First some facts must be concluded. 1 - Robo-Calls can come from any country through any ultimately untraceable throw away device or even a stolen device. This renders reporting or blocking the originating number or even the caller pointless. 2 – The robo-callers are smart and will adapt their strategy to work around any network blocking or reporting system that you may come up with. 2 - The ultimate goal of any of these callers (robot or live person) is to get you to give them your valid credit card. Yes, they do it for the money. 4 – 99 percent of the robo-calls come from less than 1000 or so vendors. Knowing these three things the solution must A – Be able to be versatile and change as the robo-callers change B – Be able to undeniably track and fine the actual vendor of the goods, cutting off the problem at the root and sending a clear message to any future robo-callers. C – A solution must be able to potentially include unwanted sales calls, junk faxes, and be easy enough for any consumer to use and be cost effective (Don’t create expensive network changes that may rendered obsolete by a smart robo-caller)
The simple yet cost effective solution: 1 - The only network requirement is for the consumer’s land line or mobile to be able to quickly and easily call transfer an in progress call to another centralized location for further processing. Most phone lines already have a call transfer feature, our solution would further simplify this call transfer with a switch hook flash (or press talk in the case of a mobile phone) followed by a series of two specific touch tones set up for the specific purpose of tranferring a robo-call (for example, let’s say star pound). 2 – Once the call is transferred to the centralized location it can be handled in any number of ways. The flexibility of being able to adapt and change how the in progress call is handled is key to keeping the system from becoming obsolete. As the robo-callers change their strategy the centralized location can and must be able to ADAPT to meet the challenge of a smart robo-caller. 3 – The real solution… Follow the money. Initially a call center must be set up to receive these transferred calls from the consumer. Not all transferred calls will need to processed! (remember there are a limited number of robo-violators responsible for most of the calls). The call center will be manned by people TRAINED TO IMPERSONATE A CONSUMER, give the robo-caller a false (but valid) credit card and actually complete a transaction with the vendor. Once the vendor processes the call center’s credit card they can undeniably be traced through their merchant account and fined or charged accordingly.
Other key advantages of this solution. A – Since the calls are transferred to a central location the system can be adapted to process live callers, junk faxes or any other new method a robo-caller can devise. B - Over time as the majority of these robo-callers are fined out of existence the size of the call center can be adjusted down accordingly. C – Fire with fire -The call center can be run by the FTC or sub contracted. And the operation can be financed by the fines they generate, giving the call center incentives to catch the robo-callers. D - Knowing that they may be trapped could be enough of a deterrent to stop robo/junk calls.
E – FTC IMAGE - Every time a consumer transfers a robo-call they will feel at least in part that the FTC is doing something to fight robo calls!
In short this is a simple, flexible, and cost effective solution that can be scaled up or down accordingly
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