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FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a pr

FFS USA, not every problem is a problem to solve by "the free market". You can see the America-Is-Great Mindset in a lot of these comments: Even the US has a problem with robocalls, so that must mean it's an unsolved problem obviously. So we have to solve it with our superior technology!! Just no. Almost nobody else in the western world has this problem. How? Regulation. In Germany, if you get reported for unsolicited calling, the Bundesnetzagentur will come to you and give you a very hefty fine, per violation. Problem solved. I remember exactly four unsolicited calls in my life, two of them on a number which was published in a phone book for 15 years. Spam calling is not something were there is net value created for society so we need an elaborated discussion of what is ok and what is not (like e.g. paid universities). It just sucks. Make it illegal, and then actually enforce that. The idea of creating a million dollar industry to create a telemarket arms race is...not good.

cameldrv 7y ago
I don't know why people don't get spam calls in Germany, but it's not because of regulation. The U.S. has similiar regulation, and in fact individual consumers can sue telemarketers for $500-$1000 per call. The problem is that the callers disguise their identity and in most cases are overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
- perlgeek 7y ago
  > The problem is that the callers disguise their identity and in most cases are overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The problem is that the US telco providers let them disguise their identity. In Germany, there are anonymous calls, and calls where you see the caller's numbers. I've never once been called by a spoofed number. So, it's possible to prevent that, given the political will, and the necessary investments in infrastructure.
  - cryptozeus 7y ago
    I get the same caller id now for spam calls through at&t in usa.
  - mercora 7y ago
    I live in Germany and got multiple spam calls in a relatively small time frame (days) from spoofed numbers. I am pretty sure this is not allowed and might be fined too if caught. But i also know for sure there is not much telcos do against this if you are already in a position to route calls, probably for technical reasons. That said this was the only occasion i got those calls that i can sharply remember and it happened some years ago already.
  - caymanjim 7y ago
    The telcos are working on solving the problem. The FCC recently changed a rule[1] that was, in part, preventing them from acting. The telcos are also working out the technology that will allow them to block them at the source, and all the major ones are planning to roll it out soon. It's not as if they've been intentionally negligent here. [1]: https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2019/05/15/blocking-and-tackling-robocalls https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2019/05/15/blocking-and...
    - rwha 7y ago
      The telcos are part of the problem. I work for a company that deals with incoming robocalls -- thousands a day. I have a very long email conversation in my inbox between us (company) and Verizon. The general theme in this conversation thread is COMPANY: we're getting thousands of these robocalls into our various numbers, will you please help to stop it? VERIZON: We don't see a problem, everything is fine. Your bill will be there soon. COMPANY: attached is a log showing 4,000 calls in the last two hours sent through your network and terminating at our location. Will you please help to stop it? VERIZON: we have investigated the provided calls and we see nothing showing these calls originated from us. Please contact the upstream telco and ask them. Your bill should have arrived by now, pay it. COMPANY: but Verizon does not provide us with information on the upstream telcos, we need your assistance in stopping the robocallers. This bill is considerably larger than usual because of all these robocalls. Will you please help up stop them? VERIZON: we recommend your legal team contact our legal team if you feel we are actually allowing robocalls to pass through our network to yours. Pay your bill immediately.
  - germanier 7y ago
    My German VoIP account allows me to specify any caller ID that I like. That includes numbers that I don't own.
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    lmao The issue is that the callers speak English, not German. If you go to Nordic countries where everyone speaks English you get similar calls as in the US. You can spoof numbers anywhere.
    - kristiandupont 7y ago
      I live in Denmark and I don't get calls like that.
      - ryanlol 7y ago
