Stovebolt.com Forums The Front Office The Greasy Spoon I may have stumbled onto something

I normally get between six and ten scam calls a day. Most are from "Senior Benefits". I normally tell them to perform an unnatural sex act on themselves and hang up. Yesterday morning I got another, the first of the day. "Gary" (with a strong mid eastern accent) introduced himself as being from Senior Benefits and asked me how I was doing. On a whim I told "Gary" I was fine and then I asked him how things were in India. After a short pause he said "what"? I said "you're in India and I'm curious how things are over there". The line went silent because he cut the connection (you can't say he "hung up" since they use VOiP and there's no telephone involved). I've gone from the before mentioned multitude of calls daily to none since. Maybe he took my number off of their call list because they know I'm on to them??? I don't know, they may start again in the future but the current silence is great.

It works even better if you learn a few phrases in Hindi. I usually suggest that the caller's mother or sister likes to perform unnatural acts of perversion with farm animals.
Jerry

I received a text late last night telling me that I was to call a number because the state of Indiana wants to give me $2800.00. The number was in the Galapagos Islands, it even said in the text it was. I know that Indiana has my bank information because my state tax refund is a direct deposit and I received money last month from a state excess tax refund. So I missed out on $2800.00 or missed having my bank account raided. . I reported it as span.

We I am bored and not in a hurry I try to drag out the conversation as long as possible to waste their time. Time is money for them and they need a high volume of calls to find that one sucker.

With a southern draw, it is easy for you to draw out a conversation. Yes I thought this was funny. All of my relatives came from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Md. Va. But mostly WVa.

Never, EVER click a link in an email or call a phone number to "correct an error". My wife tried to pay a medical bill copay on the "Patient Portal" website our cardiologist's office uses. She got a popup message saying there had been a billing error, so "please call this number" to resolve the proiblem. Before the mess was over, a scammer in India had electronically transferred $35K from our savings account to checking, and almost succeeded in sending it to a bank in Singapore! It was necessary to change passwords and account numbers on both accounts, and go to all the hassle of restructuring some automatic payments to several local utility companies, etc. She was smart enough to hang up on the scam artist and call the bank immediately, before the electronic transfer actually made it through the system. Scammers need a trip through a wood chipper- - - -slowly and feet first!
Jerry

You know you can sue telemarketers who pester you (if you've been careful enough to put your phone number on the do not call list). It is true. You can sue up to $500 and if the court determines the company knowingly violated the law the penalty triples. https://www.consumer-action.org/downloads/english/DoNotCall_En.pdf

Take a look at what TV reporter Steve Noviello got in a few days of work: https://www.fox4news.com/news/on-your-side-turn-robocalls-into-cash

I got a call yesterday from "Publisher's Clearing House" saying my entry had won second prize. Given it was a recorded message (you know, the ones that take about 15-20 seconds after you say hello to start up) and the fact that I hadn't entered anything, I hung up before they got to "call this number to claim your prize". If I wasn't annoyed enough and had better things to do, I would have listened to the whole thing and maybe screwed with them a bit.

Jon, You actually have to have lost money to sue. Even the max of $1500 is a drop in the bucket to the $37K that was at stake in Jerry's case.

Be careful out there. The scammers are looking for anyone who is gullible or just careless.

Occasionally at my job, we get calls from some Hadji wanting "Caterpillar and Detroit injectors/parts". The caller ID says they're calling from Houston, so we tell them to call the shops that are much closer to them in Houston

Also we get recorded calls from "G oogle" saying our account isn't set up properly or something...use to get those like 2-3 times a day.

Rarely we would mess with them and carry on the conversation, but we've been far too busy for that lately.

Kevin, did somebody tell you that? Because I've read through that act and that isn't how I understand it. I could not find any of these words in it: suffer, suffered, previous, must, lose, lost, money, monies, personal, funds. https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/tcpa-rules.pdf

And it seems clear that even absent money loss, the court may have notable latitude to impose a much more liberal punishment scheme. Here's a lady (from the same state in which Jerry lives) who won a suit against Conn's...simply over telephone harassment under the TCPA rules: https://www.fox13memphis.com/top-st...furniture-store-s-robocallers/934471680/ Under TCPA limitations, her award should have been limited to $153,000 (since she received 306 calls) but the court awarded her $459,000.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act or “TCPA,” prohibits anyone from calling or texting you using an automated dialing system unless they have your prior permission. The TCPA also prohibits anyone from calling you using a prerecorded or synthetic voice without your prior consent.

The TCPA allows you to sue both robocallers and robotexters and receive in payment between $500 and 3 times that or $1500. However the law also allows consumers to sue for $500 per call or per text after the first one...if you are on the do not call list and the caller ignores that.

I have found references in government documents relating to the TCPA to "residential subscriber" which could I suppose under strict interpretation be limiting. What the 2012 amendment to the act says is:

“Residential Subscriber” An individual who has contracted with a common carrier to provide telephone exchange service at a personal residence.

And the 2012 amendment states "Under the FCC’s rules, no seller or entity telemarketing on behalf of the seller can initiate a telephone solicitation to a residential telephone subscriber who has registered his or her telephone number on the national “Do-Not-Call” registry.

Whether this is in any manner limits benefit under the act to those who solely use cell phones as their residential telephone isn't clear...but given the mass exodus away from land lines I would be very surprised if any court would adopt that sort of nonsense.