Posted on 03/29/2019 7:36:49 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The total amount of money secured by the Federal Trade Commission through court judgments in cases involving civil penalties for robocalls or National Do Not Call Registry-related violations, plus the sum requested for consumer redress in fraud-related cases, is $1.5 billion since 2004. It has collected $121 million of that total, said Ian Barlow, coordinator of the agency’s Do Not Call program, or about 8%. The agency operates the National Do Not Call Registry and regulates telemarketing. An FCC spokesman said his agency lacks the authority to enforce the forfeiture orders it issues and has passed all unpaid penalties to the Justice Department, which has the power to collect the fines.
...The agency in May 2018, for example, fined a Florida-based company and its top executive $120 million for making 100 million illegal robocalls during a three-month period in 2016. Agency records as of late December indicate that no funds had been collected.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
From the WSJ comments:
Send them to jail and have them listen to junk calls everyday. One of those 10,000,000 calls can get them out of jail. It’s up to them to ignore or pick up the phone.
i dont answer any phone number that I dont know and my message feature is shut off.
cuomo said He’s making it illegal for robocallers to call folks who live in NY- $2000 per call- Yeah right- good luck with that NY’ers-
May all robocaller scammers have perpetually soggy and fungus infected feet-
Criminals seldom pay civil penalties. Who knew?
Forget about fining them. Shoot a few of them and the calls will fall off real fast.
That’s what I said about email spammers, 20 years ago. Could have nipped the problem in the bud then.
Same would happen on gun regs.
Do not comply.
That’s for darned sure. I’ve given up on government ever doing anything about them or spam/robo-callers.
The gov’t needs to sic some bill collectors on them.
You know call the deadbeats again and again and again....
That would be nice to ignore every unknown call to me...but it might be a potential new customer. Some of us can’t afford to be so glib about calls. Make them stop, shoot the bastards, whatever it takes... The Max solution isn’t good enough.
Like you, I have to answer in case it is a possible new client calling.
can people REALLY be that stupid ????? ( well, probably, most huge mexican familys get the group discounts ( 4 for the price of 1) and single people have to subsidize them, so yes, I can believe it, especially if they polled the people with family plans
If you get fined by the FCC, and you think the government is in the wrong, simply refuse to pay. The FCC does not have the authority to collect its civil fines. Rather, the Department of Justice has to go to federal district court and sue “de novo”. The fundamental fairness of FCC rules and procedures would then be on trial.
I’m guessing the DOJ believes that they would get their lunch handed to them in federal district court.
‘Government efficiency’?
Our tax dollars at work, once again. Nothing new and actually getting quite old. Government agencies across the spectrum needs to force out the top three tiers of agency management and bring in some new blood with contracts stipulating efficiency standards or they will be removed as well.
Maybe the FCC should hire robo-callers to collect the unpaid fines?
YES!!!
A local campaign, to the hometown of “Rachel at Cardholder Services”.
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome bitch?
I wonder what percentage of the fines the offenders would be able to actually cough up, were this all enforced.
There used to be a problem in Britain of pickpockets plying their trade at public hangings of pickpockets.The WSJ had an opinion piece a couple of days ago suggesting a tax of 1¢ per phone call placed. A small nuisance for you and me, a big problem for people who are exploiting the fact that mechanized cold calling is so cheap.
IMHO it shouldn’t necessarily be a tax, it could be a fee charged to the caller and credited to the callee. And even better, it could be a fee set by the callee at the time of the call. You receive a cold call, you offer to answer if the caller is serious enough to pay, for example, $1 for your response. You push that button, the caller gets a recorded message to that effect. And if you aren’t home or are just monitoring your answering machine in real time, the default response replies to the caller offering to record a message for a 50¢ charge.
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