        Ok? I’m not saying it’s constant, but you do see it sometimes when the scammers try out new regions. Stuff like this, which is the very typical US scam https://www.thelocal.se/20140505/swedes-targeted-in-new-microsoft-phone-scam https://www.thelocal.se/20140505/swedes-targeted-in-new-micr... European countries in general just aren’t very attractive to these scams, conversion rates are far lower than in English-speaking countries. E: Another Danish commenter reports the same calls https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20837015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20837015
        jbergens 7y ago
        > European countries in general just aren’t very attractive to these scams, conversion rates are far lower than in English-speaking countries. You mean we are not as easily fooled? I like this explanation.
        ryanlol 7y ago
        That’s possible too. But I specifically mean that we’re not as easily fooled by Indian call center staff.
  - MrGilbert 7y ago
    Recently, there as been a lot of calls where older people got called by a fake police detective. The display reads "110" (which is the emergency number for the police in germany). So, if there are countermeasures, they are not effective. Source: German Press release PD Westerstede early this year: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4174253 https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4174253 Follow-Up a few months later, warning that it's still an issue: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4358872 https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4358872
    - astura 7y ago
      Can you explain the "fake detective scam?" How do they profit from convincing the older person they are a detective?
      - ddspider 7y ago
        You can watch Kitboga on YouTube. He calls these centers and walks through the whole scam. Basically they use fear of an arrest to get the target to buy gift cards. It sounds dumb but it works on vulnerable members of society.
      - MrGilbert 7y ago
        Well, normally they use the call to get to know if the older people have something of value in their house. They usually tell stories that there has been a heap of crimes lately in the area, and that they'd like to help the people to secure valuable stuff. If they have, they'll show up after some time, and collect it, to store it safe in the "police department" (which they don't, of cours). Or they'll show up as two, and one will pretend to do some questioning, while the second walks around the house and searches the rooms to find something of value. That's at least how's written in the newspapers. So yes, it's a scam that is far more targeted, and not that easy to do - because you have to be physically in the area. Or you need straw men.
- duiker101 7y ago
  Could it be that it's because the calls would need to come from outside the country(probably outside the EU) and there is disproportionately more English speaking people outside Germany? It's a problem similar to why there are more viruses for Windows, well, it's why there's more Windows machines in the world.
- dewey 7y ago
  How is it not because of regulation? Robocalls are illegal in Germany and there are very high fines. That seems exactly what regulation is supposed to do and I never got a single random robocall. I got a few calls from my ISP for marketing reasons but after telling them not to call me they added me to the list and I haven't heard from them since. I probably allowed to call me when I signed up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765079
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    It’s about the language barrier. It’s just not worth the trouble for foreign criminals to develop German language capabilities. German regulation does exactly nothing to prevent foreign criminals from spamming Germans with robocalls from foreign numbers, Germans just aren’t an attractive target.
- de_watcher 7y ago
  > overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Is it a real thing?
nemesisj 7y ago
I have lived in the U.K. for more than 8 years. I receive spam calls daily from a combination of London and blocked numbers. Everyone I know here also receives them frequently. I’m on the U.K. do not call list. It’s endless PPI, “your recent accident”, and just normal phishing attempts. When I’m in the Middle East it’s endless spam texts. I guess Germany has it figured out but by no means is this an American only problem, or a solved problem in the Western world.
- fasicle 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, I've lived in the U.K. most of my life and very rarely get spam calls (maybe ~5 a year). When I do it's almost always people trying to sell stuff / services to my startup.
- andyhmltn 7y ago
  Do you own domain names? I began getting this after I was silly enough to leave my mobile number on a WHOIS register. Most of the calls I receive though aren't from legitimate companies and if you call back the number, it'll fail
- stedaniels 7y ago
  I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.
  - signal11 7y ago
