Auto Warranty Robocallers Call Indiana Attorney General At Home
Protip for telemarkers: If you're going to engage in random robodialing to unlisted cell phones, pray very very hard that you do not dial the attorney general of a state in which you plan to continue doing business.
This will not end well for anyone except, perhaps, the good people of the state of Indiana. It's sort of like the opposite of an EECB. Annoy a powerful person, and it will get results.
According to the Indianapolis Star:
[Attorney General Greg Zoeller's] office received 160 complaints about similar unsolicited calls, most of them pushing auto warranties. Although his wife urged him to file his own complaint after he received two calls in the past couple of weeks, Zoeller didn't. He pulled out the big guns.
"By the time you start calling on the state's attorney general," Zoeller said, "you've blasted out one too many."
Attorney general to file lawsuit against telemarketers [Indianapolis Star]
(Photo: brianbope)
Post a comment
Comments:
It's kind of sad that it takes something like this to get people to enforce the Do Not Call list.
LOL, maybe that got pissed off about the internet hate machine reaching THEIR numbers they just had to blast out some AG's to take their agression out.
Geez Im glad that someone important actually recieved a call so that all the little people can actually get relief after complaining so much!
@Sheogorath: I thought Indiana had one of the better do not call laws in effect. For a while, at least, the state was regularly successfully suing scummy companies. Has something changed?
Oh thank the GODS.
It's been days since I've seen a kitteh picture.
That's how life works people - its all who you know (or in this case, who you dial)
I'm sorry but his office got -160- complaints on this and he did nothing until his wife started complaining about them... Why would his office ever allow the story to be spun like that? He's apparently got a constituency of one.
@Chris Walters: The man must have had huge shoes to fill when he walked into the boy's showers first day of middle school.
@MissPiss:
My thoughts exactly. Those of us who don't rank just have to put up with shit. Luckily for Mr. Attorney General, he doesn't.
"By the time you start calling on the state's attorney general," Zoeller said, "you've blasted out one too many."
As was mentioned above... 160 complaints to Zoeller's office doesn't raise attention. But boy! That one call directly to him and pow! We've got action. It sucks being at the bottom....
So what I get from this is that nothing substantial will be done until someone "important" gets called, or scammed, or hurt, whatever.
So, theoretically, in order to get real action in your state, getting the private cell phone number of the Attorney General, Governor, whomever, then passing that number along to scammers and telemarketers, et al, would insure the sort of action that low-level consumer complaint could never accomplish, despite hundreds of complaints on file.
This also seems to happen with other things, like red light cameras and such. When an official gets tagged, things start getting done.
Does this work with other things that are broken? Like HIV funding?
Encouraging consumer terrorism is a horrific idea. Except that the continued incompetence of elected officials to do anything that does not directly impact THEM does exactly that.
I used to always say that it was a true thrill, living in a civilization in decline. Now I realize that the trick is to die before it goes totally off the rails. I'm just not cut out for the Mad Max scenario.
I am glad this happened to my own state AG. I was getting tired of having to click the answer then off button so I didnt have to hear the phone ring till it went to the answering machine.
I got one today, after the pitch I tried to sell her a home computer warranty because my records showed it was expiring soon. She asked if I would like to be placed on the do not call list. It's very easy to berate the callers, but they're not the ones scheming this up, they're people who can't find work elsewhere and are just trying to make ends meet.
@Chris Walters: I think that's the company's name, not a person's name, unless "Fortress Secured" of Nevada and "SVM" of California are also real names. Then again, wouldn't it be awesome to have a name like "Fortress Secured"?
@Chris Walters: the man he's suing is named Mike Moneymaker
SHAKE HIM! Shake him for all he's worth!
@Sheogorath: I thought the same thing...Att. General doesn't care about all other complaints; but disturb him, and you're getting action. That's great.
@MissPiss: I agree. Not to be a cynic but I doubt a lawsuit would have been filed had the AG himself not gotten a call. Then again, there are some states who have amazing AGs so you never really know.
@fantomesq: Great point. But since he is a politician they might have just said about the wife to make the attorney general a "family man".
@Sheogorath: If I remember correctly, it was the death of a congressman's kid in NY a few decades ago that got drunk driving laws on the books (the kid died because of a drunk driver). It would be nice if these things could happen before a politician is personally affected.
@Shoelace:
So by your logic, if we want certain laws passed we should do these things to politicians?
Apparently Attorney Generals don't get spam text messages.
@Jonathan Quinn: Screw them. These people aren't working joes trying to make a buck, they're scum. They're knowingly attempting to scam people and breaking the law by calling cell phones or calling people on the DNC list.
