July 6th - day to go down in history
 

Well, maybe. But it was the day legislation aimed at curbing robot spam telephone calls went into effect.

It seems I have seen a reduction in spam calls, but I am not sure. Before I was getting maybe 5 or 6 a day, now it seems like I am down to 1 or 2. Hopefully! But it might be too soon to declare victory.

How about you, have you noticed a reduction in spam calls?

Too early to tell but hope it does drive them out of business

OP do you have a land line or just cell? Our landline gets maybe 2 calls per week, my car warranty. My cell maybe 1 or 2 a month. So I might not notice a difference

haven't had any calls from 'Angela' lately letting me know that my auto warranty is about to turn into a pumpkin

but

now United Health Care, my provider is calling me just to let me know that I may be in an area that is having a lot of bad weather and that I can have any meds we might be low on delivered...(pure marketing in sheep's clothing)

it seems like the unsolicited marketing calls will never end

I just wish the kids would call their mother as often as the marketing folks do, then I wouldn't have to listen to that complaint....lol

While this is great, I hadn't heard of this Florida law until this post.

I had heard about the technical solution given to the telcos with STIR/SHAKEN. That went into Effect June 30 and is FAR more likely to have results. The Florida law adds penalties to violators. Imagine how worried a company in Banglore might be about a misdemeanor in Florida?

STIR/SHAKEN however is a technical solution that simply verifies in incoming caller ID using digitally signed certificates. Any company that violates this will be blackholed into non-existence. I.E. A telco that can't move calls. It remains to be seen how creative the criminal scammers will get with caller ID, but this is a huge step at stomping these robocallers.

Huh? I've already received 4 calls today. How do I get my $2,000 ($500 per call)? I read about the law, but I don't anticipate any change in my telemarketing calls. It seems to be totally unenforceable.

There seem to be fewer but I will have to wait and see.

The only way to end spam calls is for the law to require prosecution and mandatory prison time for the owners of the spam organization. Ban all call centers and make it a felony to operate one. I'll even go so far as to designate them as Domestic Terrorists. The current laws have no teeth and are nothing but mental Pablum for the unwashed masses dished out by the politicians to make it look like they are doing something.

Well, I would prefer that the owners of the organizations were lowered slowly into a tree shredder feet first on live TV. That might make for a deterrent.

Just kidding, but it feels hopeless sometimes. A while back one of the companies based out of Texas was fined a few million dollars - basically one day's profits. Not much deterent.

I get calls where the caller ID screen says "Suspected Spam". So, I assume that the caller has already been screened by the phone provider. Why aren't these callers being investigated and prosecuted automatically? Also, if a lot of the scammers are calling from overseas, why can't I tell my phone provider to not allow any incoming calls that originated from overseas. I think the technology exists, but, for some reason, it is not being used effectively. It must be about money.

So far today my wife got about 5 useless calls on her cell which is more or less typical.

If the cell companies wanted to I am sure they could stop these calls but one of these days they will figure out that they can charge more to do so.

I just got another call, number 5 for today. Where do I get my $500? I bet if I could deduct the money from my cell phone bill, the calls would magically stop. That should have been in the law.

Only the lonely will miss these calls.

Robos
 

The calls are one part of the problem. Another irritating part is selling lists. When I'm researching an item on-line, and likely buying, I always use a fictitious name and a alternative email address when asking for further info. Without fail, I will get phone calls, email and junk mail addressed to my factitious name. The vendor site I looked at obviously sold my name, despite what their privacy policy says. I wish this could be prohibited and enforced stopped, but I ain't holding my breath.

Because sometimes they're not spam at all. FloridaBlue agents always show up on my caller ID as either "unknown" or "suspected spam." That's because they are working from home, and FloridaBlue gives them a burner phone to use. Burner phones always show up that way on caller ID because the phone number doesn't belong to any one specific person, and it's not a business line attached to the business it's for.

If it's from a Florida area code, I answer the phone. If it's from Connecticut and I don't recognize the number, I just reject and block it. Ohio - reject and block. Wisconsin - reject and block. I know folks everywhere else in the country and two in India, one in Japan, several in the UK, one in China, and one in Malaysia. So I pick up just in case it's one of them. They have my number but we never talk on the phone, so I never put them into my call list.

I get frequent calls from the VA, sadly they all show a caller ID of Unknown. I have spoken with them about this, but the people doing the calling have nothing to do with the telephone system and said they will pass it on, but they have "passed it on" for a long time now.

Not going to happen. They will find way around it.

I WISH that CVS PHARMACY would quit calling me to tell me that I could get my prescriptions in 3 month supplies. I have tried calling them, to no avail.

If you break down and sitting on the side of the road and no one stops to help. Remember you were warned about your cars extended warranty.

I hope email spam is the next project. Imagine how nice it would be not having to deal with that.

The call centers are in India and the operators are Chinese. How about throwing the boards of directors of AT&T and Verizon in the cooler for carrying the spam calls?

I am lonely nowadays without all those phone calls. About time.