    A fair number of them are foreign companies, but the “our records show you were in an accident” calls are very much from the UK. The foreign companies are basically criminal operations and countries like the US have taken action against them in the past by working with local law enforcement[1]. [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/more-120-people-arrested-india-busts-fake-call-centre-duping https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/mo...
  - dazc 7y ago
spanxx 7y ago
In Spain is also solved. You register in a free and public service called "Lista Robinson" (Robinson List) and from that time you won't receive commercial phone calls.
LeonM 7y ago
Good to see this comment. As a European citizen I never understood what this whole robocalling thing was about. In the Netherlands, there is the 'bel me niet' (don't call me) register. If you have your number put on the list, marketeers are not allowed to call you. If they do, they risk a hefty fine.
- whazor 7y ago
  As a Dutch citizen I regularly get spam calls, especially from foreign companies buying Ditch numbers.
- jbj 7y ago
  Not sure if I can agree totally, I get less spam calls on my danish phone number than on my US phone, however I do get missed calls every now and then followed by a call from a "Microsoft Tech Support" which are an awful similar in style to those reported on in the podcast "Reply All"[1] I suspect those are number spoofing as they rarely get the length of the local phone numbers correct. In case of calls originating from another country will laws and regulation actually be able to do anything here? [1] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk/102-long-distance https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk/102-long-dist...
- JCharante 7y ago
  In the US we also have a do not call register, however, the register serves as a great list of phone numbers that robocallers can target.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  Feels good to read and hence gets upvoted, but it's just not true. US has dished out far more severe punishments for this stuff than the Bundesnetzagentur could https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multimillion-dollar-india-based-call-center-scam-targeting-us-victims https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multi... This is not about regulations, lots of these robocallers are straight up criminal operations who will not be swayed by fines. If Germany has implemented some technical measures against robocalling I'd absolutely love to hear about them! I seriously doubt they have though.
benplumley 7y ago
I'm in the UK, and I used to receive 2-3 spam calls per year. About five years ago, something changed (not my phone number) and I haven't had a single spam call since.
ryanlol 7y ago
Get off your high horse, you clearly don’t understand what’s going on here. No country in the world has solved this problem, it simply doesn’t exist in some. Fines do nothing to discourage this behaviour by criminals, the fact that Germans speak German has everything to do with the lack of English robocalls.
- richardwhiuk 7y ago
  If it doesn't exist, doesn't that suggest it's solved? I get no spam calls on my UK number, which is in English.
mieseratte 7y ago
Germany stills has robocall issues, this is nothing more than wishful thinking and a nice dose of European exceptionalism mindset.
- FDSGSG 7y ago
  Crazy how this gets downvoted. European exceptionalism is exactly what this is. No-one here has identified any specific effective methods through which Germany or any other European country combats these calls, it's because they can't. Fines only keep local businesses from doing this, but the people making these calls to the US are criminal gangs based out of India.
ancarda 7y ago
>if you get reported for unsolicited calling How does that work if someone spoofs the caller ID? I'm in the UK and I get multiple spam/junk/scam calls a day. What I've noticed is if I try to call back, I'll just get an error tone because the number doesn't exist. I really don't get the negativity, I'd love to have some system like Verified by Twilio!
basq 7y ago
Many Americans are allergic to the idea of the government doing anything but managing national defense.
- kilroy123 7y ago
  And yet, people blindly follow their GPS on their phones all day, all managed and run by the US government.
  - dorgo 7y ago
    >GPS,[1] is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force .. so it's national defence...
  - astura 7y ago
    Believe it or not GPS is part of national defense. They just also allow civilians to use it too.
- sailfast 7y ago
  Americans have a do not call list. People are prosecuted for abusing it. Yet we still get Spam calls. This has nothing to do with lack of regulation, but by ease of abuse and difficulty in preventing these calls without impacting legitimate uses. Like, say, creating Twilio which uses a bunch of random numbers?
astura 7y ago
