FTC Pushes for Robocall Crackdown
By: NBC News
Updated: March 22, 2013
They're considered the most annoying of telemarketing calls: The pre-recorded robocall.
The calls are made even to those who have all their numbers on the government's Do-Not-Call Registry.
Now the Federal Trade Commission has proposed multi-million dollar fines against two telemarketers in New Mexico And Colorado for making robocalls to cellphones.
"Those can only be made if you've given the company written permission before hand, to make those calls to you for sales purposes," explains Susan Grant of the Consumer Federation of America.
Grant says not knowing what to do about robocalls is just one of the findings in a survey the federation did about telemarketing.
"We found that people don't know their rights. And that's a problem, because knowing your rights can help you detect fraud," she says.
Fraud that will fester, she says, if people don't file formal complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, or at the very least hang up when a telemarketer calls.
In October the FTC held a robocall summit and announced it would award $50,000 to whoever can devise a way to stop robocalls on both landlines and cellphones.
The winner will be announced April 15th.
