YEAH!!

I CAN FINALLY ANSWER MY PHONE AGAIN!

OH HAPPY DAY!

YAY!!!

YEAH!!! Amen!!

I hope this applies to US companies calling outside the US. I'm sick to death of "WHHAAAA! This is your captain calling" with NO option to be taken off their list, live person OR computer.

Yay! But dang I was hoping to get rid of the UC Davis Alumni Association, who despite my pleas won't stop calling me to ask for money.

So, where does all the money they collect from fines go?

I vote for a foosball table in the break room.

Sept 2, 2009 - loophole found in new robocall law

It's fantastic news, but will the robocall companies just slink away? I'm concerned about what may be coming to fill the nuisance void. Also, if a robocall comes 9/1 or later how do you sue them - since it's unlikely that their correct number will appear on caller ID.

@j-o-h-n: you sure that isn't "August 28, 2009: Loophole Found"

So the Magic Voice who calls telling me to press 1 now. Press 1 to protect my family. Press 1 blah blah blah from ADT without telling me how to unsubscribe will be banned? Oh happy days!

@j-o-h-n:

September 3, 2009 Robocall begins to learn at a geometric rate.

It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, September 4th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Debt collectors shouldn't be exempt. Whenever I've had to change phone numbers, I always get one that was recently used by someone who has about 100 debt collectors chasing them and I get call after call looking for someone who isn't me, but they're always robots who can't register that I'm not the person they're looking for. They always want me to call another number and I'll be damned if I'm going to keep chasing after people telling them I'm not the person they're looking for.

If that first call had to be a real, live person, I could tell them that I'm not the one who owes them money and then get ticked off when they appear not to believe me. Hmmm, all of a sudden I'm not sure that's a step up.

Goodbye StoreOnline. You won't be wasting my time anymore.

Can I use robocalls to invite people to my party celebrating the end of legal robocalls?

This doesn't stop the calls. It just means that a bunch of people in India, El Salvador, etc. will be making the same calls live. GET CALLER ID. LIVE WITH IT. TREASURE IT. OBEY IT.

I will break out the streamers when I find out how many actually GET fined or sanctioned. I suspect they will be too slippery to actually get prosecuted.

Not in Canada hey :/

@Telekinesis123: We get massive amounts of robo calls here *from* the States, especially Flordia.

@Shoelace: Next, robo-door-to-door sales bots. Based on the popular yet often returned Roomba, these helpful little commerce boosters will distract difficult customers and use their finely tuned dust bunny suction and new turbo speed to run with the cash.

Okay, that sucks but you get the point.

@legwork: Yes. They'll find another way to stick it to us and tell us it's what we want.

I was alerted to this by a robocall telling me that I need to sign up if I want to continue getting special offers via telephone from some company I've never heard of before. I suppose I can put up with that for the next few days :)

@JessMeNU: They'll just play the semantic game and alter them so they don't get fined...just you wait and see!

@GitEmSteveDave_♥'sRenegadeIrishman: @Marshfield: They'll all scammers operating tens (to possibly hundreds) of LLCs from different locales in the country. So in essence...no...never.

They won't pay the fines then just close up shop and operate their roving companies.

@H3ion: Actually (from what I've been told) the majority of "support" for customers is in Malaysia and Thailand. But tech support is still pretty much Indian guys with engineering degrees.

I look at it this way...tech support (ie help desk) in the US would be a guy with a high school diploma and an A+ certification (maybe); while in India the bulk would have a computer science/engineering degree. Maybe the English isn't so good but they probably know what they're doing.

@kathyl:
I completely agree. The same thing happened to me when I moved up North. The conversation with the Minneapolis PD was especially entertaining.

Me:Hello?
MPD: Hi is Jennifer there?
Me: Who is calling
MPD: Susan
Me: Who are you with Susan?
MPD: Minneapolis PD
Me: Susan, I've had this number for 2 years since I move to the twin cities, I have no idea who this person is. Please don't call me again.
MPD: Ok, I'm sorry, have a good day.

Of course by 'up to $16,000 per call' they mean 'approximately nothing if you happen to be a major company.'

Fortunately we can all rest easy knowing AT&T pays a hundred times that in bribes yearly.