The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  My bet is simply that you go where the money is[0]. [0]https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than_europe.asp https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than...
  - apexalpha 7y ago
    That's a big difference. It says the bottom 20% of Americans consume as much as the average person in my country. Although this is in 2010, during the crisis, it would suggest a big difference in what I thought the outcome of such a study would be. This doesn't include savings, it seems. Which are mandatory here.
  - bildung 7y ago
    Note I don't disagree, but that source was on hn a few days ago and is a pretty poor propaganda site. The article: * redefines poverty multiple times and then comes to the surprising conclusion that the results differ from the NY Times article * uses consumption in USD as a measure, which is highly problematic, because a) different countries have different purchasing power, which is is the reason almost noone in poverty research compares international poverty using gross consumption b) consumption heavily reflects economic inefficency (e.g. health care costs: If a say Danish poor gets her broken arm fixed for free, she would consume 0$ according to this figure, while achieving the same quality of life out of it) The usual threshold for poverty (for good reasons) is 50 or 60% of the median income in a country. Which the NY Times article used.
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      >The usual threshold for poverty (for good reasons) is 50 or 60% of the median income in a country. If you think half to 40% of people in the Congo are not in poverty you are delusional
aivisol 7y ago
European here, too, lived in several EU countries, received very few robocalls in my life. Do not think this is due to regulation. Exactly, caller IDs can be spoofed, and who gets the fine then? Should be something else: the way how we are used to purchase services, goods, etc... Or the markets here are too small compared to US that blanket dialing does not justify call termination fees... But not 100% sure.
- taffer 7y ago
  I am from Europe and and I remember that robocalls were a problem in the past. Until like 10 years ago I received multiple spam calls per week, but then it suddently ended. Now I cannot even remember when I got the last spam call, but it has to be years ago. So I don't think it must have been a language barrier or a market size thing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
nprateem 7y ago
The problem is also very easily solved by not answering numbers you don't recognise. If they don't leave a message it can't have been important.
- dorgo 7y ago
  I did that and they kept calling me twice a day from different numbers for months (without leaving a message). Solution was to buy an app for 2€ and block the whole range (Vorwahl). Android should be able to block ranges of phone numbers but I didn't figure out how. Germany this year.
tyingq 7y ago
One explanation is that a lot of the scams are for things that wouldn't work in Germany. Like health insurance, extended car warranties, etc. For those sorts of things, lots of commission based referalls are available to the call centers for the US. They just have to send leads or sales, and get money in return. Also, they are often manned by call centers in places like India where English speakers are easy to find, German less so.
b7bVS6wu 7y ago
Surely it's better to solve a problem through peaceful and voluntary innovation then through coercive regulation.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lonelappde 7y ago
If Europe would enforce its regulations against robocalls to the US, that would help. Thanks.
thieving_magpie 7y ago
Thanks for the lecture but we do have regulations regarding phone calls. The laws are just being broken by citizens outside of the United States. This isn't uncommon in countries where English is the most widely spoken language.
aphextron 7y ago
>Spam calling is not something were there is net value created for society so we need an elaborated discussion of what is ok and what is not (like e.g. paid universities). Stanford is a "paid university". Harvard is too. Are you saying these institutions are a net negative to society? With free market capitalism you get the good and the bad, just like every other system in the world. The difference is you're given a choice.
dang 7y ago
Would you please not post nationalistic flamebait to HN? It's against the guidelines and we don't want it here, regardless of which nation you have an issue with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lxgr 7y ago
Germany has "CPP" (calling party pays) billing, compared to RPP (receiving party pays) in the US. Effectively, a call to a mobile phone costs at least about 0.01 EUR per minute. This puts a lower bound on the cost per robocall. I wonder how much of the difference in the number of robocalls simply comes down to economics rather than to efficiency of regulators and legal frameworks.

