We can easily stop Robocalls, but too many make too much dough from the status quo

You’re on top of a 24-foot ladder and the phone rings. Balancing the open can of paint, filled to the brim, you race down rungs as your landline rings.

Oops! You stumble, tilting the paint onto pants and shoes, as you rush to the phone.

This is Rachel from cardholder services…

You scream and curse the phone, but nobody can hear you and nobody cares.

This is American crony capitalism at its nadir – anything for a buck.

Robocalls are big business for phone companies. We’ll never know just how many billions change hands between these robo corporations and the big carriers like Verizon and AT&T, just as we’ll never learn what Amazon pays USPS to ship Prime.

One thing is certain. The phone companies can stop the robots tomorrow by refusing them access.

That won’t happen because both Dems and Gops refuse to regulate “private enterprise”, claiming it interferes with the so-called free market.

Congress and the White House do pay lip service to the public sometimes, and the latest robocall-control farce is a set of industry rules known as STIR/SHAKEN – also know as two zeros and a lucky seven.

In announcing this initiative the FCC said the technology verifies that the original number is what shows up for the consumer, but scammers can falsify the number from the get-go.

And by the way, the system does not work on landlines.

An AT&T spokesperson said the company labels 1 billion robocalls a month. T-Mobile verifies more than 300 million calls every weekday, a spokesperson said.

The companies behind our phone torture are easy to identify if we limit our gaze to all robocalls and stop pretending the practice has legitimate purposes.

The simple solution is for the phone companies to charge for every robo call A nickel surcharge on automatic dialing will work, when you consider that every million calls will cost the perpetrator $50,000.

The phone companies have the ability to charge you by the minute for international and other calls, so hitting the robo gangs should be simple. After all, if they can monitor your calls for the FBI or NSA to review, the technology is here.

Suppose the calls are legitimate? No charge if you push the pound key when the caller identifies themself.

It’s time to stop invasion of privacy.

By the way – does anyone know a good way to get latex paint off a pair of shoes?

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