Frank Pallone's (D - NJ) Stopping Bad Robocalls Act had actual teeth, and was passed by the House as well. But it was never picked up by the Senate so we have this watered down bill instead.

      If you want to stop a bill for years, just pass a weaker version of it. Then you can keep saying, "We've already addressed this."

  • 417-3? (Score:2, Informative)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 )
    For those who are curious, the 3 are: Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Justin Amash, I-Mi Andy Biggs - R-Az Presumably mass marketing shills who should find themselves dragged behind cars across fields of broken glass and bear traps. And I'm surprised the number of calls is only 5B last month. My wife probably got half of them.

    • Fully agree, I get, on my cell phone, from spoofed numbers, 5-10 calls a day about how to lower my credit card interest rate and that my car's warranty is expiring.... I no longer bother answering calls not from folks on my contacts list.

    • Re:417-3? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @03:13PM (#59488846)

      Presumably mass marketing shills

      Amash is a libertarian that believes that is out of scope for the federal government and over-reach.

      He's consistent, to a fault, and even told the GOP to shove it on July 4th.

      • Amash is a libertarian that believes that is out of scope for the federal government

        I wonder what attracted him into the business of lawmaking then. Just to sabotage it?

        • Amash is a libertarian that believes that is out of scope for the federal government

          I wonder what attracted him into the business of lawmaking then. Just to sabotage it?

          Yes. Haven't you been paying attention?

        • Just to sabotage it?

          Sabotage, no.

          Limit the powers of the federal government to what he/libertarians believe should be an actual limited role of the federal government, yes.

          If you believe in some interpretations of the 10th amendment to limit the scope of the federal government what should you do? Nothing? Not run because it's "sabotaging" it?

  • Lawmakers can't score any points here because they're years and years late already.
  • Until all unwanted calls are equal I don't see much progress here.

  • ...this should have been part of the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003. So it's already 16 years overdue, just like the bill that imposes criminal penalties, up to and including the corporate death penalty, for data breaches of our personal information. And have you tried googling your name plus your zip code to see what anyone can so easily find out about you? If you have a heart condition, I don't advise it!

    • Only see my name, spouses name, address and phone number come up. What's the big deal, that was possible in the days of printed telephone directories being stacked on porches by multiple publisher for decades. *yawn*

      now if you're a criminal, celebrity or registered sex offender could get juicy....

      • What's different is you could choose how your name and address were displayed in the phone book or make your number unlisted, and the setting was permanent.

        Now you have to contact all of the companies in the search result and ask them to remove your information, providing MORE personal information as needed (a scan of your driver license, etc.), and if you ever subsequently apply for credit or do whatever put your name on their lists in the first place, you have to contact all those companies and ask them t

        • Actually only the phone company respected the unlisting wish and other books still had it, like the companies that put out "combined white and yellow page" listings. Mainly because states had to provide voter registration lists publicly, junk mailers too would get and use those.

          It would take law to forbid making web pages with people's information on them.

  • Predator Drone RoboCall Response (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stinkydog ( 191778 ) <sd@@@strangedog...net> on Thursday December 05, 2019 @03:06PM (#59488820) Homepage

    We need a bill with real teeth. A volley of robocalls should end with a Hellfire missile destroying the offending call center. That would solve the problem in about 2 days...

    SD

    • I'll suggest a further escalation. Each robocall should end with a volley of hellfire missiles. Solution is not much faster, and decidedly more expensive, but is more spectacular to watch.

  • Pointless (Score:3)

    by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @03:07PM (#59488830)
    It criminalizes some calls. That means the majority of illegal calls will claim to be legal calls, but were misunderstood.

    Criminalizing it also means that Bob can't sue the caller, but the government must prosecute them criminally in the federal courts. That's slow, hard, and will likely never happen. Once, I got an obviously fraudulent call. I got a call back number, and some personal/financial details. I called the FBI and told them I'm reporting a federal crime. The front desk of the FBI office (Anchorage), ended up hanging up on me, not wanting to pass the call to anyone who could do anything about it.

    Making it a federal crime will have the same effect. Nobody will care, and unless they are investigated for something else, this law will never be enforced. This is the type of law they's use to go after Enron after the fraud cases failed because Enron destroyed the evidence, and Arthur Andersen/Accenture helped them cover it up.