cameldrv 7y ago

I don't know why people don't get spam calls in Germany, but it's not because of regulation. The U.S. has similiar regulation, and in fact individual consumers can sue telemarketers for $500-$1000 per call. The problem is that the callers disguise their identity and in most cases are overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

perlgeek 7y ago
> The problem is that the callers disguise their identity and in most cases are overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The problem is that the US telco providers let them disguise their identity. In Germany, there are anonymous calls, and calls where you see the caller's numbers. I've never once been called by a spoofed number. So, it's possible to prevent that, given the political will, and the necessary investments in infrastructure.
- cryptozeus 7y ago
  I get the same caller id now for spam calls through at&t in usa.
- mercora 7y ago
  I live in Germany and got multiple spam calls in a relatively small time frame (days) from spoofed numbers. I am pretty sure this is not allowed and might be fined too if caught. But i also know for sure there is not much telcos do against this if you are already in a position to route calls, probably for technical reasons. That said this was the only occasion i got those calls that i can sharply remember and it happened some years ago already.
- caymanjim 7y ago
  The telcos are working on solving the problem. The FCC recently changed a rule[1] that was, in part, preventing them from acting. The telcos are also working out the technology that will allow them to block them at the source, and all the major ones are planning to roll it out soon. It's not as if they've been intentionally negligent here. [1]: https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2019/05/15/blocking-and-tackling-robocalls https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2019/05/15/blocking-and...
  - rwha 7y ago
    The telcos are part of the problem. I work for a company that deals with incoming robocalls -- thousands a day. I have a very long email conversation in my inbox between us (company) and Verizon. The general theme in this conversation thread is COMPANY: we're getting thousands of these robocalls into our various numbers, will you please help to stop it? VERIZON: We don't see a problem, everything is fine. Your bill will be there soon. COMPANY: attached is a log showing 4,000 calls in the last two hours sent through your network and terminating at our location. Will you please help to stop it? VERIZON: we have investigated the provided calls and we see nothing showing these calls originated from us. Please contact the upstream telco and ask them. Your bill should have arrived by now, pay it. COMPANY: but Verizon does not provide us with information on the upstream telcos, we need your assistance in stopping the robocallers. This bill is considerably larger than usual because of all these robocalls. Will you please help up stop them? VERIZON: we recommend your legal team contact our legal team if you feel we are actually allowing robocalls to pass through our network to yours. Pay your bill immediately.
- germanier 7y ago
  My German VoIP account allows me to specify any caller ID that I like. That includes numbers that I don't own.
- ryanlol 7y ago
  lmao The issue is that the callers speak English, not German. If you go to Nordic countries where everyone speaks English you get similar calls as in the US. You can spoof numbers anywhere.
  - kristiandupont 7y ago
    I live in Denmark and I don't get calls like that.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      Ok? I’m not saying it’s constant, but you do see it sometimes when the scammers try out new regions. Stuff like this, which is the very typical US scam https://www.thelocal.se/20140505/swedes-targeted-in-new-microsoft-phone-scam https://www.thelocal.se/20140505/swedes-targeted-in-new-micr... European countries in general just aren’t very attractive to these scams, conversion rates are far lower than in English-speaking countries. E: Another Danish commenter reports the same calls https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20837015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20837015
      - jbergens 7y ago
        > European countries in general just aren’t very attractive to these scams, conversion rates are far lower than in English-speaking countries. You mean we are not as easily fooled? I like this explanation.
        ryanlol 7y ago
        That’s possible too. But I specifically mean that we’re not as easily fooled by Indian call center staff.
- MrGilbert 7y ago
  Recently, there as been a lot of calls where older people got called by a fake police detective. The display reads "110" (which is the emergency number for the police in germany). So, if there are countermeasures, they are not effective. Source: German Press release PD Westerstede early this year: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4174253 https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4174253 Follow-Up a few months later, warning that it's still an issue: https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4358872 https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/pm/68440/4358872
  - astura 7y ago
    Can you explain the "fake detective scam?" How do they profit from convincing the older person they are a detective?
    - ddspider 7y ago
      You can watch Kitboga on YouTube. He calls these centers and walks through the whole scam. Basically they use fear of an arrest to get the target to buy gift cards. It sounds dumb but it works on vulnerable members of society.
    - MrGilbert 7y ago
      Well, normally they use the call to get to know if the older people have something of value in their house. They usually tell stories that there has been a heap of crimes lately in the area, and that they'd like to help the people to secure valuable stuff. If they have, they'll show up after some time, and collect it, to store it safe in the "police department" (which they don't, of cours). Or they'll show up as two, and one will pretend to do some questioning, while the second walks around the house and searches the rooms to find something of value. That's at least how's written in the newspapers. So yes, it's a scam that is far more targeted, and not that easy to do - because you have to be physically in the area. Or you need straw men.
duiker101 7y ago
Could it be that it's because the calls would need to come from outside the country(probably outside the EU) and there is disproportionately more English speaking people outside Germany? It's a problem similar to why there are more viruses for Windows, well, it's why there's more Windows machines in the world.
dewey 7y ago
How is it not because of regulation? Robocalls are illegal in Germany and there are very high fines. That seems exactly what regulation is supposed to do and I never got a single random robocall. I got a few calls from my ISP for marketing reasons but after telling them not to call me they added me to the list and I haven't heard from them since. I probably allowed to call me when I signed up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765079
- ryanlol 7y ago
  It’s about the language barrier. It’s just not worth the trouble for foreign criminals to develop German language capabilities. German regulation does exactly nothing to prevent foreign criminals from spamming Germans with robocalls from foreign numbers, Germans just aren’t an attractive target.
de_watcher 7y ago
> overseas beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Is it a real thing?

nemesisj 7y ago

I have lived in the U.K. for more than 8 years. I receive spam calls daily from a combination of London and blocked numbers. Everyone I know here also receives them frequently. I’m on the U.K. do not call list. It’s endless PPI, “your recent accident”, and just normal phishing attempts. When I’m in the Middle East it’s endless spam texts. I guess Germany has it figured out but by no means is this an American only problem, or a solved problem in the Western world.

