You ’ve just sat down to a nice home - cook meal with your family when the phone ring . Could be Grandma , you reckon . She still actually uses the phone for talking . But no , it ’s a robocall shilling for some debt backup cozenage , the fifth in as many solar day .
You know what ? You do n’t have to put up with it . Here ’s how to hang up on telemarketers and their mechanical minions . For good .
Legal Guardians
Unsolicited telemarketing vociferation have long been a bane of New life sentence , disrupt evenings with offers of insurance , extended warranty , credit guidance , and a litany of other expensive service that you never needed or ask for . The Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) , which has organization over landline communications , think it had fixed the problem in September , 2009 , when the means revise itsTelemarketing sale Rule(TSR ) , banning the exercise of prerecorded commercial-grade telemarketing call , aka robocalls , to consumer who have not render permission previously and in writing . Telemarketers confront penalties up to $ 16,000 per call if catch .
“ American consumer have made it crystal clear that few things annoy them more than the billion of commercial-grade teleselling robocalls they receive every year , ” sound out Jon Leibowitz , Chairman of the FTC , say at the first of the program . “ Starting September 1 , this bombardment of prerecorded pitches , senseless solicitations , and malicious marketing will be illegal . ”
The Federal Communications Commission , which regulates cellphone course , has also constrain its regulations regarding robocalls by eliminating a number of loophole in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ( TCPA ) of 1991 . Previously , business but postulate an “ ground business family relationship ” to call you unmercifully . Now , the TCPA amendments regulate the loudness and type of prerecord allurement that may deliver to a land line earpiece as well as every motorcar - dial call , prerecorded or not , and automated school text to cell phone , emergency numbers , and infirmary rooms .
The only exceptions to this rule are political calls to Din Land line of merchandise ( the price of pick one ’s political party when renewing your driver ’s license ) , purely informational message like school whorl down , flight cancellations , and parking brake weather alerting , and those from caller that you ’ve given write permit . For exemplar , if you ’ve signed up for a checking report , your bank used to be able to lawfully beset you with insurance offers or other help . Now , though , they must have your written say-so before bugging you ( which is why many bury that say-so deeply in their Terms of Service ) . For cell phones , the rules are even more strict : no robocalls or automated text edition messages , political or not , are permitted without write consent . The two agencies also joined forces to create the National Do Not Call registry , a database of hoi polloi who have actively opt out of receiving telemarketing calls by which legitimate telemarketers must abide .
While these heighten rules are emphatically a step in the correct direction , regrettably they ’re no lucifer for modern technology , which can spam - telephone dial thousands of phones every minute , and the unscrupulous swindler that practice them , who honestly could n’t give care less about interrupting your meal much less some $ 16,000 slate from the political science . Rampant does n’t set about to encapsulate the harshness of this job .
“ Too many telemarketers , help by autodialers and prerecorded message , have continued to call consumers who do n’t want to hear from them , ” suppose FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at an FCC coming together last February . During the 2012 financial twelvemonth nearly four million Americans contacted the FTC to quetch about robocalls — a 70 percentage jump over the previous year — and that ’s only the folks that knew about the DNC registry . The two agencies even went so far as to make the $ 50,000Robocall Challange , a public competition seeking actionable methods for fighting these earphone spammer .
Shut It Down
So what do you do when you pick up the phone with a synthetical vocalisation on the other oddment ? “ Our advice is straightforward . Hang up , ” Lois Greisman , film director of the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) Marketing Practices Division , told CNN . “ There are almost no licit seller trying to reach you to sell you something using a prerecorded call . ”
Just cling up . Do n’t press 1 to talk with a live hustler , do n’t even speak . Just put the phone down and slow back away from the receiver . Once you ’ve hang up , lumber on to theDo Not Call registryand file your home and cell earphone number . This wo n’t eliminate robocalls entirely — companies that already have your permit are excuse , for example — but it will certainly abbreviate the book of these calls . To date , more nearly 220 million Americans have ratify up . you may also call the FTC ’s complaint line at 1 - 888 - 382 - 1222 or on theDNC site .
Check the Fine Print
Also , get down reading the terminus of Service for any new plan or pop the question your apply for . You ’ll in all likelihood have to concord to the telemarketing so as to get that loanword / citation report / bomber - of - the - month club membership you need but you ’ll at least be able to well track who has your permission to tap you . you’re able to also postulate your ph0one aircraft carrier to jam the offend routine , so long as the carrier does n’t charge for the overhaul as robocallers oftentimes convert or spoof their rise numbers .
Get Creative
If simply hanging up and hoping the telemarketers do n’t call back is n’t quite your stylus , take a lesson from Alex Ruiz . This 24 - yr - one-time put his experience as a Linux systems admin to use by integrating a Rasberry Pi into an analog receiver to create the “ banana phone . ” In this scheme , incoming callers must punch in a four digit confirmation number to prove they ’re human . If they are , the number is stored in a whitelist of phone numbers so that friend and mob can reach him immediately . Autodialers on the other hired hand , with their distinguishable lack of dialing finger , are shunted immediately to voicemail . What ’s more , the system is computer hardware agnostical and can be integrated with any exist landline or VOIP setup .
The Future of Phone Spam
Rodriguez ’s banana tree speech sound is one of a people of home - brew solutions currently vying for the Robocall Challenge ’s $ 50,000 purse . This is by all odds a step in the ripe direction . However , as with digital spam , one footstep is never enough . As engineering progresses , an arms raceway between scammers looking for unexampled and inventive ways to reach your ear and public - secret efforts to shore up base phone denial seems inevitable . There belike will never be a individual magic fastball solution to this trouble , just as electronic mail spam ( and the unasked Yellow Pages livery before them ) count on a plethora of frail handicap and filter . But if you do , the FTC has 50,000 cause for you to speak up .
[ Do Not Call – FTC1,2,3,4 – FCC1,2 – Ars Technica – CNN – MSN – wavebreakmedia&SFC/ Shutterstock ]
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