The Scum of the Earth

FURTHER UPDATE: As of April 2024, the calls are finally abating. They now come from "investors" who want to buy my property (Sure! $2 million cash. Immediately); Spectrum, the scam Amazon order, electric service. But not at the previous volume. Perseverance must be paying off.

UPDATE: July 20. I received 30 calls today, 30 CALLS. They're all on my caller ID record. They're mostly from Comcast/Xfinity, ATT/DirecTV, "your cable provider," and "Are you looking to save money..." with one or two thrown in from Alex at Bank of American and friends. A go-around on the phone and via Twitter DM provided clucks of concern, a case number, ID verification, and a promised call back from the "legal department." I went out for a short time this afternoon and came back to 6 calls (via iteration #4 below). 

I work at home. My landline is 12 inches from my laptop. Starting in the morning at about 10 or so, the calls begin. I’m not gonna mince words: Telemarketers and robocallers are the scum of the earth.

Here’s looking at you.

But of course, the calls do not come from these “real” companies, rather from call centers in Kolkata, India, or Pakistan or some armpit somewhere.

They assume four different iterations. (1) The robo intro – press 1, etc.; (2) The voice prompt; (3) A live caller; and (4) The newest one: Although you’re advised not to pick up the phone, they’re now hanging on the line long enough to trigger your voice mail, so there’s a call waiting. You check the message and there is silence, segueing into the busy signal. I came home from a short errand one afternoon to five so-called messages.

So they get you no matter what tactic you take.

Speaking of tactics, attempts to thwart them are fruitless. Here’s what I’ve done.

• Ask them politely to stop. I gave up on that a long time ago.

• Sign up for the Do Not Call Registry. I did that back in 2003 and have updated it periodically. It does not work.

• Nomorobo: stopped working. Additional call blockers are suggested, but at a cost. Why should I have to pay money for something that should simply be outlawed.

• Just hang up. Nope. They still call.

• Bitching them out. A cathartic exercise in honing my Fuck Off vocabulary.

• Local call blocking through my landline/internet provider, Frontier. You enter the numbers you want blocked. The call blocker filled up in two days. That’s because, of course, the phone numbers are spoofed and not from legitimate sources, so that is useless.

• Face to face with my state Attorney General William Tong. I discussed the problem with him at a local politico gathering. I know he’s commented on it in terms of policy, but he said had no concrete way of combating the problem. Of course, the party line is that the callers are from overseas call centers and there’s no way (according to the feds and the real companies) to control them. However, AG Tong's recent lawsuit (May 2023) against Avid Telecom offers a bit of hope; 48 states have joined in the lawsuit. Avid is the henchman for scam calls about Social Security Administration scams, Medicare scams, auto warranty scams, Amazon scams, DirecTV scams, credit card interest rate reduction scams, and employment scams.

More on Avid Telecom: Nearly every state and D.C. sue telecom over billions of robocalls. Yep. All the usual cuprit: "According to the suit, Avid Telecom allegedly sent or transmitted scam calls about the Social Security Administration, Medicare, auto warranties, Amazon, DirecTV, credit card interest rate reduction, and employment." Efforts to reach anyone at Avid Telcom are fruitless; Lansky's and Reeves' extensions are invalid.

• Reported to the FCC and FTC. They have a page of mice-type information on robocallers/telemarketers. I’ve followed their instructions and duly reported my complaints. They kindly provide me with ticket numbers. Nothing further, of course. 

• Confronted the companies on Twitter with varying degrees of acknowledgement that consists of apologies and what I have designated as the Corporate Shrug. The dialog peters off once I start describing problem.

Finally, in an exercise in persistence that comes with a journalism background of 50 years and the crankiness that comes with age: I started contacting the companies directly, those who are the most persistent offenders.

 

Here’s some background on my encounters

First, Spectrum has its number readily accessible on its website. I call them periodically after receiving more than a few calls in a single day and if I’m feeling especially bitchy. I introduce myself as their BFF Sally. We proceed to go through a whole song-and-dance routine (I’ve never gotten the same rep twice, of course) – they want my Spectrum account info. Spectrum is not even available in my area, which seems to surprise them. Then they extend their apologies and say that because the calls come from overseas, there’s nothing they can do and direct me to their complaint link on their website (another exercise in futility). That’s when I call out their Corporate Shrug. Then I launch into my “accountability” tirade: “You’re a big rich, high-tech company, making millions of dollars a year. Your CEO makes millions (throw in name and compensation). You mean to say you don’t care that your company is being constantly misrepresented and that people are being constantly harassed?” <<More Apologies>> How about putting a few million into looking into this problem? Why don’t you bring it up at your next ‘team’ meeting?” << More Apologies>> On occasion, I’ll be transferred to their “fraud” department where I hear the same story. I end the conversation by assuring them that I will check in periodically.

Where I’ve had the most dialog is with ATT/DirecTV. I had been direct messaging them on Twitter and the response escalated to where I had a case number assigned and was assured that the calls would stop within 30 days from my complaint on April 26. Just to keep them in the “loop” I continued to track the calls with the assurance that they would stop in 30 days. May 26 came and went; the calls continued, no surprise. It’s now July and the calls continue. Every Day.

