I appreciate the effort, but it’s highly unlikely to make any difference.
Rep. Ben Leman
The Texas House gave an initial stamp of approval Wednesday to a bill that aims to prohibit telemarketers or businesses from falsifying their phone numbers.
The measure, House Bill 1992, would prohibit caller ID spoofing — when a caller tampers with information transmitted to people’s caller IDs to disguise their identity.
Under the proposal by Republican state Rep. Ben Leman of Anderson, telemarketers using a third-party source to make calls to the public must ensure the number that appears on people’s caller ID matches the number of the third party, or the number of the entity that has contracted with the third party.
“House Bill 1992 aims to prevent telemarketers from using predatory and annoying tactics by prohibiting them from replicating numbers and misrepresenting the origin of the call,” Leman told other representatives Wednesday.
The measure needs one more vote from the House before it can head to the Senate.
Federal law already mandates that telemarketers must transmit a telephone number and, when possible, a name that matches the telemarketer or business on caller ID. A spokesman from Leman’s office said the bill clarifies that the Texas attorney general may prosecute telemarketing companies that display misleading information on caller ID.
This story is from last week – sorry, sometimes I like a story but wind up prioritizing other stories – and HB1992 has since passed both chambers and is enrolled. I’m fine with passing this law, but there’s a zero percent chance it will make any difference. There just won’t be anyone for the AG to sue. Basically, we are with robocalls and spoofed caller ID now where we were with email spam ten or fifteen years ago. At some point, defensive technology will catch up and allow for better identification and redirection of junk calls. Until then, screen all the calls from numbers you don’t recognize.
I’ve just resorted to pressing whatever to talk to a live scammer, then blowing a whistle. If it’s a female scammer, I verbally sexually harass them, and sometimes, I just let loose with a string of epithets, basically whatever the very ugliest think I can think of. It’s cathartic.