    A simpler way would be to mandate all calls transfer $0.10 from the caller to the person called. Essentially, every phone becomes a pay phone, and the receiving phone company takes $0.10 from the originating company, like a long distance call, but instead of pocketing it, applies it to the account of the person called. A fee to connect calls would eliminate robocalls tomorrow. Something the TRACED Act won't do.

    Also make it fraud to send CID that can't call back the caller. Sending your 800-someone number when you can from 212-555-1212 is fine, so long as the displayed number belongs to the same company, but anything else is fraud.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 )
      You're assuming the phone call is even placed from a real phone....

      Most robocalls are already wire fraud because they are calling from a hacked fake number. Ever get a call from india with a local phone number, sometimes you can even call the number back and get a completely different person's personal number...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You're assuming the phone call is even placed from a real phone.... Most robocalls are already wire fraud because they are calling from a hacked fake number. Ever get a call from india with a local phone number, sometimes you can even call the number back and get a completely different person's personal number...

        " I got a call back number, and some personal/financial details." Those bits of information are useful for investigators. The FBI didn't bother because both numbers were probably foreign, so outside of their jurisdiction.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        It must be from a real phone. That's what sends the sounds from the other side. My phone company pays me $0.10 for every call. If they can't collect because "Bob's Telco" is a fraudulent telco, then they will be blacklisting the fraudulent telco. If Comcast sells IP lines to scammers, then when they get chagrged $0.10 for the call to me, and their scammer disappears, they take the $0.10 loss, then double check their customers.

        Make the payment to the recipient mandatory under law, and the rest is a busi
        • Must it? It must be nice to live in an ideal world.... fact is lots of robocalls do not originate from a real physical line anyone paid for.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )

      What if the displayed number belongs to a call center that automatically dispatches calls to one of many companies? The 800 number you get won't be registered to the same company that is calling you in that case, even though any calls to that number would ultimately be forwarded directly to the correct party.

      Or do you want to just ban call rerouting? Because while that'd do the trick, you'd completely break POTS, and crash a whole fuckton of legitimate use.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        Call rerouting is fine. Except that the phone companies are willing participants in fraud, becuse there are no penalties to them for selling cheap lines to know scammers.

        POTS wouldn't break if you punished fraud. And you are deliberately being obtuse about the called number. If HP hires Stream to handle customer support, but HP wants their Colorado HQ number displayed, even if the call center makes outbound calls from a 214 number, that's fine. HP could track down the support company and reach the pers

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )

          Third party 800 number providers are hardly a rare edge case. They are extremely common. Company A gets an 800 number from company B, which owns it and is in the business of leasing 800 numbers to clients. Company B actually buys hundreds or perhaps thousands of 800 numbers and so gets a bulk discount, where it may be more expensive for company A to deal directly with its own phone company. When A buys its 800 number from B, company B sets up the routing for the 800 number provided so any incoming ca

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )

            When A buys its 800 number from B, company B sets up the routing for the 800 number provided so any incoming call to it goes directly to company A. Everyone is happy.

            So A "owns" the number. I don't see how your comment is relevant. Someone who buys 800 numbers to lease out the 1-800-good-number for extortion fees shouldn't exist. But that they do is irrelevant. The number presented belongs to the caller.

            You are asserting that because it's owned by someone else, then leased out, that there's no connection between the user of the number and the number. I had trouble explaining how wrong you are, because it would take months of educating you in how phone numbers wor

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        The call center can have the outbound calls relayed through the client company's switch the client company can sign an affidavit that the call center is authorized to call on their behalf (and taking responsability for any such calls that may be in violation of any laws or regulations. Or, just don't call. How many calls that come out of outsourced call centers are really welcome anyway?

        No breaking of POTS required.

    • I saw a Slashdotter post something like this: Allow the person who was called to push a button (like *66) which would charge the caller, say, $0.25, giving half to him and half to the phone company(ies). That might tickle the company's money bone, making them interested in following that law. I thought it was a good idea. Any thoughts?

    • A simpler way would be to mandate all calls transfer $0.10 from the caller to the person called.