fasicle 7y ago
As a counterpoint, I've lived in the U.K. most of my life and very rarely get spam calls (maybe ~5 a year). When I do it's almost always people trying to sell stuff / services to my startup.
andyhmltn 7y ago
Do you own domain names? I began getting this after I was silly enough to leave my mobile number on a WHOIS register. Most of the calls I receive though aren't from legitimate companies and if you call back the number, it'll fail
stedaniels 7y ago
I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.
- signal11 7y ago
  A fair number of them are foreign companies, but the “our records show you were in an accident” calls are very much from the UK. The foreign companies are basically criminal operations and countries like the US have taken action against them in the past by working with local law enforcement[1]. [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/more-120-people-arrested-india-busts-fake-call-centre-duping https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/mo...
- dazc 7y ago

spanxx 7y ago

In Spain is also solved. You register in a free and public service called "Lista Robinson" (Robinson List) and from that time you won't receive commercial phone calls.

LeonM 7y ago

Good to see this comment. As a European citizen I never understood what this whole robocalling thing was about. In the Netherlands, there is the 'bel me niet' (don't call me) register. If you have your number put on the list, marketeers are not allowed to call you. If they do, they risk a hefty fine.

whazor 7y ago
As a Dutch citizen I regularly get spam calls, especially from foreign companies buying Ditch numbers.
jbj 7y ago
Not sure if I can agree totally, I get less spam calls on my danish phone number than on my US phone, however I do get missed calls every now and then followed by a call from a "Microsoft Tech Support" which are an awful similar in style to those reported on in the podcast "Reply All"[1] I suspect those are number spoofing as they rarely get the length of the local phone numbers correct. In case of calls originating from another country will laws and regulation actually be able to do anything here? [1] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk/102-long-distance https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk/102-long-dist...
JCharante 7y ago
In the US we also have a do not call register, however, the register serves as a great list of phone numbers that robocallers can target.
FDSGSG 7y ago
Feels good to read and hence gets upvoted, but it's just not true. US has dished out far more severe punishments for this stuff than the Bundesnetzagentur could https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multimillion-dollar-india-based-call-center-scam-targeting-us-victims https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multi... This is not about regulations, lots of these robocallers are straight up criminal operations who will not be swayed by fines. If Germany has implemented some technical measures against robocalling I'd absolutely love to hear about them! I seriously doubt they have though.

benplumley 7y ago

I'm in the UK, and I used to receive 2-3 spam calls per year. About five years ago, something changed (not my phone number) and I haven't had a single spam call since.

ryanlol 7y ago

Get off your high horse, you clearly don’t understand what’s going on here. No country in the world has solved this problem, it simply doesn’t exist in some. Fines do nothing to discourage this behaviour by criminals, the fact that Germans speak German has everything to do with the lack of English robocalls.

richardwhiuk 7y ago
If it doesn't exist, doesn't that suggest it's solved? I get no spam calls on my UK number, which is in English.

mieseratte 7y ago

Germany stills has robocall issues, this is nothing more than wishful thinking and a nice dose of European exceptionalism mindset.

FDSGSG 7y ago
Crazy how this gets downvoted. European exceptionalism is exactly what this is. No-one here has identified any specific effective methods through which Germany or any other European country combats these calls, it's because they can't. Fines only keep local businesses from doing this, but the people making these calls to the US are criminal gangs based out of India.

ancarda 7y ago

>if you get reported for unsolicited calling How does that work if someone spoofs the caller ID? I'm in the UK and I get multiple spam/junk/scam calls a day. What I've noticed is if I try to call back, I'll just get an error tone because the number doesn't exist. I really don't get the negativity, I'd love to have some system like Verified by Twilio!

basq 7y ago

Many Americans are allergic to the idea of the government doing anything but managing national defense.

kilroy123 7y ago
And yet, people blindly follow their GPS on their phones all day, all managed and run by the US government.
- dorgo 7y ago
  >GPS,[1] is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force .. so it's national defence...
- astura 7y ago
  Believe it or not GPS is part of national defense. They just also allow civilians to use it too.
sailfast 7y ago
Americans have a do not call list. People are prosecuted for abusing it. Yet we still get Spam calls. This has nothing to do with lack of regulation, but by ease of abuse and difficulty in preventing these calls without impacting legitimate uses. Like, say, creating Twilio which uses a bunch of random numbers?

