this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
769 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

59429 readers
2919 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Reverendender@kbin.social 146 points 1 year ago (3 children)

@fne8w2ah "Two of the central players of the operation, Roy M. Cox and Aaron Michael Jones, were under lifetime bans against making telemarketing calls following lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and State of Texas."

WHY AREN’T THEY IN JAIL

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 51 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

How much money were they making off telemarketing that they were fucking banned for life from doing it and they still did it?

Also:

At the time, the FTC said that Cox was issued "a $1.1 million civil penalty that will be suspended due to his inability to pay.

Oh ok, so this fine for more money will certainly mean something...

[–] gullible@kbin.social 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like we have places to put people who ruin society. Was it mail, rail, shale? I dunno, set them free and bring me a coffee, bailiff.

[–] iyaerP@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

I feel like at this point we just go full Spanish Inquisition and burn these motherfuckers at the stake.

[–] Zeron@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Political theatre to make it seem like they're doing something about the issue. When in reality, nothing changes.

[–] xodoh74984@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anyone got a number?

I have some very important information for them regarding expiration of their vehicle warranties.

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

That would be a good penalty for them. Their phone number(s) must always be public so anyone can call them whenever they want.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] jcrabapple@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't understand why these people weren't in jail already!

[–] pixelscience@lemm.ee 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I don't get why this seemed to be such a huge undertaking. The phone companies certainly know who's making all these calls on their networks.

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 34 points 1 year ago

The phone companies certainly know who’s making all these calls on their networks.

Exactly. If the networks faced consequences for knowingly routing and profiting off these illegal phone calls they would stop fairly quickly.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cause they were complicit.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

i assume someone was making money off this, and has made enough money to get rid of them so other people don't make money...

[–] rapscallion@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It’s kind of amazing how we’d been answering phones when they rang for a century, until a handful of greedy wankers like these guys and the offshore “calling from Windows” folks started doing their thing a few years ago. Now only the elderly and folks required to answer for work even contemplate picking a call up.

[–] Black_Gulaman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't answer my work phone anymore. Our company uses teams. So if it's not a teams call, you can't make me answer the phone.

[–] Vorticity@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I haven't had a legitimate phone call on my work line in the last 8 years. Anyone who truly needs to talk to me has my cell number and several other ways to contact me.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I got so many spam calls I considered changing the number I've had for over 2 decades. So obnoxious.

[–] rapscallion@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I wouldn’t recommend that. I did it once for the same reason and got just as many spam calls plus debt collectors trying to reach the person who had the number before me.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] brianorca@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

It's not your number. It's all the numbers.

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Good to see the FCC going after this kind of thing. Put them in jail even better.

I have my phone set up so the only numbers that chime the phone are those in my contact list. The abuse of voice and text on the cell network is rampant and it's equivalent to trespassing.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Pergle@reddthat.com 28 points 1 year ago

Shred all robo caller companies and give the owners jail time.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


"An international network of companies violated federal statutes and the Commission's regulations when they executed a scheme to make more than five billion robocalls to more than 500 million phone numbers during a three-month span in 2021, including violating federal spoofing laws by using more than one million different caller ID numbers in an attempt to disguise the true origin of the robocalls and trick victims into answering the phone," the FCC said.

"Since at least 2018, this enterprise operated a complex scheme designed to facilitate the sale of vehicle service contracts under the false and misleading claim of selling auto warranties," the FCC said.

"Two of the central players of the operation, Roy M. Cox and Aaron Michael Jones, were under lifetime bans against making telemarketing calls following lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and State of Texas."

The FCC said it took action to block the robocalling scheme last year by directing "all US-based voice service providers to cease carrying traffic associated with certain members of the enterprise.

The FCC coordinated last year's action with the Ohio attorney general's office, which filed a lawsuit against Jones, Cox, and others involved in the alleged robocalling scheme.

Cox was banned from telemarketing in a 2013 settlement with the FTC, which accused him of sending "illegal robocalls offering credit card interest rate reduction programs, extended automobile warranties, and home security systems."


I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone make a TL;DR bot the TL;DR bot?

[–] Parabola@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

BEEP BOOP. Omega-TLDR bot activated.

Two trash humans were asked nicely to not do it again, and did it again. don’t worry though the prison cells they should have been locked away in are filled with minor drug charges by minorities or something else equally stupid.

[–] burntbutterbiscuits@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TLDR: the perpetrators were trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Now do political campaigns.

[–] aufheben@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Fines aren’t near enough at this point, we need public executions at a minimum to put a dent in this problem.

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

No killing them is too extreme. Put them in a room with 1,000 different types of ringing telephones for a week.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 year ago

Not gonna help. Not accepting calls from unknown numbers and/or automated filtering is the only way forward, the model of being able to just call anyone is broken.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

So, what tiny fraction of their profits does this fine represent?

[–] ultimate_question@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ya I appreciate the gesture but if this truly is the "biggest" robocall racket I have to imagine a 300M fine is a dropping the bucket

[–] PissinSelfNdriveway@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not Like they will pay it anyway.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Sensitivezombie@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Ban all robocalls, legal or illegal. If any business that needs to reach can leave a voicemail. I'll decide then which should be deleted and which required a call back.

[–] exohuman@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How many of you have received these calls? I got a ton of them along with my husband and siblings.

[–] Wilshire@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Those were partly the reason I stopped answering unknown numbers.

[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spam callers have basically ruined telephone as a medium. For many, a phone call is more likely to be fake and spam than it is to be legitimate. And even if the call claims to come from a source you might trust, good odds it's spoofed and thus cannot in fact be trusted.

A shame on telecoms for not being willing to tackle the problem.

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Both email and the telephone have been ruined by spam for me. The inbox has become an unwieldy, inefficient mess.

[–] ElectroNeutrino@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

At least email has some tools to help mitigate the issue, like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They aren't perfect, but they are loads better than telephony.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Pandemanium@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

I'm even getting Google Drive spam now. Complete randos "sharing files" with me. There's no way to prevent it.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] tehcpengsiudai@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

$300M feels like "Ahh we caught you now, bad boys, don't let me catch you again. Now go have your lunch."

These people should be punished harsher for all the lives they've destroyed intentionally.

[–] housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Good! Large fines create a meaningful deterrent for bad behavior.

[–] Moogosa@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure deterred them from doing it again after the first time… oh wait.

[–] FoxBJK@midwest.social 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We've had one fine yes, but what about second fine?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Cox was banned from telemarketing in a 2013 settlement with the FTC, which accused him of sending "illegal robocalls offering credit card interest rate reduction programs, extended automobile warranties, and home security systems." At the time, the FTC said that Cox was issued "a $1.1 million civil penalty that will be suspended due to his inability to pay."

In 2017, the FTC obtained a similar telemarketing ban on Jones. He was also fined $2.7 million, but, as with Cox, the fine was "suspended based on his inability to pay."

No fine is going to be paid this time either I imagine.

[–] st3ph3n@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

I'm not normally a proponent of prison for debtors, but in the case of these motherfuckers I'd be happy if they threw away the key.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Parallax@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe it'll help as long as the fine is some % of their net income. Sweden does this, speeding tickets are a % of your income instead of a fixed fine, so someone with $10MM will still feel the burn.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Depends on if they make so much money that 300M is just cost of doing business. There needs to be prison time for those involved.

Also $300M is the public fine number. Usually the actual fine is less than what is made public.

load more comments
view more: next ›