Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Devendra Banhart @ 9:30 Club
The Associated Press (via the Los Angeles Times) gets on a story near and dear to several DCist staffers hearts: The Federal Trade Commission is apparently close to taking legal action against the truly evil company (or companies?) responsible for the almost weekly robocalls many of us have been receiving that warn us our auto warranties are about to expire. Have you been getting these calls, too? The messages go something like this: "This call is to warn you that your 10-year auto warranty is about to expire! Call us today before you wait too long to fix this potentially dangerous situation - renew your auto warranty with our company today!"
This editor and DCist Weekend Editor Kriston Capps have been comparing notes about the frequency and obnoxiousness of the calls for literally months now. Neither of us own cars. Last week, Capps got so fed up that he actually tried to talk to the company.
"It was the third call from the number that day, so I answered it and pressed '1' to go through," Capps says. He asked the man who answered to take his number off of their call list, and asked for a physical address, so he could mail a cease and desist letter—or something, anything to make the calls stop.
"And the guy said, 'I'm not giving you an address, I don't have to give you anything, and there's nothing you can do to stop the calls.' And then he hung up!"
Infuriating. So today's news is very good news for those of us who can't seem to make the calls stop. Looks like we can thank Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) for pressing the FTC to get on top of this. According to the AP, both senators have received the calls themselves. The two men are expected to announce the FTC's actions at a news conference Tuesday.
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I hope they also go after "Lisa" from DishTV. I get those calls at work, where are they going to set up the dish?
or the "Hi! It's Phil. I'll be in your neighborhood...."
I too don't own a car and have pressed no. 2 to be removed. If these people can be put to death. I will provide the ice for the drinks.
And "Julie Anderson", who sounds suspiciously like "Lisa", calling *JUST NOW* to tell me she can help with my home loan.
If you're providing ice, I'll provide the bendy straws.
is it just me, or are a majority of these calls coming into verizon wireless phones?
It's just you. And actually, after Verizon reached an 'agreement' with the companies two weeks ago, I stopped getting them.
That's nice, but WTF are they doing about bogus "premium" charges billed to your cellphone? You get a spam SMS and delete it, which AUTOMATICALLY signs you up for their service. They tried to stick me for $30 in ringtones that I didn't even order.
As for the robot calls, this is yet another reason I'm ditching my landline. That at the $20 price hike. Verizon can eat a dick. No. Strike that. They can eat MY dick. I'm taking it personally.
Won't make a difference for the warranty, I get them on my cell, which I never use to register for anything. It's just an auto-dial. Unless you're a cell-less Luddite ... it would explains things.
And for all of you out there engaging them by pressing 1 or asking to be removed from the list, hello, you're just playing into the scam. Once they know someone is at the other end of the phone, you'll never be taken off.
I was getting the calls several times a day. I use my cell phone for work and need to make and receive lots of calls from all over, so I answer calls from unfamiliar area codes—it was clear enough that someone was answering. Calling those numbers on my caller ID didn't work—they weren't linked to working numbers. Pressing "1" to talk to a live human scammer didn't make the problem worse—answering the call in the first place did.
But as the victim I won't be blamed! I'll answer any damn call I want to; these people can go hang themselves.
Monkey, all of the car warranty calls have come to the cell phone, never the landline. And now that you mention it, I have been getting a lot of bizarre SMS texts, with odd & useless trivia in them. Anyone else getting that?
I've been getting these on my office phone. I got someone on the phone a few months ago, explained that I don't own a car, and asked to be taken off their list. The guy was very polite and I didn't hear anything for weeks, now I've gotten a couple calls again, and so have several others in my office on their office lines. This is so infuriating!
"This is the second warning that your factory warranty may be expired..."
Gah! I hate those.
There's no "getting taken off the list". Ever seen those flyers from like "platinum enterprises" to start your own business at home? Ever wondered who the dum-dums were who picked them up? Press 1 to talk to one live.
Do they still do the outdoor film shows in Bethesda? They used to show them in the summer near the Medical Center Metro.
Whoa. Wrong thread.
The things that had to have gone wrong for this to have happened! How many damn tabs do you have open?
What we need is a SPAM line button. A button that when pushed :
1. Sends some bad moejoe to the other end.
2. Plays back some pre-recorded jizz-bang.
3. Puts the other end on hold forever.
4. Sends the caller, Abe Vagoda reading Ulysees.
5. Sends the caller straight to Baltimore.
I haven't been getting those, but I suddenly am getting overage charges on my Verizon landline. I have a limited plan of 75 calls a month, which I don't come close to using. Last month and this month my bill says I've made 380-400 calls over my allowance! I called Verizon and spoke to someone in billing as well as repair - neither of them can tell me why it's happening. So....what? Am I supposed to just keep paying for calls I'm not making?? WTF?