astura 7y ago

The USA too has regulations and levies fines, however, the robcallers and scammers are almost always overseas criminal operations. I suspect the US is much more of a target because there's many, many more overseas criminals that speak English than German.

fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
My bet is simply that you go where the money is[0]. [0]https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than_europe.asp https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than...
- apexalpha 7y ago
  That's a big difference. It says the bottom 20% of Americans consume as much as the average person in my country. Although this is in 2010, during the crisis, it would suggest a big difference in what I thought the outcome of such a study would be. This doesn't include savings, it seems. Which are mandatory here.
- bildung 7y ago
  Note I don't disagree, but that source was on hn a few days ago and is a pretty poor propaganda site. The article: * redefines poverty multiple times and then comes to the surprising conclusion that the results differ from the NY Times article * uses consumption in USD as a measure, which is highly problematic, because a) different countries have different purchasing power, which is is the reason almost noone in poverty research compares international poverty using gross consumption b) consumption heavily reflects economic inefficency (e.g. health care costs: If a say Danish poor gets her broken arm fixed for free, she would consume 0$ according to this figure, while achieving the same quality of life out of it) The usual threshold for poverty (for good reasons) is 50 or 60% of the median income in a country. Which the NY Times article used.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    >The usual threshold for poverty (for good reasons) is 50 or 60% of the median income in a country. If you think half to 40% of people in the Congo are not in poverty you are delusional

aivisol 7y ago

European here, too, lived in several EU countries, received very few robocalls in my life. Do not think this is due to regulation. Exactly, caller IDs can be spoofed, and who gets the fine then? Should be something else: the way how we are used to purchase services, goods, etc... Or the markets here are too small compared to US that blanket dialing does not justify call termination fees... But not 100% sure.

taffer 7y ago
I am from Europe and and I remember that robocalls were a problem in the past. Until like 10 years ago I received multiple spam calls per week, but then it suddently ended. Now I cannot even remember when I got the last spam call, but it has to be years ago. So I don't think it must have been a language barrier or a market size thing.
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nprateem 7y ago

The problem is also very easily solved by not answering numbers you don't recognise. If they don't leave a message it can't have been important.

dorgo 7y ago
I did that and they kept calling me twice a day from different numbers for months (without leaving a message). Solution was to buy an app for 2€ and block the whole range (Vorwahl). Android should be able to block ranges of phone numbers but I didn't figure out how. Germany this year.

tyingq 7y ago

One explanation is that a lot of the scams are for things that wouldn't work in Germany. Like health insurance, extended car warranties, etc. For those sorts of things, lots of commission based referalls are available to the call centers for the US. They just have to send leads or sales, and get money in return. Also, they are often manned by call centers in places like India where English speakers are easy to find, German less so.

b7bVS6wu 7y ago

Surely it's better to solve a problem through peaceful and voluntary innovation then through coercive regulation.

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lonelappde 7y ago

If Europe would enforce its regulations against robocalls to the US, that would help. Thanks.

thieving_magpie 7y ago

Thanks for the lecture but we do have regulations regarding phone calls. The laws are just being broken by citizens outside of the United States. This isn't uncommon in countries where English is the most widely spoken language.

aphextron 7y ago

>Spam calling is not something were there is net value created for society so we need an elaborated discussion of what is ok and what is not (like e.g. paid universities). Stanford is a "paid university". Harvard is too. Are you saying these institutions are a net negative to society? With free market capitalism you get the good and the bad, just like every other system in the world. The difference is you're given a choice.

dang 7y ago

Would you please not post nationalistic flamebait to HN? It's against the guidelines and we don't want it here, regardless of which nation you have an issue with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lxgr 7y ago

Germany has "CPP" (calling party pays) billing, compared to RPP (receiving party pays) in the US. Effectively, a call to a mobile phone costs at least about 0.01 EUR per minute. This puts a lower bound on the cost per robocall. I wonder how much of the difference in the number of robocalls simply comes down to economics rather than to efficiency of regulators and legal frameworks.