FTC and Justice Dept. launch ‘Operation Call It Quits’ against robocallers – IOTW Report

FTC and Justice Dept. launch ‘Operation Call It Quits’ against robocallers

American Thinker:

The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have launched ‘Operation Call It Quits in what regulators promise will be a concerted crackdown on illegal robocallers.

he U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have launched ‘Operation Call It Quits in what regulators promise will be a concerted crackdown on illegal robocallers.

The Congressional Research Service reported last year that the Federal Trade Commission has issued over $1.5 billion in fines for illegally making autodialed robocalls to trick millions of Americans into answer automated calls. Although some robocallers are legitimate, most have tended to be fraudulent pitches that engage in outright money theft or lure unsuspecting victims to buy mislabeled products.

The Treasury Inspector General reported over 12,716 victims have been defrauded out of at least $63 million since 2013 through the “IRS Scam,” where robocallers using fake names and bogus government identification threaten victims with arrest if they do not immediately satisfy IRS collection payments. Immigrants with limited English skills have also been called in native languages and threatened with deportation if they fail to pay.

Although U.S. and state regulators have assessed a hefty array of fines against serial robocalling offenders, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Communications Commission since 2015 has collected only $6,790 of the $208.4 million in fines under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Do Not Call Registry.

The biggest robocall culprit may be Aaron Michael Jones, or possibly Michael Aaron Jones, with a last known address at a $25,000 a month Spanish Colonial home in a gated community near Laguna Beach, California.  More:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/ftc_and_justice_dept_launch_operation_call_it_quits_against_robocallers.html

25 Comments on FTC and Justice Dept. launch ‘Operation Call It Quits’ against robocallers

  1. I am all in for beating the living shit out of them with a Singapore rattan cane for a first offense and capital punishment for repeat offenders of anyone involved in this crap.

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  2. I don’t know if this applies to all versions of android or the phones that run it. Further, if you rely on random calls for business this could be problematic.

    I recently found a switch in my phone app that rejects all unknown calls.

    You still see a notification that a number tried to contact you and the rejected caller can leave a message. So far it’s worked great, no more “restricted number” callers and the eye doctor was rejected, but they left a message saying my contact lenses arrived.

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  3. So they call from Canada, Mexico, India, Pakistan, etc. etc. etc. using a phony number over an internet connection (VOIP) to look like a local call …………. how will this stop them?

    ” … the Federal Communications Commission since 2015 has collected only $6,790 of the $208.4 million in fines …” suggests it isn’t going to be very effective.

    Only putting direct pressure on companies providing the VOIP services they’re using will make a dent in it, and I can think of several ways to do that.

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  4. I get a kick out of the callers who want to sell me a rare once in a lifetime opportunity to purchase a real 24k gold plated 1oz coin for the super low price of only $600. When gold is at $1400/oz, $600 for this coin is an absolute steal you must own it today because it’s expected to go upwards of $2000 in the future!

    See the switch? I like playing math with them, “Let me see here at roughly 2 cents to plate each coin, you need to sell me 30,000 of them for $600.”
    …That’s when they rudely hang up on me. Maths is hard to grasp apparently and I’m not suppose to see thru their switch.

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  5. (sigh…….)
    Such is the price of living in a free society in a global economy. There will always be irritants and scams. Not much of anything you, I, or the FedGov can do about it (unless they want to get involved in overseas “wetwork”). BUT! That being said, I wish that these scammers lived locally, so I could drive over and personally beat the living crap out of them, break their fingers, pop their eardrums, and destroy their phone and equipment.
    TO THE PAIN!

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  6. Fuck government.
    The power lies in the providers: Verizon, AT&T, etc etc.

    They could stop it in 10 secs, just like they could use technology to disable ANY phone in ANY moving vehicle–all the devices contain GPS.

    But they all lie to our faces and no one has stuck a gun in their faces. Apparently, that’s what it would take.

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  7. Here’s another option: NOMOROBO (stands for NO MOre ROBOcalls. I’ve been using this service (it’s free for land lines) for quite a while now, and it has cut my spam calls by 80-90%. The few calls that do get through can be reported to them to be added to their large data base of known spam numbers. For more info, Google “NOMOROBO”.

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  8. But, but, but…how am I going to find out about those great offers from Marriot Resorts, or what if the IRS needs to contact me about that fine i owe them? And what about that extended warranty for my 12-year old truck?

    5
  9. If I have time wait for a live person to come on and string them along for a while before I say:
    I’m not wearing any panties.
    What?
    I said: I’m not wearing any panties.
    Click

    A couple times I had some guy start cursing me out, but usually they hang up.

    3
  10. The “Should I Answer?” app takes care of them just fine but sometimes I get in the mood to talk to one of them so I pretend to be an inbred Muhammadan demanding to know if they’re Muslim. Those calls never last long.

    4
  11. There are even 2-part calls now. A few days ago I get a call late in the evening that ID’s as Dickson County Jail. I answer because that’s not too far away, and I do have a daughter, so being a dad I figure the worst. It’s an automated message that an inmate wants to bill my number. I hang up and block the number. Next morning, I get an 800 number calling. When I answer, the recording references that they have reason to believe an inmate tried to contact me the previous day and they need to ‘verify my identity’. Sure, no thanks.

    3
  12. If I don’t know who’s calling I don’t answer my cell phone. The worst are the ones that say unknown caller or private caller. I once even got a call from someone speaking Spanish while I was out in the middle of nowhere making my deliveries. Maybe I should do like my dad did since he was very hard of hearing and tell them to speak up and then hang up on them or sometimes he would mock them or play along and then hang up.

    3
  13. These are ‘computer crimes’, and they’re not going to stop. As the fines collected illustrates.

    Like the crackers that have encrypted private and public (government) information systems to hold hostage for payment.

    We know exactly who they are. Do not doubt that. Like you have heard in recent political theater, ‘sources and methods’ are being protected.

    I propose no knock kill raids where you just shoot these motherphuckers in the head and leave. Admit nothing. Express horror and disdain it happened.

    The word will travel quickly. Do this shit, you just might be woken up at 10 AM on a Saturday by a guy wearing sweats that shoots you in the middle of your forehead. I predict a 99.9% reduction in all of these ‘computer crimes’.

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