I’m really excited about a proposal currently in Congress called the “Talk Human or Pay the Price Act” (also known as the Keep Call Centers in America Act). It’s designed to bring transparency and accountability to customer service calls — and it could (in theiry) seriously cut down on shady robocalls and offshore harassment.
Here’s what it would do:
Require companies to tell you at the start of a call if you’re speaking to AI or to someone outside the U.S.
Give you the right to request a U.S.-based human representative
Blacklist companies from federal funding if they outsource call center jobs overseas
Support stronger FTC and FCC enforcement against AI-generated spam calls and voice-cloning scams
This could make a big dent in the robocalls millions of us get from obnoxious foreign call centers — especially the ones that use AI to sound human or that violate TCPA rules by bombarding us with unwanted calls.
I’m seriously pumped about the potential impact this legislation could have, especially for consumers who’ve had enough of call center harassment. I encourage everyone to take a minute and write to your congressperson to let them know you support this great bill. The more voices they hear, the more likely it is to pass and make a real difference.
As always, you’re welcome to share your opinion and feedback!
Yes, AND it would ensure that we have extra hundreds of thousands of jobs for decent hardworking American people vs. some basement-dwelling granny-tranny scammers of Manila and Sanjeevs of Kolkata!
And if there would be provisions to close any loopholes… can you imagine?
For example: Currently an insurance broker can hire a marketing team to increase sales, then the marketing team will seek call centers to run a campaign to make calls in behalf of the broker. Unfortunately, the calls originate from Pakistan, where they use auto-dialers, the Pakistani callers will transfer the call to the US based broker but in the process of doing that, will also steal sensitive personal information and many times scam the victim.
It would be AWESOME to punish the US based client who is abusing the system and taking advantage of the loopholes in place. Marketing companies should also be put thorugh the ringer, since they know FULL what goes on at off-shore call centers.
Yes, indeed! I agree. Currently, we could technically sue in the private court of law, under the vicarious liability concept. However, in practice, it is: A. Extremely difficult to identify the true marketing sales “bros” behind the entire scheme, as shady VOIP carriers and their Paki tools shield them from a consumer B. Many private attorneys shy away from more complex cases like that and are just after the “easy buck”.
Therefore, we need the US Government to step in and bring its full might upon these imbeciles harassing our people with relentless robocalls and robotexts daily.
The US based clients are covered by the TCPA. It takes detective work to bring them to justice but they can be sued or threatened with lawsuits to make them pay up. However, there is nothing to protect against the Indian, Pakistani and Jamaican scammers who are unconcerned about the law. This will do nothing to stop them. Trump needs to threaten them with even higher tariffs to get their goverements to crack down on these scumbags.
I have to disagree with you on this point. According to research done by reputable analysts, such as Eric Priezkalns of Commsrisk, the majority of unwanted robocalls and robotexts are not generated by scammers per se. What I mean is that they are breaking TCPA and harassing the public, yet they are usually selling or reselling a legitimate product, such as health insurance, tax reduction services, car warranty, Medicare supplemental coverage etc. They are not selling premium or most desirable products, but these are usually real products/services, nonetheless. In most instances, they are simply foreign nasty spammers who were subcontracted by US “sales bros” to sell their BS products to the public via shady telemarketing campaigns.
The aforementioned law is designed to curb and potentially stop this behavior. If we make it extremely costly and hard for US sales firms to use foreign call centers, we will stop the influx of the majority of robocalls harassing the public. It will also benefit us to stop financing economies of hostile nations turning a blind eye to illegal behavior and bring the jobs back to the US. I definitely do not wish to support corrupt and horrible governments of India and Pakistan that allow such behaviors.
I agree with you on the scammers part. The fraudsters will not care about this law, but they do not appear to be the majority. Most harassing robocalls come from idiots located in call centers in India, Pakistan and the Philippines established specifically to avoid TCPA.
I think @Sol brought up similar points in the discussion here, as well.
That’s a very well written analysis ST. You’re correct that the Medicare Supplement, Car Warranty and Final Expense plan call centers are eventually being funneled to US companies. In my opinion however, most of these chronic TCPA violators are not going to be deterred by new laws as the current TCPA makes these calls inherently illegal anyway and they’re all aware of the law as is illustrated by many of them requiring expressed consent to transfer to the US contacts (do I have your permission to transfer this call even though your number may be on a Do Not Call list). By consenting to the transfer that doesn’t absolve them of the initial contact but I do think it makes it tougher to litigate. I may be wrong about that however. Hopefully any new legislation does start to curb these. I talk to dozens of these POS every day just to waste their time but at the end of the day, I really have no impact on their operations. Only their governments can do that and we need to put pressure on those governments as much as possible.
Thank you, sir. I am in full agreement with you that putting the pressure on their governments in extremely critical and essential to success. If I may add my two cents, I would venture to say that TCPA must be modified to allow us to hold VOIP carriers accountable. More often than not, I am seeing the same darn VOIP scumbags behind all sorts of nefarious schemes utilized by their foreign clientele. Needless to say, VOIP filth always fights normal people like us trying to expose scams and robocalls citing CPNI.
I’d love to have a provision allowing private parties to sue VOIP carriers for negligence due to turning a blind eye to illegal robocalls. Basically, if a citizen can prove that he or she repeatedly complained about illicit robocalls or texts on VOIP carrier’s network to no avail, they should be allowed to sue them privately and collect damages for all illegal calls placed to their telephone number. Currently, only government entities can do it, and they do not handle it well, at all.
The day when I can sue Freaktel, Onvoy, Peerless and IP Horizon would be the best day of my life, my friend!
Yeah a private right of action against the carriers would be a great solution. Their business is generated primarily through the use of companies using their services as a work around of the TCPA. The TCPA needs to have teeth added to it to deal with the carriers; not just the companies hiring the telemarketers. It would be like going after the drug mules instead of the street corner sellers of drugs.
Nah, gases are too mild for these degenerates. I am talking something more “fun” and “exciting” world governments could unleash on them, if they had the balls to hahaha
I was a member of Doc Compton’s group for a couple of years which got me on the road to going after the telemarketers. For about a year and a half I was settling with them every few months. I even got one final expense broker in Arkansas twice. He was actually a very nice guy but he was ignorant about the TCPA and it cost him $4000. My big catch was Select Quote that I got for $10,000. Bad thing was that I had to claim it as income that year but all in all I settled for $25K. I still get the final expense calls on my regular phone but when I do they eventually see I’m on the Blacklist Alliance and they tell me to get fucked and hang up . But the mission of the whole process is to stop the calls and my telemarketing calls are down 99% so that’s good. My VOIP number gets dozens of calls a day but those aren’t actionable. Sometimes I’ll get through to a US agent and I give them a bunch of shit but that’s about it.
