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.