Author Topic: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.  (Read 1677 times)

rcjordan

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FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« on: May 13, 2024, 10:25:23 PM »
https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2024/01/breaking-down-the-new-fcc-lead-generation-rules

Breaking Down The New FCC Lead Generation Rules | Insights & Events | Bradley

ergophobe

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Re: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2024, 12:50:14 AM »
Has the Do Not Call list actually cut down on calls?

I suppose it has cut down on calls from legit businesses, just not from all the scammers, which is useful - you can basically know a robocall is a scammer

Brad

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Re: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2024, 08:37:38 AM »
Has the Do Not Call list actually cut down on calls?

I suppose it has cut down on calls from legit businesses, just not from all the scammers, which is useful - you can basically know a robocall is a scammer

I think you nailed it.  Do Not Call list cut down on sales calls from legit businesses for me when it was first enacted, but as robo calling tech has gotten cheaper and more capable the scammers and robo scam calls have increased over the past few years. Heck, sometimes I think the scammers purposely call the numbers on the Do Not Call list.  There is very little downside for them, the Feds don't care and most US states just don't have the ability to enforce.

ergophobe

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Re: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2024, 06:10:07 PM »
Semi-related rant...

<rant style="angry, tired">
Meanwhile, Google called at 5:30am today after I had finally gotten to sleep after an unusually restless night.

My wife still consults on Google Ads for a few small clients. She used to have an account with a couple hundred thousand a month in spend, and even there the Google reps are usually really bad, but sometimes you would get someone with actual knowledge.

Now she's just doing some small accounts and you get the bottom of the barrel reps in a rotating circle who move up the food chain as soon as they are able. They seem to be under pressure to call every account monthly with utterly useless advice (usually trying to get you to turn on some new automation and, of course, to increase your spend).

She keeps telling them not to call, but they keep calling and they do so at ALL hours - 5:30am, 11:00pm. If she succeeds in getting them to stop, it starts back up as soon as the account gets passed to the next person.

Google knows what I had for breakfast, my secret desires and the chemical composition of my farts, but they do not seem to know that I live in California and do not want calls at 5:30am or 11:30pm.

It is so bad that when the phone rang at 5:30am today. I knew it was Google. I'm not sure exactly why, but it is a measure of how much you are annoying people if you call at 5:30am and their first guess is that it is you.

Me: "Is this fuc... Is this Google?" I bit my tongue on the 10% chance it was not Google. It was.

Once again, and the nth time, I told him, "Never call this number again. Never."

Usually lasts about a month until they roll one of the accounts over the newest junior employee to cut their teeth on customers that don't matter.

It used to be that we constantly got calls from scammers representing themselves as Google and offering ad management services. Those have dropped to zero. I haven't gotten one in a few years. But actual annoying spam calls from Google are constant.

At least the scammers of old had the decency to call when I was awake. Not so with actual Google. I hate them.

And no, this isn't because the client address is in another time zone. These are all California businesses with no presence elsewhere.

</rant>

[BTW, because of some family medical stuff going on in another time zone, I don't want to just ignore calls at 5:30am, because some of them are from good, busy people trying to help out as soon as they can, and I don't want to miss those]

rcjordan

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Re: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2024, 06:45:13 PM »
I was an early-early adopter of Ooma VOIP for the house.  Louise was an early user of Google Voice forwarding to her cell phone for real estate business. Both do some screening. A couple of years after starting with these separate services, Ooma came up with a way to 'white label' your Ooma service with your G Voice number --so the Gvoice number now rings both the house and her phone.  And out-going calls from her cell phone show her GVoice number on the recipient's phone, so they don't add her direct cell number to their contacts.

I think the double-screening must filter out most of them, as we get about 4 or 5 a week.  I also have call logs on the Ooma service and can review and block numbers.

ergophobe

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Re: FCC: BIG changes for US Lead Generation sites.
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2024, 09:47:52 PM »
This is actually a Google Voice number.

One issue is that we gave up two GV numbers that were business numbers. It wasn't worth having them anymore. Those were set to never ring 8pm to 8am.

Unfortunately, Google Voice doesn't have a feature to send all calls to voicemail unless they're in your contacts. What you can do is set calendar settings for most times to be Do Not Disturb and then set a custom forwarding rule to forward calls in your contacts to the phones you want to ring, but I'm not seeming to get that to work.