Archive: Opinions

I have hangups.  Lots of hangups.  I hang up a LOT!

The phone rings and there is silence.  Or there may be a noise that sounds like an electronic approximation of water dripping.  Finally someone comes on the line who demands my current address and contact information in an Indian accent.  I ask who is calling.  He says he is Sanjay calling from Google to update my business listing.  I reply that he is not calling from Google, and remove my number from his calling list.  He promises to remove me.  He calls twice more that week.

It's bad enough the spammers have ruined email for us.  They've ruined the telephone as well.  At least three quarters of the calls we get in the Lansing Star newsroom are sales pitches.  A good number of them are scams.  All of them are a colossal waste of time.

My Indian friend is typical of the many calls I get every week where the caller does not identify themselves unless asked, and I am convinced that 90% of the time they are lying when they are pressed to tell me who they are.  No business, Google or otherwise, would stand for employees calling without leading with, 'Hello, I'm Amanda From Google, and I am (whatever she thinks she's doing)'.  So it's a dead givaway that the call is fake when they don't identify themselves.  If there is silence on the line, it's a good bet the spammer is using a war dialer, a device that calls numbers ahead and connects them to you when one is available.  It saves a lot of time, making the spam calls very efficient for the caller, and wasting more time for the recipient.

It is usually a good bet that if the area code is outside our region the call is a spam call, though not always certain.  Lately I've answered an increasing number of robocalls with the 607 area code.  When the device hears you me hello, a pre-recorded sale pitch begins.  Most of the ones we get at the Star claim to be from Google (Google says quite plainly on its Web site that it does not place robocalls), or from companies claiming they can provide advantageous business loans, or whatever.  Most are scams, surfing for contact and other information they can sell or use to rob you.

Most people I talk to about this don't want to do what I do, which is to hang up immediately.  They are too polite.  But hanging up is exactly the right thing to do.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agrees with me on this.  They advise, "When you get an illegal robocall, hang up the phone. Don’t press one to speak to a live operator, and don’t press any other numbers to get off the list - it will likely lead to more robocalls."

Spammers spoof their caller-ID numbers, so blocking phone numbers is literally impossible, and your phone company probably charges to block numbers.  When spam callers realize you're not going to fall for whatever they're trying they simply hang up on you.  No need to be polite to someone who has no manners.  No need to engage a cold-caller in conversation.  When they realize you are off their script you may keep talking until you realize they have hung up on you.  And then they'll call again.

A bit of humor: this page on the FTC Web site has a recorded message that says, "Robocalls may be ruining your day.  If you answer the phone and hear a recorded message instead of a live person, it's a robocall."  Just a bit of federal irony, I think.  OK, it wasn't that funny.  You have to give me some slack -- robocalls have been ruining my day.

Occasionally the Star gets legitimate cold-calls from companies that are trolling for new clients or customers.  As far as I'm concerned these are just as bad as spam calls.  They interrupt my work and waste my time for something that benefits them, not me.  Then there are the occasional calls from cold-callers who are so outraged that I am not interested in talking to them that they want me to engage in an argument about it.

Why would anyone think I would do business with someone who thinks so little of my work that they would interrupt it?  Why does anyone think I am so interested in the topic of their acting like a jerk that I would waste time discussing it?

Obviously I am at work when I am near the newsroom phone, and I certainly don't mind interrupting whatever I am working on when someone legitimately calls.  Most of those calls do not result in business for my company or leads on stories, but when a local person calls asking for information I do my best to help them.  But I have been conditioned to blanch whenever the phone rings, knowing that there is probably a 4-1 chance that it will be a spam call.

I love stories friends tell me about how they get revenge.  They recommend I do this:


And so on... or friends who tell me they keep a loud whistle near the phone and blow it loudly when a spam call comes in.  But the fact is that hanging up immediately is the only productive way to respond to these calls.  And who has the time to have that much fun at work?

The FTC Web site says, "We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of illegal robocalls because internet-powered phone systems have made it cheap and easy for scammers to make illegal calls from anywhere in the world, and to hide from law enforcement by displaying fake caller ID information.

"To date, the FTC has brought more than a hundred lawsuits against over 600 companies and individuals responsible for billions of illegal robocalls and other Do Not Call violations."

Only 100 lawsuits?  Unfortunately that is a drop in the spam caller bucket.  The phone companies do not make it easy enough to block such calls, probably because it's not in their interest to do so.  And modern business needs ways to legitimately communicate, so the phone companies know they're not going to lose business customers.  The FTC has the 'Do Not Call List' but only legitimate callers honor it, and not even always.

I can't reasonably expect that all cold-calls would ever be banned, but that's my position.  Don't call me unless we share a legitimate reason to talk.  But I think most people would agree, at least people on the receiving end, that there is no need in our modern world for robocalls.

The FTC should be funded to up their game.  That 'more than a hundred lawsuits' should read 'more than a thousand lawsuits'.  Laws should be tightened and enforced against anyone who spam-calls.  Robocall devices should be outlawed.  Sure, you may say that political candidates need them, but I say that anyone who robocalls you should never get your vote.  Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something.  Robocall your congressman on this one: robocall technology must be banned.

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