This will be great if it actually gets enforced. What I REALLY wish would get banned is "wardialing" by telemarketers, where computers are dialing lots of numbers at once, including mine, and then when I pick up the phone, there is no one on the other end, just dead air and then usually a click because a telemarketer isn't available at the time to speak with you. It is so irritating.

I wonder if that includes my local politicians.

@Neurotic1:
Don't be silly! Every law has an exemption for politicians!

@caj11:
Check the FCC. I'm think this is already banned and you can file a complaint.

Makes no difference. Ever since the Do Not Call registry was implemented, telemarketers simply shifted their operations outside of the US. Canada is a popular choice. I've received a bunch of robo calls a while ago. I spoke to the operator and I could detect a Canadian accent.

Recently, I spoke to an operator from India. It was some debt collection agency looking for a guy I never heard of. He asked if perhaps my phone number was new. I told him no, and that I had the same number for over 10 years. He apologized and said he would remove my number from their list. Somehow, I doubt it.

My main gripe with these robo calls (from telemarketers, debt collectors, politicians, etc), is that they spoof their caller ID. It's either anonymous or it's a completely bogus number. So there's no way to call back to complain, and no way to block calls from these people.

@JollyJumjuck: The person who thought it a was good idea to start a sales pitch with a boat horn in your ear ought to lose their job.

I propose this music for celebration...

@Sheogorath: Now, now, they're not "bribes," they're "political contributions." Get the verbiage right!

@dwb: D0 what I did with my school, when they give you the sob story about how they need money, and how "the money will go to benifit incoming students achieve the high level of education and success that I was bale to achieve" simply reply..
"Meh, I didn't get anything out of my education, most of the professors were terrible, and you (because most of the callers are students) should seriously consider changing schools" and you will get taken off of the list permanently. :-)

@H3ion: I suppose only if yo know them.

now if they'd make it illegal for my doctor to use robocalls to confirm my appointments when he plans to be an hour or two late for every one of them, we'd be achieving something.

@nstonep:

I predict that if the robocalls are now going to be made from India ,Thailand etc. that there will be a THOUSANDFOLD increase in the number of items being sold to our good friends Hugh Jass , I.P Freely , Al Koholik and Seymour Butts.

Now, I am NOT telling ANY of you to give the address of 600 Pennsylvania Avenue , Washignton D.C. ,20580 because that is the address of the FTC and they are plenty busy. That would be wrong.

@nstonep: This still does nothing about the companies spoofing phone numbers to cover their tracks. There is no way for the FTC to track down who is doing it. It also does nothing about overseas operations.

We have been getting tons of calls every day on our landline from various card collection agencies. The company supposedly does this for various retail store cards. They are asking for some name I can't pronounce and I have never had a store credit card in my life.

@dwb: Oh man you are reading my mind. As a UCD grad, I say the Alumni Association should be in charge of finding bin Laden because they can find me no matter where I move, and usually within days. DON'T GIVE THEM A THING!

Awwww. I get mildly amused every time they call my fax machine.

@kathyl: And even if it was you, you wouldn't want someone coming after you for money. But debt collectors should be more vigilant about going after the correct people.

@dwb: My school called me once, I told them that if they could do anything to lower my student loan debt that I'd gladly give them the difference. Never heard from them again.

@dwb: My dad is terrible about this -- he likes to tell the caller from the alumni association, "I'll give double what I gave last year!" and then they hang up all happy. As I'm sure you figured out, that's just two scoops of nothing.

@Eldritch: ~ oh Happy Day~!

@Eldritch: unless it's a political robocall. Notice they didn't ban those, which are EXTREMELY annoying and I get 10 of those for each telemarketing robocall I get.

@kathyl: EXACTLY! I couldn't agree more. I just had one this morning. It's one thing for them to auto-dial and not pick up until they hear a voice, but for the entire call to be a robot? Why should I be the one that has to do all the legwork when I'm not remotely at fault?

I'm skeptical of the effect of this--all the robocalls I get are either exempt or currently in breach of federal law already, mostly the latter, so I'm guessing that they mostly don't care about federal law whether it's a new one or an old one.