No reduction YET. I have over 550 BLOCKED numbers on my phone, but keep getting calls drom Medicare Rewards, car warranty company and Solar company. I have a “spam blocker” on my phone, so it doesn’t actually ring. My outgoing message on my phone is: “Thank you for calling, if you are calling from Medicare Rewards, what do you think your mother would think about you scamming seniors? If you are calling from anywhere else, please leave a message and I will call you back.” It doesn’t work though, because when they call and my phone answers and starts the message, I will be talking to a robot voice. About 350 of my blocked numbers are from that company. They must have unlimited numbers to call from.

Spam
 

Most of the companies will switch over to India and Pakistan to originate calls as they can't get fined in a different country. However if we send over a few cruise missiles that might help

Noooooo. I couldn’t be about the money.

We’ve had an increase, especially from “Comcast verified” numbers.

I was getting 4-5 a day on my cell and haven't gotten ANY this week!!

Just bought new AT&T 5 phone wireless and answering system and a feature on it has a recording that say (what ever name we want) says to press # to continue on. Darn I think this works. Last few days very few calls and I still don’t own my 68 Pontiac Lemans.

Unsure how this happens, but my iPhone silences any call that appears suspicious. Perhaps it’s any call that isn’t in my contacts or those that I haven’t personally called like someone in the trades. It really does reduce the annoying spam calls, so hope that this feature continues.

AT&T/Direct TV calls
 

We get calls from AT&T/Direct TV everyday on our home line and both cell phones even though we called them, asked them to stop and they said they would. We still get 3 or 4 spam calls everyday, one about fraud on our Amazon store card(I guess they aren't smart enough to think that all we have to do is look at our account to know better), car warranties and so on. Haven't heard the old SSN scam in awhile. Of course, we have call screening and block every number possible but they just switch numbers somehow. The AT&T one skips the telephone ring and goes right into our VM somehow. Thinking about contacting an attorney to file a suit against AT&T but that would probably be a losing proposition. We haven't had an AT&T or Direct TV account in years so they are not supposed to call us unless we do. Frustrating. Just hope our blocking systems don't run out of space!

Yes, there seems to be a reduction. I signed for the do not call list years ago. I am one of the few that took the trouble to report the numbers-few do. Aside I believe if, it is a real number they are fined. So the callers switched to fake numbers.

I when they do get through, I tell them I am very interested in their deal on left handed monkey wrenches. I'm in the process of cooking mom's tomato sauce recipe, hold on a second while I stir it. You come back and tell them you need to add salt. You ask them if they think it needs more salt. You can go on to say oregano. My record so far is four times. Perhaps, a villages contest is in order.

A simple solution. If, you do not recognize the number let your answering machine deal with it. A legitimate call will leave a message.

Aside, so many of these things say refer a friend. My name is .............

As far as smart enough, years ago they arrested a person who was making serious money. He would send official looking bills for less than $100 to major companies.
The people paying bills would not bother to research it and just paid the bill.

Everything has unanticipated consequences. A flat rate phone bill you do not pay per call so no cost to annoy people. They do need to make so many calls per day. See my other post. It is a public service to keep them on the line

At one point an average day was 4-6 calls on my cell (no landline), some days I'd get 10. I downloaded a spam blocker and it cut them down significantly but this week I've only gotten 1. I thought maybe they all went on a cruise vacation with all the ,ones they saved paying off their student loans.

No reduction for the calls to my phone; up to 28 in one day for a record and I’m on “No More ROBO Calls” and the “Do Not Call” list. Xfinity says they’d like to hire them because they can’t outsmart them

Robo call cure
 

I am getting a lot and I hate it.
I would vote for any politician who would end this scourge.

I have a sure cure, but Verizon does not have an email address to mail it to: A simple app.
Ask your phone company to install this app --
A call comes to your number.
The app answers -- If you are a friend of mine, press 29 (or something I determine) and you will be put through to me. If you are returning my call, enter 5, to be put through to me. If you want to sell me something, press 16, to be put through to voice mail. Otherwise, the call is dropped.

This is simple and easily implemented and would greatly reduce robo and spam calls.

I received 2 today and it is only 10 am

That's already available, but you have to have a business account.

I am very happy that you pointed this out. I guess I noticed because I've stopped cursing so much lately about these calls.

Unfortunately, the new issue is text messages during the early morning hours. It's always something.

At least we are making progress, I think! :pray:

Yeah, I noticed the spam text messages have started - sigh.

Y'all just be thankful you're not getting spam and robocalls for Simone, Simon, Symone, Symonne, of the last names Reilly, O'Reilly, Relley, etc. etc.

Simone Reilly is the name of the woman who had my cell phone number before she abandoned it, and it went back into the pool of available numbers and subsequently assigned to me when I got my first smart-phone.

Not just robo-calls, but calls from strangers who want to "hook up" with the person they insist I am. Apparently, I'm a porn actress who picks up "dates" on some sex-trade website and meets them for paid hot dates.

The texts are mostly from companies saying I either owe them for a defaulted loan, or can get a loan even with a bad credit rating, or I can have a huge hard [please don't insert here, heh] with one little viagra-alternative pill.

I've had this phone number for over 5 years and I STILL get calls and texts for Simone.