Reports of Unwanted Telemarketing Calls Down More Than 50 Percent Since 2021
33 points by impish9208 3 days ago | 17 comments
  • stemlord 3 days ago |
    Can't relate
  • nhggfu 3 days ago |
    2024: They just buy / scrape email lists + linkedin and spam you to death.
  • fhfjfk 3 days ago |
    Anyone anywhere in the world can pay money to steal some of your attention.

    Until that changes, we'll continue to decrease the duty cycle of personal agency in our lives.

  • pavel_lishin 3 days ago |
    I'm not sure what's considered telemarketing, but I get half a dozen calls a day from a human operating a TTS in a call-center, who then forwards me to another call center. They're all about Medicare/Medicaid.
  • Molitor5901 3 days ago |
    My wife never changed her phone number when we moved from Seattle, so any number that shows up as a 206 area code she assumes is spam, and blocks it. It's helped to at least avoid answering the phone when a telemarketer calls.
  • 0xPIT 3 days ago |
    Maybe people just stopped reporting because it did not have any effect in the past?
  • khaki54 3 days ago |
    This is one of those "lying with statistics" moments. The implication is that "Unwanted telemarketing calls" have gone down significantly, maybe even "more than 50 percent since 2021" and the second order implication is that it was the efforts of the FTC that made the drop happen.

    The reality is simply that reports to the FTC have gone down which is going to be from myriad other reasons besides the implied ones.

      1. Since many spam/scam calls utilize some form of spoofing, many savvy people aren't going to waste their time reporting the number.  
  2. Since many phones / carriers have the ability to report spam/scam, people aren't very likely to spend their time reporting the number to the FTC.  
  3. Many carriers and phones have services that come standard (or at least paid) that automatically filter or flag low reputation numbers, leading to fewer reports to the FTC.
  4. People that have tried reporting in the past and have gone through the trouble of associating their email and phone number in yet another government database have given up reporting after no appreciable effect.
    Frankly, I don't think calls have dropped much if at all, and many of us have stopped accepting calls from unknown numbers unless we are expecting it, so those "ignored" ones certainly don't get reported either.
    • deadlydose 3 days ago |
      Who's "us?" Personally I noticed a _dramatic_ decrease in spam calls. In 2019 and 2020 I was seeing, at times, three per hour (damn that extended warranty!). Now I might get one every week.
      • foobarchu 2 days ago |
        Many of us != The royal Us, your lower volume doesn't invalidate the many who have seen numbers continue to rise.

        That's not even mentioning the rise of text message spam/scams/marketing. This election season was made all the worse for me and many that I know by the unstoppable deluge of political spam (all of which has a "text stop to end" option that does nothing because each one is from a different organization, thanks Citizens United!)

    • ashoeafoot 3 days ago |
      Xenophobia would go up though, although i don't know how you would measure that.
    • SideQuark 3 days ago |
      >This is one of those "lying with statistics" moments

      This reply is one of the handwaving skeptic moments. I too can make up reasons the calls should have gone up, but didn't:

      1. Demonstrably more people with phones than in 2021. 2. Easier than ever to submit reports. 3. More awareness one can submit reports. 4. Program has been around longer, has had more advertising, more people know about it.

      See,I can make up unsubstantiated, unqualified magic claims for the benefits just as easily. This is why measurements are important, not conjecture. It's why looking at the data where you'd notice how movements in the report rates correspond well to rule change deadlines is important. It's why simply making up handwavy things without putting in effort to check them and stating a belief as fact is always unwarranted.

      Not one of your handwavy reasons likely has much change from 2021 to now, and most certainly would not result in a 50% drop. It's not like in the last few years 50% of people that used to report simply got saavy and now don't, or that 50% of people looked up FTC rule change deadlines and suddenly match callRates to that.

      The other services you mention the companies have adopted is because the FTC forced them to add such capability, and you conclude the FTC is not responsible?

      FTC gives the raw data, give per state reports, has spent time chasing this, has forced technology changes to enable better reporting and blocking, and pursued a host of other things to address this.

      I don't think it's a "lying with statistics" moment. And in any such moment the solution is not making up stuff whole cloth, but providing evidence based better use of statistics. This post is an example of ignoring evidence to support a belief, a much more common reasoning error than "lying with statistics".

      I certainly trust a group that has measurement transparency and long running experts and effort towards a result over someone with internet personal anecdotes and flawed reasoning. Especially when the data shows reasonable movement for reasonable actions.

  • acomjean 3 days ago |
    They don’t call anymore. They just text.
  • cptcobalt 3 days ago |
    Anecdatally (& disregarding political SMS), my spam call/text frequency has substantially skyrocketed to about 2-4x that of around 2020, to the extent that I am tempted to change phone numbers.
  • silexia 3 days ago |
    People gave up on reporting spam calls. We need to make telcos financially liable for carrying spam calls. And put the death penalty on those who make them.
  • blackeyeblitzar 3 days ago |
    For me it feels like this problem has become far worse. I often see unsolicited text messages and phone calls coming from a couple problematic platforms like Sinch (who also acquired Mailgun, Mailjet, Inteliquent) and Bandwidth.com (a VOIP provider). These platforms have terrible anti abuse programs that are ineffective and basically force you to repeatedly submit reports so they can stop one source at a time, when in fact they’re just enabling businesses who are fundamentally built on abuse. They often also just reply and say it isn’t their responsibility because they’re just reselling to someone else and that it needs to be taken up with THAT third party. The FTC needs to do a lot more and fine these companies, and jail their executives.

    By the way, to help, people should:

    1. Report text message spam to 7726 (“SPAM” on the dial pad), which will give your carrier info

    2. If you get iMessage spam, click report junk so Apple takes action

    3. Go to the FTC and FCC websites to report the abuse. For the FCC visit their site (https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls...) and click the text link for filing a complaint. For FTC visit their site (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/) and click “report now”. These forms are painful to fill out and ask for a lot of information, but it will help regulators build a case against these companies.

    I personally don’t bother reporting abuse to those companies’ own abuse process anymore, because it just helps them temporarily hide what is a bigger problem with their business practice as a whole.

  • polski-g a day ago |
    This is because of rule changes about account ownership from VOIP providers. A lot of them went under because they couldn't/wouldn't follow the rules. Sometimes government can make things better.