Yes, the violation is the call. The problem is there is no way of knowing who is calling. Sometimes when you are talking with the US based company who has outsourced the robo calling to overseas call centers about a settlement, its obvious they know what is going on, that what they are doing is illegal but it comes down to net $. The profit made from the calls far outweighs any settlement or penalty they pay for the few times they are caught.

Ahhhh that actually makes a lot of sense, productivity-wise! Though technically it’s still illegal right, even if no one answers?

Being on the Do Not Call list does almost nothing to stop robo callers. Most robo callers do not check the DNC before calling. They make millions of calls, only a fraction of which are answered and a live person shows an interest. Once they have a person on the line showing an interest, then they check to see if the number is on the DNC using either the actual list or some other service that tracks those of us that go after the callers. The reason for this is they save a ton of time and effort not checking the massive amounts of calls that end up not being answered or not getting to a person who shows an interest.

It was incredibly time consuming the week I reported each one. I’d reached a frustration point where I wanted someone else to ‘feel my pain’, and if the FCC got as many reports as I got spam, they could. I figured it also created a file with the Federal government, as local police can’t do anything if I don’t know him and he didn’t scam me out of money. It was mostly texts, as I just ignore calls from unknown numbers. Thank you for your advice!

Similarly, people are victim to errors and incompetence from financial companies, affecting everything from their credit score to financial penalties, through no fault of their own. We have the CFPB for that, and a whole army of investigative local news reporters that will help as well. Don’t be bullied!

One way everyone can help without going after them like I do is simply waste their time. Answer the calls and spend some time with them. Have fun with it. Make it a game to see how long you can keep them on the line before they figure out they are the ones getting played. The overseas callers pay one of the highest rates per minute and if everyone who is not getting scammed or purchasing their overpriced products would simply spend a few minutes wasting their time, running up their phone bill, they would be out of business in a few weeks. The phone companies could put an end to this tomorrow because they know who is making these calls but it would cut into their bottom line.

Many years ago I reported most of these calls to the FCC but eventually realized it was not worth the time. I am now researching other reporting options, Federal, State and BBB which could be more effective for those calls that are violating laws and or regulations but do not have a private right of action. I will not get paid but as I said, that is not my primary motivation. For example, internet phone services, VOIP, are not covered by TCPA but are covered by FTC regulations. Calls that have a spoofed caller ID or call outside of permitted calling times are violations but do not have a private right of action. The reality is govenment agencies do not have the time to go after the billions of violations that happen each year. The solution to all of this is for Congress to update TCPA to add private right of actions for all violations and to make the law reflect current technology, not what existed when the law was written in 1991.

Thank you Steve for your story! I wish you much success in keeping them on their toes.