FTC announces major crackdown on robocalls
Source: CBS News
June 25, 2019, 7:49 AM
The Federal Trade Commission and law enforcement plan to file charges against several companies and individuals as part of a major government clampdown on illegal robocalls.
The mission, known as "Operation Call it Quits," includes two FTC commissioners from the opposite ends of the political spectrum: Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat, and Noah Phillips, a Republican.
The government says that there are tens of billions of robocalls made every year -- and when it comes to those calls, Phillips said, there's no political disagreement "whatsoever."
"Robocalls are not just an annoyance that every single American feels several times a day," he said. "They can be a real problem for people who do pick up the phone and sometimes fall victim to those kinds of scams."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robocalls-federal-trade-commission-announces-major-crackdown-operation-call-it-quits/
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She used to call almost every day and she has not called for months. What did I do wrong? Doesn't she love me anymore? 
The FTC gets Rachel the Robocaller… again
June 14, 2016
by Andrew Johnson
Division of Consumer and Business Education
Today, the FTC and the state of Florida announced a lawsuit against Life Management Services, a company that the FTC says is behind hundreds of thousands of these calls.
According to the FTC, Life Management Services swindled people out of their money by offering two types of phony debt relief: credit card interest rate reduction services and credit card debt elimination services. The company promised lower interest rates or government funds to pay off debt, and asked people to make initial payments ranging from $500 to $20,000. But almost no one got the help that was promised.
This is one of six recent FTC cases that focus on illegal robocalls. How does the FTC build these cases? One critical tool is the FTC’s honeypot -- a large bank of phone lines designed to attract robocalls. That lets FTC investigators interact with robocallers, record the calls, and make undercover purchases. The FTC uses its honeypot to identify companies placing illegal calls and collect evidence of their illegal activities. It was particularly useful in the Life Management case announced today.
More: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2016/06/ftc-gets-rachel-robocaller-again
We have the ability to block their calls, so they have the ability to NOT TELL US where they're calling from. Thank goodness for caller ID, I almost never answer the phone any more.
Looking to sell your home, we will ask you for years and never figure out that's a NO, and call at all hours from dozens of #'s and sometimes even leave a message? 
Badgering, oh yeah Alex when we sell, you Alex of course will be front and center on our minds. 
Phishing, IMHO, should be punishable by random blind-folded & handcuffed, with long rope tied to chum in deep water BFE drop. 
I get calls purporting to be from Social Security, Medicare, my health insurance company, my next door neighbor, and myself.
Since I get legitimate calls from a wide variety of sources, I have to answer all calls since there is no way to memorize every source number. But damn it's a bitch to get a call claiming to be from my insurance (Medicare Supplemental) company, only to have some scammer or a robocall be on the line.
At least I can ignore calls on my cell phone since I almost never give out that number - but my landline number is everywhere. A few times, it's been amusing - when it was listed in my farm name, I'd get calls asking for "Mr. Farm!" Now that it's listed in my name with only a first initial, I get calls for Mr or Mrs "A." 
So I no longer get calls from inside the house.
Too often I don't have my glasses on and can't read the caller ID - plus there are too many calls from a variety of numbers I wouldn't recognize but need to get for me to not answer. And many of my callers will not leave messages, so just relying on replying to messages won't work, either.
and they have made who knows how much money over the years allowing the scum to pay for large bundles of POTS lines to use to harass innocent Americans... until the scammers stopped paying for phone lines and started using the internet (VOIP) to call digitally instead. Thus the old Ma Bell spin-offs (and newer cell companies), along with some smart programmers working for specialty tech companies, supposedly came up with a way to validate numbers coming through their systems to their phone subscribers, and can then "label" those numbers as "Spam" (and/or can block, if the recipient requests it).
For example I had noticed that on my Verizon land line caller ID display for certain numbers and had even heard about them doing this not long ago, but just found a link for their press release about it -
SPAM? Verizon gives you a new tool to avoid those pesky robocalls with new Caller ID feature
NEW YORK – “I love robocalls,” said no one ever. In reality, the opposite is true, and it is in that spirit that Verizon is introducing a new Caller ID feature for its landline phone customers to help them protect themselves from potential malicious robocalls. While Caller ID has always been a way for customers to screen unknown numbers as possible robocalls (and perhaps avoid certain known numbers!), just because a number is unknown doesn’t mean it might not be an important call.
Verizon’s new feature, called Spam Alerts, will now show “SPAM?” before a caller’s name on the Caller ID display if the calling number matches Verizon’s spam criteria. When a customer sees this, they’ll be able to better decide if they should answer the call. Spam Alerts is automatically available now at no additional charge to all landline customers with Caller ID, whether they’re on copper or fiber. Verizon's Spam Alerts feature utilizes TNS's Call Guardian and Neustar’s Robocall Mitigation solution to proactively identify illegal robocalls and other fraudulent caller activity with more accuracy.
Verizon is the first to offer an integrated landline feature like this to help customers make more informed decisions on whether to answer a call from an unknown number. It’s also the latest tool Verizon has introduced to help its customers avoid robocalls. The recently upgraded Caller Name ID app gives Verizon Wireless customers the ability to identify incoming callers and text message senders by name and its Robocall Protection feature warns customers when incoming calls are likely spam, fraud, or a robocall.
https://www.verizon.com/about/news/block-spam-robocalls-with-verizon-new-tool
Of course this requires someone with phone service to be signed up for their (extra cost on top of basic) caller-ID service. I remember 25 years ago getting a call at 9:30 pm (was in bed asleep by then) and it was Verizon trying to hawk their various extra services (this was before the passage of laws regulating telemarketers and forbidding telemarketing calls after 8:30 pm). I was so furious that I immediately signed up for it so that I could block them (if need be).
Since then, I have used various call blockers, the latest being digitone, a little device that has been a godsend!
The FTC could have nipped this in the bud about 20 years ago. But they sat back and let all happen anyway.