IME, the best way to deal with Verizon is to complain to the utility board.
I was having a problem with unauthorized charges, even though Verizon insisted that third-party charges were blocked on my account. I filled out a simple form online, and a week later someone from Verizon left me a message saying that all charges had been refunded and I got a free month's service.
This was in PA. YMMV.
You don't have a computer with a modem using that line, do you? If so, the machine might be making calls late at night due to some malware.
Nope, I have wireless (through Verizon) and my computer is always off at night.
Thanks for the tip, Politburo.
We once had a company calling us at least 4 times a day with a robocall to offer refinancing on the mortgage. I got so sick of it that I finally pressed 1 and got into the system. There was no person on the other end just a computer that wanted me to enter account information to verify whatever it was they wanted verified. I hung up and filed a report with the FTC. The next time they called I went into the system again and somehow found a way to get off the call list. They haven't called since.
I believe the news report i heard last night said that Chuck Schumer got the call while he was speaking on the senate floor which is what really got things moving.
Here's what you do... Next time you're in a metro station, write down the phone number of any and all pay phones you see. When you're at your desk at work and another one of these calls comes in. Press whatever number is required to get a live person on the line and then transfer the call to a random payphone in a random metro station. Let Skippy-Frak-Tard talk to Stinky-Homeless-Guy for a while...
If the call comes into your cellphone.. well, not quite as much fun..
Oh nice idea forwarding to Metro pay phones, lol some dumb tourists kid will answer no doubt.
I don't get these spam calls on my cell; just my office phone. The cell just gets people calling for the previous owner of the number (aren't number supposed to be put on ice for at least a few years before being re-issued?)--I don't know who Buck is, but I wish he'd give people his new number that's for sure!
I love the call goes like this too "Buck?" NO "Are you sure this isn't Buck, I'm sure I got the number right?" Well I don't know I could be having an identity crisis, let me call you back. "huh?"
man, i hate those calls! So glad something is happening soon.
"This is the second warning..." blah blah blah
wow!
Great news! I get them on my cell phone... what?! I thought cell phones were impervious to telemarketers. Guess not.
Anyways, one of the interesting things about getting the calls to a cell phone is the ability to see the incoming number. A few days ago, one came from the very town where I grew up... I reverse dialed the number and got a quite clueless old Hispanic woman. How do the companies do that, I have to ask? Is it like a computer trojan or something?
An article on a great effort to bring them to their knees here.
How to do it here.
It is too bad that politicians continue to exempt themselves from Do Not Call law.
StopPoliticalCalls.org is fighting for the privacy of the American voter.
1 - Creating a Political Do Not Call Registry
2 - Testifying in the US Senate about robo calls (Sen. Feinstein’s Robocall Privacy Act)
3 - Forcing states to enforce existing robo call laws (CA, MN, NJ, etc..)
4 - Getting politicians to take a do not robo call pledge (7 have)
Here is a quote from a member recently:
"I'm a shift worker, working variable shifts. I depend on my sleep to be able to do my job safely and efficiently. I'm a locomotive engineer. Imagine the disaster were I to fall asleep, operating a freight train carrying hazardous materials in your neighborhood, due to fatigue from being awoken in my middle of the night on a continuous basis during election season. Please stop.."
Learn more.
Shaun Dakin
CEO
http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org
A non-profit fighting for the privacy of the American voter
Spamming a spam discussion thread with spam? I think we've just gone meta, folks.
You made it to msnbc.com via nbcwashington.com
Dude!!!
Finally! I've gotten those calls on the line at my present job and the last one before it. Even more suspicious, a person called every person on my floor within the span of a single day (almost in room number order) to try and sell us some piece of software. How these people get such detailed call information is beyond me. I once tried to talk to the auto-insurance people telling them that they'd called a secure government line (mostly true) and that such activity was illegal, but they hung up without saying anything further--darn! I don't even own a car either...
I only got one of those warranty calls once at work. I asked "which car are you talking about?" and they hung up.
I say, track them down, capture them, and put them in stocks on the outfield of Nats Stadium, and provide baskets of baseballs and soggy chili-cheese fries to throw at them.
I contacted Jim Moran The Useful a bunch of times about this. No response. That's what you get when you get a voting congressmember -- a critter that does nothing.
Schumer saw it and jumpd on it. There's something to be said about that NY attitude.
What is sad is that it took this many complaints and a few senators getting the phone calls before the ftc decided to do anything about it.
The good news is that you can sue them yourselves for $500 every time they call you when you're on the do not call list. You can subpoena your phone company for the actual number that called you (even if they spoofed it).