I have more respect for drug dealers or prostitutes than I have for the warranty robocallers. No drug dealer has ever come into my house and offered his services repeatedly despite my continued efforts to tell him I'm not interested.
Interesting. As it happens, I'm one of those 160 who complained to the AG and got their standard form letter prior to this happening. Who knows? Since he got the call too, maybe he'll do something about it now. I guess me and the 159 other Indiana voters didn't matter.
Sheesh.
It's not all that unusual a name. The guy who won the world series of poker a while back and spawned the current texas hold'em craze is named Chris Moneymaker.
@dgw671:
If you don't like it, run for attorney general and win. That's always been the way the game is played.
The criminals doing the robocalls apparently know exactly what they're doing. How long they can use a number, when to move on, how to cover their tracks. I would expect the AG to have no luck. By the time he even files a suit, they'll be long gone.
The only thing that would stop robocalls is accountability with phone companies who sell outbound dialing services to them. Right now, there's no pain and all pleasure for these services to take criminal dollars and always say "we didn't know" and disconnect them if there are complaints. Make it painful to sign up criminals without some sort of vetting process.
@RedSonSuperDave: See that's the problem, THe people actually on the phone are not scum, terrible people. Yes the upper ups are scammy scum, but the people on the phone obviously can't find better work. Telesales are some of the worst jobs possible, no one wants to work in telesales, they just can't find work elsewhere.
Be kind to them, complain about the company to the FTC.
Ugh. It really pisses me off that nothing happens with the car warranty shit until they actually call someone that can do something about it. There should've been a lawsuit out for this company a long time ago from the state.
That cat's eating my LG C2000 phone!
@henwy: Just because you can think of a semi-sorta-almost-famous person who has the name doesn't mean it's not unusual. Measured against any standard "Moneymaker" is not a common or run-of-the-mill name.
@Jonathan Quinn: Oh, and be kind to them? LMAO, riiiight, because when you try to be kind to them, they hang up. When you yell, they hang up. Or they yell back. Not scum, my ass. These people are working scummy jobs. No sympathy.
Here's (sort of tongue in cheek) idea, record the next robocall you get, then start calling every State AG in the country (or other Consumer law enforcement agency - [www.consumeraction.gov] ) and play the recorded call. Ideally you would do this from a phone with spoofed (to one of the well known spoofed numbers already used by the robocallers) or blocked number just as the actual robocallers do.
@Trencher93: The robo calls spoof out of service phone numbers for caller id's and war dial entire area codes and exchange numbers. There is no hiding anything since the phone companies probably can't touch the scammers as the scammers use voip phones. I hazard to bet that the scammers even use "consumer" accounts from Skype or similar services.
Does this work with other things that are broken? Like HIV funding?
@jkinatl2: Yep.
I haven't heard of it with HIV specifically but people have flipped their position on stem cell research.
A comedian (can't remember who) had a bit in one of his stand up routines where he said if you have a certain disease or problem you better pray that a politician gets it too.
Mageneto's plan in the first X-Men movie would have worked had the machine worked right (and he hadn't been thwarted).
@codepage9: Exactly.
[In a similar vein, my thoughts are that illegal immigration won't be effectively fought until the "right" senator or congressman/woman has his/her son or daughter killed by an illegal who was in and out of the criminal justice system under various names and easily made it back to the streets...}
@Chris Walters: My Insurance agent's daughter, who took over his business, married someone named Moneymaker. Always got a chuckle about that when I got the bills.
@Sheogorath: American Blast Fax made the mistake of faxing lots of junk to various Texas Attny General offices around the state - and that came back to haunt them.
Appearently, they are still in business (in Addison, TX), but prohibited from sending anything in Texas. Why didn't they just close them down, I'll never know.
Is it me or does anyone else think that the AG's wife might have been sarcastically telling him to file a complaint about the calls?
Another item is that I am willing to bet that his cell phone is the state provided one and that the number is kept pretty darn private so most yahoos can't call him.
@Jonathan Quinn: I think the worst thing you can do to a telemarketer is hang up on them. After all, time is money for them. I've kept a car warranty dude on the phone for nearly 30 minutes once, going round in circles trying to figure out which of my cars was "on file" for expiring warranties.
During this time, he was NOT talking to anyone else or making any other sales. This is how you take the profit out of telemarketing, and until the profit it gone, it will continue.
Be nice, be polite, but don't give them any excuse to end the call by saying no (but don't say yes, either!).
"you've blasted out one too many."
Fail. One is one too many, after which he should have started action. But it didn't concern him until HE started being inconvienenced, then suddenly stuff starts getting done.
Goverment apathy FTL.
Just want to point out that the man he's suing is named Mike Moneymaker. That is an awesome last name--although I'm not sure I would ever be able to trust someone with it.