Spam Calls

Plain-English guides on robocalls and spam calls: where they come from, spoofed caller ID, the Do Not Call rules, and what an unlawful call is actually worth.

• How to Stop Robocalls on a Business Line, and When the Law Still Protects a Business — Business lines get robocalls because the number is public by design. Carrier filters and a keypress gate cut the volume, and when the calls hit a cell phone or use a prerecorded voice, the TCPA still applies to a business.
• Ringless Voicemail Drops: Are They Calls Under the TCPA? — Ringless voicemail is a call under the TCPA. The FCC ruled in 2022 that a voicemail delivered without ringing your phone is subject to the prerecorded-message rules, so a drop to a cell needs consent. Here is how to keep one.
• Political, Charity and Survey Calls: Which Ones the Rules Exempt and Which They Do Not — Political, charity and survey calls are exempt from the Do-Not-Call Registry and from the landline prerecorded-call ban, but a robocall to a cell phone needs consent no matter what it says. Here is where each exemption ends.
• Debt Collection Robocalls: What the FDCPA and TCPA Allow and Forbid — A collector may robocall your cell phone only with your prior express consent, which you can revoke. The FDCPA separately limits how a third-party collector behaves. Here is where each statute draws its line and what to record.
• The warm transfer: the moment a spam call becomes traceable — The recording that dialed you is anonymous. The live person it hands you to is not. Why the warm transfer is the moment a spam call becomes traceable, and what to note while the closer talks.
• Spoofed caller ID is not a dead end — The number is worthless as identification. The company that paid for the campaign usually is not — and there is a moment in most calls where it identifies itself.
• Why the calls started — and why blocking numbers never works — Unwanted calls are not random. They begin with a data-broker listing, and they continue because that listing is inventory that gets resold every day.
• The seller vs. the dialer: who actually owes you — The company cashing the checks rarely places the calls. How on-behalf-of liability connects a robocall campaign to the seller who benefits from it, in plain English.
• Do FCC and FTC complaints actually do anything? — An FCC or FTC complaint will not pay you. It feeds tracebacks, enforcement priorities, and carrier filtering. What complaint data actually does, and why it pairs with your own log.
• What carrier blocking tools do — and what they can’t — Silence Unknown Callers, carrier apps, and Spam Likely labels treat your phone, not the campaign. What blocking tools actually do, where they fail, and what they can never reach.
• How many calls does it take to have a case? — One unlawful robocall can violate the TCPA. A registry claim usually needs more than one call in a year from the same seller. How the counting works, and why the log is the case.
• The robocall consent rules, in plain English — Prerecorded and AI voices calling your cell phone need your prior express consent, and marketing needs it in writing. The robocall consent rules, translated into plain English.
• Should you answer, press 1, or stay silent? — Answering, pressing 1, and staying silent each do something specific to your number’s future on lead lists. The honest economics of engaging with spam calls, without the scolding.
• Why spam calls come from your own area code — Neighbor spoofing puts a familiar area code on your screen because familiarity gets answered. How the trick works, what STIR/SHAKEN checks, and why the fake number was never the real story.