MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 17 – Do Not Call Registry

MMeM, Vol. 14 Issue 17 – Do Not Call Registry
“Hello?” wait for a human

Do you remember the nationwide Do Not Call Registry? That was such a landmark BIG DEAL! It was supposed to stop all of the telemarketing calls for good. It was implemented in 2003. You signed up your phone numbers and BOOM! No more unwanted bothersome calls. Wah-LAH! However, as soon as it was implemented it began to show cracks in its supposed rigidity.

First of all, as I remember it, you would still get sales calls from companies with which you were a customer. Sure, that made sense. But, the super fine print, and never mentioned beforehand clause, was that said companies could also share you with their “friends” if they were “business-partners”. That was the first crotch kick in the suddenly less than Holy Do Not Call Registry. By 2017 there were more than 230 million phone numbers signed up on it to block unwanted phone calls. The FTC, who implemented and manages the NDNCR, receives 19,000 complaints A DAY from list members about getting unwanted solicitation calls.

Fast Forward to 2018. That National Do Not Call Registry is a worthless piece of CRAP. Today everyone is subjected to more bot-robo-nonHuman-computer-answer-“Hello?”-wait for a human to pick up the call AFTER YOU ANSWER than EVAR!!!!

Back to that landmark house bill that implemented the NDNCR in the first place. “The House bill to create it passed 412 to 8. Only Ron Paul, Jeff Flake and a handful of other shrink-the-state types dissented.” Just curious, do any of those mentioned among the dissenters sound familiar? Hmm?

See the technology of VoIP and computers making thousands of calls in the hopes that thousands or even hundreds will be duped into picking up or even calling back about some bogus scary message is just too effective. The FTC even offered $50,000 to anyone who could come up with a way to block robocalls back in 2012, more than once. It’s just an unstoppable mess. To be fair, 412 representatives’ hearts and minds were in the right place at the time back in 2003. However the government is just getting lapped by the cyber criminals, again.

About

Blogger, in search of humor, always. Writer of MidwesternMeditations.com, formerly hosted on Blogger.