I fished out a number for the company. First, I spoke with Ann, a customer service rep, who explained that there was indeed a “chain of investigation” for fraud calls and that two cases had been prosecuted in the U.S. She added that the number of calls had decreased from 600 to 200; she didn’t specify the time period. As her request I started tracking the phone numbers of the scammers from the magical stop date of May 26 to June 13. Talk about a time suck. In the meantime, I filed another complaint with the FTC and received the obligatory ticket number.

I hit paydirt, sort of, when Agustin from the office of the president of DirecTV, called me (on a recorded line, no less). I reiterated my story for the umpteenth time, but he didn’t have a lot to add. They maintain the party line is that since the calls come from out of the country and are spoofed, there’s nothing they can do. That song-and-dance is repeated within the DMs I continue to post, accompanied by the requisite apologies. I emailed Agustin the calls I had tracked with the phone numbers; he said he would forward the information, “as discussed.”

Apparently, Agustin was following the DMs and called me one day acknowledging them. I think he was politely trying to tell me to stop posting the calls; while I gave up on the numbers, I’ve posting the day and time with each call. I assured him that as long as I kept getting the calls, I would keep posting them.

As I mentioned above, an arguing point I always use is this: these are big, rich, high-tech companies, whose CEOs make millions of dollars a year. Why can't they dedicate SOME resources to protecting the integrity of their companies?

Here’s a list of the regular perps with some earnings numbers assembled quickly from a google search.

 

ATT/DirecTV

            AT&T CEO John Stankey's pay for 2021 rose 18 percent over the previous year to $24.8 million. DirecTV earnings for the first quarter of 2023 was $6.9 billion.

 

 

Amazon

            Earnings of $149.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 and Lord knows how much Bezos makes.

 

Bank of America (Alex)

            Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan's total compensation decreased by 6 percent (awww…) for 2022, according to a recent securities filing from the Charlotte-based bank. The bank's board approved $30 million in total compensation for Moynihan last year, compared to $32 million in 2021. Quarter 1, 2023 earnings: $3.1 billion.

 

Capital One

            In 2022, CEO Richard Fairbank was paid $26.1 million in total compensation, and the company reported $960 million in the first quarter of 2023.

 

 Chase Bank (JPMorgan Chase) Sharon)

            CEO Jamie Dimon (a veteran of Bank of America) was paid $34.5 million in 2022, and in April 2023 JPMorgan reported total revenue of $38.3 billion, a 25 percent increase over year-ago levels.

 

CitiBank (CITIGROUP Inc.) (Lillian)

            Citigroup earned $14.8 billion in net income on revenues of $75.3 billion in 2022. Chief Executive Jane Fraser $24.5 million for 2022, up 9 percent from the prior year.

Comcast/Xfinity

            Comcast's Brian L. Roberts received a compensation package of $32.1 million. For the quarter ending March 31, 2023, Comcast reported earnings of $3.83 billion.

 

Discover (Jake and friends)

            Roger C. Hochschild, CEO, Discover Financial, earned $10.64 million in 2022, while the company raked in $4.4 billion in 2022.

           

 

Spectrum/Charter (Lisa)

            Charter Communications chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge received compensation worth $41.8 million in 2021, up from $38.8 million in 2020 and $8.74 million in 2019. First quarter 2023 revenue for the company was $13.7 billion.

Other members of the scammers’ club include various breeds of “health care” (including Social Security and Medicare), accident coverage and car warranties, pharmaceuticals, credit card paydowns, and solar pitches. Oh, and Camp Lejeune.

With that amount of money at their disposal, they could cough up a million or so and send a posse to Kolkata to infiltrate a couple of call centers… you know, how much would it take to suck all the data out of their computers? Actually, it would be kind of fun if you’re a techie. A company called Triolgy Media has done it.

What makes the whole robocall/telemarketing situation especially smarmy is that they have indeed been successful in scamming people. According to fitsmallbusiness.com, "Around 68.4 million Americans reported losing money from phone scams in 2022, a 3% increase from 2021. It affected one in three Americans, with 20% getting scammed more than once. The average reported loss was $577, a 14.94% increase from the average of $502 in 2021."

Indeed, for all the awareness of the problem and compilation of statistics from an internet search, NOTHING stops them. Links below give an overview of the problem.

15 Robocall Statistics & Trends to be Aware of in 2023 provides some interesting statistics on income lost and who has been targeted

New FTC Data Show Consumers Reported Losing Nearly $8.8Billion to Scams in 2022. While the FTC is maintaining statistics about consumer complaints, I don't see any action besides providing ticket numbers acknowledging complains.

Robocall Response Team: Combating Scam Robocalls & Robotexts. More from the FTC. From where I sit these efforts seem pretty ineffective.

New Report Warns Scam Robocalls Will Continue As Long As Telephone Providers Can Rake in the Profits. Not very optimistic. They'll keep it up because they're making money.