Public Service Commission (PSC) member Foster Campbell of Elm Grove has issued a press release announcing he has will ask telephone companies what they are doing to help customers deal with the latest plague: robo calls.
All I can is good for Campbell and good luck tilting at windmills.
Campbell’s intentions are good, but, being the realist that I am, I’m afraid he’s fighting a losing battle.
The damned robo callers have too much technology going for them when they can hijack your personal telephone number to initiate calls so that recipients looking at caller ID understandably but mistakenly assume the call is from someone they know.
I’ve even received calls on my cell phone with the caller ID showing that the call is coming from my own telephone number. At 75 years of age, I was beginning to think I had finally gone over the precipice of Mt. Senility.
It’s a nuisance that I’ve been unable to stop and I’m certain the same applies to all of us. For a while, I tried to have a little fun with them, especially with Heather who keeps calling to offer me a reduced interest rate on my credit card. At the prompt, I would press “1” to talk to a rep. If it was a male, I’d blow a referee’s whistle in his ear. If a female, I’d breathe heavy and ask in a whisper, “What’re you wearing?” But my playful mood soon turned to boredom and then to fury at the incessant flood of calls.
“The new generation of robo-callers is breaking the law by using internet technology to avoid detection,” Campbell said, adding that Louisiana has “a strong ‘Do Not Call’ law,” which he said has been on the book for 20 years. “It prevents law-abiding companies from calling people who don’t want sales calls at home.”
And therein lies the problem. Yes, there are tough laws but these people don’t give a rat’s patootie about the law. “We need help from the telephone industry to defeat these outlaws,” Campbell said.
Again, good luck with that.
Campbell said the PSC will hear from phone companies at its meeting tomorrow (April 26) in Baton Rouge.
At least he is responsive to the concerns of his constituents on this issue. That’s more than can be said about most of our legislators who seem more concerned about combating the governor than looking out for the interest of the citizens of Louisiana.
(I received three robo-calls as I wrote this relatively short post.)
Louisiana Voice 
Good piece and I am glad Campbell is an iconoclast. When I was defrauded by a telephone company and appealed all the way to the president of that company to no avail some 6 years ago, I contacted the Louisiana PSC and was told it had no regulatory authority over this company (the largest telecommunications company in the U. S. of which I am aware). If that is still true, Campbell is indeed tilting at windmills, but I applaud him for it. Somebody has to do something.
P. S. I also contacted the FCC and was told they pretty much don’t regulate anything anymore. Thanks to W and the fact his immediate successors did nothing to improve regulation and our current POTUS is trying to reduce regulation even further, we mullets are left to drift.
The FCC is doing all they can and have shut down and fined several companies. As we know, many calls come from other countries where no one cares about US Law.
For those with VOIP phone service I recommend nomorobo.com which is free for internet calls, but a small charge for cell blocking. My phone also provides a Call Block button. Only a couple of calls get through during the week and I watch the silent blocking of other attempts.
I have a goal to play with the scammers’ minds and hopefully, after destroying any self-confidence, convince them to change occupations after my abuse.
When I decide to answer a call I immediately press 1 to connect to a person. Don’t need to listen to the spiel. First I will engage with the caller as I fill my lungs with air. Then I loudly scream 15 seconds of horrible expletives and suggestions; some that I never used in my 30-year Navy submarine career. My wife can hear me on the other side of our home; probably next door neighbor too.
The most fun was a free cruise scammer who happened to be female. She talked and I listened for a while. I then asked if she would be on the cruise with us and continued the conversation after she said no. I calmly told her that it was sad we would have to decline because we absolutely needed to have her or a colleague for a threesome during the cruise and how much my wife loved other women. The line went silent for a few seconds and she was choking in disbelief. She didn’t talk or hang up for 10 seconds.
The truth is that our country could obliterate this annoyance in a couple of months at most. All we need is for the NSA to team with the FCC and problem will be solved.
I rarely give out my cell phone number which keeps nuisance calls to a minimum plus I can block any unwanted calls. However, I have a home phone in Lafayette with Cox and cannot block unwanted calls because THEY HAVE NOT UPGRADED THEIR TECHNOLOGY TO ENABLE THIS FEATURE! Other cities and states have it, but oh no, not in Lafayette.