Where are all these illegal telemarketing calls coming from? And why you should sue them.

Where are all these illegal telemarketing calls coming from

If you are wondering where all these illegal telemarketing calls are coming from physically, most of the dialers sit in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. It is common for one call center to dial the phones. Answered calls to be transferred to a different call center for screening, and a second round of screening to be done at yet a different call center before the call is transferred to an American business.

If you are wondering how they got your phone number at all when you didn't have anything to do with them calling you, there are several possible answers.

Possibility #1. A big budget telemarketer purchased your phone number from a credit bureau. Credit bureaus don't actually make money from screwing up your credit, they make money from selling your information. Looking for a list of people aged 55-60 who golf regularly and use their American Express card? A credit bureau is happy to sell a list of names and telephone numbers fitting that description. It costs the most but allows the telemarketer to have the best targeting.

Possibility #2. A lower budget telemarketer purchased a list from someone else. Happens all the time. Telemarketers selling their calling lists is part of their business model. It is lower quality than lists from the credit bureaus (amazingly, illegal telemarketers rip each other off with bad lists all the time!) but better than randomly calling people.

Possibility #3. An offshore telemarketer is randomly calling phone numbers asking people if they are interested in this or that product. People who say yes are added to a certain list, and possibly transferred right now to a waiting seller.

Possibility #4. Has your information been stolen as part of a website hack? A low budget telemarketer can buy the hacked information to use as their calling list.

Possibility #5. Is your number on the FTC do-not-call list? Some brazen telemarketers use that as their calling list!

Many telemarketers sitting off-shore don't mind calling without consent, but faking consent is a huge business. In 2021 the lead-gen business did $3.1 billion in revenue. In telemarketing lingo, a name and telephone number is a Lead and giving permission to be called is an 'opt in'. A lead with an 'opt in' (real or faked) is worth much more than without.

Faking an opt in is easy. There are hundreds or millions of websites with no real content and no ownership information, but they have boxes to collect names and telephone numbers, and a big clickable box consenting to calls. These websites are called consent farms. The lead generator writes a computer program (or partners with someone else) to cycle the lists discussed above through the website. Viola! A list of Leads who "consented" to calls and these leads can be worth 10X more.

In court telemarketers will pretend to be shocked that anyone has ever faked an opt in.

In court they will produce this 'opt in' and the defendants will be shocked, absolutely shocked at the idea the opt in could be fake. They will pretend to not understand how anyone but you could have asked for the calls, but these fake opt ins all have one thing in common. Unlike say your bank or Google or anyone reputable on the internet, their fake opt in collecting websites won't text you a code or email you a code to verify the person (or computer program) opting in is the person in possession of the phone. They won't even have a CAPTCHA!

These people are just like junk yards buying pickup-truck loads of catalytic converters without batting an eye. I mean, who doesn't have legitimate pickup-truck loads of catalytic converters for sale? They had no reason to think the were stolen, right?

The lead generator will tell you they trust everyone opting in is pure of heart and they've never had a fraudulent opt in before! Everyone involved, the lead generator, the telemarketer dialing the phone, and the American business using the calls knows the calls are based on fraud but they have wink-wink nod-nod deniability. Like $100 Rolex and pickup-truck loads of catalytic converters deniability. Real Leads are very expensive because how many times in your life have you consented to telemarketers to pitch health insurance or gold coins to you over the phone?

Fake Leads sell at a large discount to real leads so anyone buying fake Leads, $100 Rolexes and pickup-truck loads of catalytic converters knows exactly what they are really getting. They buy the fake Leads because even factoring in the cost of lawsuits, it saves money over buying real Leads.

This is why State governments and the Congress enacted telemarketing laws enabling YOU to file suit. Only by increasing the cost of fake Leads over the cost of real Leads will the calls stop.

Are telemarketers harassing you in Washington, Oregon, or Montana? We can help, just give us a call at 206-800-6000 or email peter@nwdebtresolution.com.

The thoughts, opinions and musings of this blog are those of Peter Schneider, a consumer advocate and Washington State TCPA attorney at Northwest Debt Resolution, LLC. They are just that, his thoughts, opinions and musings and should be treated as such. They are not legal advice and do not create an attorney client relationship between the reader and him or his firm. If you are looking to file a lawsuit for TCPA violations and unwanted calls please contact me for a consultation.