      That's just the idea of adding a charge to calls/email/postal mail to make spam less profitable. Verizon tried that, and got sued by a school district which was using a robocaller to inform parents of changes in school schedules. It's not enough to appraise an idea against the common use case you're envisioning. You have to also consider how your idea will impact corner cases.

      Also make it fraud to send CID t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      The government needs to prosecute the telcom companies. Considering that there are fewer than half a doze in the US right now, enforcement of something like this would be very, very simple, if only the Republicans would pass some fucking useful laws.
    • I almost agree with your solution. 10c should be charged to any caller who wants to spoof the number. If you are not spoofing, should be free. Since the robo's always spoof, 10c is going to put them out of biz.

    • Making it criminal also allows the feds to request extradition, an important factor in most of these robodialer cases, I suspect.

  • That should free up a lot of jobs for humancalls.

  • The WAPO article links to
    https://www.prnewswire.com/new... [prnewswire.com]

    which links to YouMail [youmail.com]. YouMail replaces your voicemail. Is there a robocall blocking app or company named YouCall.

    • YouCall seems to be a typo - I know that never happens, but work with me here - the service is actually YouMail. YouMail replaces your voicemail, but the app ALSO takes over your inbound calls and decides what to do with them - you can set up a blacklist, a whitelist, and so on. I have YouMail set up to block phone calls originating from my area code with the first three digits of my phone number but that ARE NOT in my contacts list already - generally those are fake scam calls with altered phone records ma
  • I'll believe that government cares when the calls stop. Including the political calls.
  • We all know that the problem with RoboCalls and expensive internet access (mentioned elsewhere on this page) is not a technical problem. It's a political problem. It could be solved. If we lived in a monarchy with a benevolent king, there would be a stockade where we could throw tomatoes at the phone scammers or stay home and watch others throw tomatoes on our high-def TV's with high speed access.

  • If it's good for America, the Senate Majority Leader will not get it signed, unless his Russian masters order him too.

  • In the house:
    https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]

    In the senate:
    https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]

    So in the senate Rand Paul is in favor of you getting Robocalled.
    In the house, the three republicans on the take from Robocallers are Andy Biggs of Arizona, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, and Justin Amash of Michigan.

    • The rest of them are phonies who probably realize that the law is going to be toothless, but they can brag to their constituents that they "solved" it.

      And they'll robocall you next election.

  • No doubt this bill has an exemption for political calls, just as the congresscritters excluded themselves from the do-not-call list.

  • Come quietly or there will be... trouble.

  • They've been "ready to crack down" for no less than 10 years...

  • India scammers are immune to US laws. Remember the "Can Spam" act? 100% failure, no enforcement. The fix is EASY, but Ohhh Noooo!!! AT&T and Verizon refuse to do it. The fix is to disallow spoofing. Turn it off. The other fix is to disallow switch spoofing from India, and charge long distance rates on calls from India.
  • Haha. "Lawmakers" have been "ready" to do something about robocallers for over 20 years.
  • The federal Do Not Call list worked pretty well, when it was actually being enforced, right? I don't see how anything is going to work very well now that every department is run by the enemy of regulating whatever the department manages. Wouldn't be surprised if the FCC starts selling the list of do-not-call numbers to robocallers.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      They've moved on. I've received a robo call at a Federal Agency that appeared like it came from within the building. It was a dead number on the exchange. They hid their data well. Our Cisco/phone guys were never able to figure out where it came from.

      Guess what I JUST GOT! That's right, a robo call as I'm writing this.

      I hope they put some real teeth into it. It's just nuts.

  • It seems like there's no one can stop these robocalls, not even the government. The only thing we can do is maybe fight back. I have just read an article at https://www.whycall.me/news/co... [whycall.me] about this. This might be useful for anyone who get multiple robocalls from legit companies.
  • ...which is that the vast majority of these scammers aren't in the USA. Rather, they're in countries where corruption is endemic and there are lots of young people facing high unemployment rates. The authorities in those nations turn a blind eye or even condone the fraud. They certainly don't seem overly willing to co-operate with American law-enforcement agencies. Also, the international telco's love all this VOIP traffic. They figure that a criminal's money is just as green and crisp as anyone else's.

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