FIRE Observations

Political Campaign Exemption

It was only a couple days after the horrific assassination attempt on former President Trump, when the texts started coming. No tragedy, however dreadful, is missed by the political campaigns in their quest to raise money.

It’s not the first text like this that I’ve gotten this year. I didn’t sign up for anything from Trump or Biden. I certainly wasn’t looking for Trump’s “love”.

Still, I’ve come to understand that the laws regarding “robotexts” don’t apply to political campaigns. The politicians gave themselves a loophole. As a result, experts expect that 15 billion of these will go out this year. That’s an average of 50 per person with a phone!

There is no easy way to opt out other than to reply “STOP” to everyone you receive. I’m not even sure if that will work. 

Perhaps the best way to fight these things is to 1) complain publicly; and, 2) never make donations when receiving them. That’s what I’ll be doing, at least. I’m guessing they’ll sucker in others and they will continue full-force.

How bad are political robotexting campaigns where you live?

Image: Fotor AI

8 thoughts on “Political Campaign Exemption”

  1. A friend donated $20 to the C-hag during the 2016 election cycle in my name as a practical joke. I immediately started getting emails and phone calls galore asking for more donations. It went on and on until I finally answered the phone and told the caller that the donation was a practical joke and that I actually hate Demonrats. It finally stopped the calls and emails.

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    1. I’m surprised that even helped at all. The texts over the past couple days have been non-stop. I get them from both parties. I figure my “independent” status makes me particularly desirable to help them.

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      1. Another related problem is call centers that operate outside of the US and others who simply ignore robocall legislation. The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or TRACED Act, increased fines on spam robocallers from $1,500 to as much as $10,000 per illegal call. I could make a business out of suing the local ones that I trace back to a local business in small claims court.

        Here are two quick and easy ways to stamp out robocalls. I use T-mobile for my mobile, and they were the first to offer a wonderful robocall blocking service, at no additional charge. For T-mobile simply dial #662#.

        For my landline, which is VOIP, I added a “Sentry 2.0 Phone Call Blocker” that I bought on Amazon. Any caller that you haven’t whitelisted gets answered by the device with a message “your household does not accept telephone calls from telephone solicitors. If you still want to ring through and speak to us, please hit 9.” Here is what happens with robocallers, which are technically called predictive dialers in call centers. Predictive dialers continuously place calls to a database of phone numbers. Whenever someone answers, a call center employee is connected to the household who answers after a brief pause. The call center predictive dialer does not respond to the request to hit 9 to continue the call. You are simply dumping them into the ether. Funny how you waste their time and they will stop calling.

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      2. We also have T-Mobile – I’ll have to see if we have that feature enabled. The Sentry call blocker could be good for my Mom to use on her landline. Thanks for the ideas!

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  2. I sent an email to Congressmember Katie Porter. I told her that while I don’t like many of her policies, I really like her use of charts and putting Jamie Dimon on the hotseat and asking him to do math since the US Taxpayer has to support the tellers in his bank due to low wages versus the tens of millions he is paid. MIstake on my part as I continue to get request from her and all her minions with whom she shared my information.

    Then the calls from fundraising efforts to support training of peace officers in California and the benefits to support the injured officers. My expertise is public sector risk management and I explain the robust training provided by police departments and the full salary disability benefits tax free when they are out on an injury. They then try to argue with me and when I ask where they are calling from…..Arizona!

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      1. You are welcome. Some of the consulting I do involves Corporate Cyber Security Training. Many of the participates approach me afterwards and tell me horror stories about their elderly parents being targeted by scammers and sometimes getting scammed out of money. Locking down you Mom’s landline will bring her peace and protect her.

        Two movies recently shined a light on this problem. The Beekeepers, where Jason Statham burned a malicious call center that had scammed his elderly neighbor to the ground. Thelma is a very recently movie about an elderly woman who gets scammed and tracks down the perps to get her movie back. Thelma featured Richard Roundtree in his last movie I couldn’t stop myself from hearing “The Shaft Theme Song” playing in the back of my head.

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      2. I’ve taken responsibility for my Mom’s finances since my Dad passed away. I’d been helping them both for the last couple years. They get a LOT of suspicious offers. It’s scary.

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