FTC files suit against "Rachel from Cardholder Services"

http://www.networkworld.com/community/print/81719

by wpietri • 14 years ago

75 61 14 years ago

wpietri6• 14 years ago

One of the things that fascinates me about this is that "Rachel from Cardholder Services" is a name used by a bunch of different scammers.

I originally thought: How hard is it for them to close that one company down? But they actually shut down a major caller in 2010, one that made 2.6 billion calls:

http://business.time.com/2012/04/06/2-7-billion-robo-calls-l...

Hackers, if you think you can solve this problem, the government will give you $50k:

http://robocall.challenge.gov/

rhizome4• 14 years ago

There was some discussion about the $50K challenge last week, and I still don't think anything can happen without industry buy-in. It's mostly a policy and people problem, and the only technical barrier I've been able to identify is that Caller ID can still be forged.

The whole situation bears an interesting contrast to the battles over anonymity on the Internet, where the telephone industry is trying to preserve the ability of their customers (telemarketers) to avoid detection.

wpietri6• 14 years ago

I watched the webcast of the Robocall summit, and it was fascinating.

It was clear that most of the telephone industry really hates phone spammers. An AT&T guy was saying that evil robocall outfits often forge the numbers of their existing customers, causing AT&T no end of headaches. Plus they get a ton of complaints from call receivers. I am sure that the major carriers would shut down phone spammers in a heartbeat if it were easy.

Looks like the FTC now has the videos from the summit up on the web:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/robocalls/

Anybody seriously interested in the problem should check out the videos. There's a lot of good stuff in there about the technical issues. And there are some interesting technical solutions as well.

dhugiaskmak• 14 years ago

    Caller ID can still be forged

Can anyone explain, or point to a resource that explains, why this is still the case in 2012? Is there some technical reason why this is the case, or do the phone companies make enough money off of scammers and robocallers that there's no incentive for them to fix it?

mh-2• 14 years ago

50 whole k? to disrupt an entire industry of telemarketing scum, and save the telecoms millions in calls?

yeah, I don't see any serious solutions making their way through there..

wpietri6• 14 years ago

$50k is what you get for writing up the idea. Not bad payback for a little thinking and writing. And if you come up with a solution that is potentially profitable, you've now got seed capital and publicity for your new business.

marssaxman• 14 years ago

What baffles me is that legitimate banks actually do hire incredibly shady-sounding third party outfits with names like "Cardmember Services" or "Card Services" to handle credit card customer support. I once inadvertently dodged a genuine fraud-investigation call from my bank for weeks because it sounded like such an obvious scam. I don't understand why they don't draw the connection: scammers like this only work because the banks prepare the ground and make the call seem plausible.

_delirium• 14 years ago

This practice screws up attempts to instill good online security habits in people, too. For example, Citibank's normal domains are citi.com and citibank.com, but then it sends email links to the super-fake-sounding accountonline.com, which is apparently where its actual ebanking services run (you get redirected there even if you login at citi.com).

Even worse is when banks send out "cloaked" links, where the anchor text in the email shows their actual domain name, but the HREF target is n23uiahsf8das9fda.somethingelse.com.

smsm422• 14 years ago

The n23uiahsf8das9fda.somethingelse.com is probably a third-party marketing tracking service. Since Citi would never allow marketing company run their tracking service on citi.com and since users won't be eager to click on n23uiahsf8das9fda.somethingelse.com link, they don't have much choice. On the question of how then legit marketing emails differ from phishing - I have no idea. I just never click on any of those links. If I need to do something on my bank's site, I just log in there directly and do it.

bediger40002• 14 years ago

Bank of America's Cardmember Services sounds very remarkably like "Rachel" or "Ann" in their approach on the phone. They won't (they say they can't) give out even the last 4 digits of the credit card number you're in trouble about.

I too have dodged cards that I'm 49% certain were legitimate.

antidoh• 14 years ago

I got a survey from a company that Wells Fargo had hired, to see if my recent visit was satisfactory.

It smelled legit, but my policy is to never respond to any email from my bank, I only communicate via my online account where I'm logged in, or by a call that I make.

After that email I logged in (separately), and sent them a message saying the above. They responded quickly and automatically that yes, the 3rd party email was legit.

Really, banks should just pretend that email was never invented.

maxerickson• 14 years ago

I got an email from Chase welcoming me to a new account. It was legit, but I hadn't opened an account. When I called in, the rep assured me it must be spam.

Their abuse department emailed back to me verifying that they had sent it, but that no account was using my address anymore (it had the right DKIM, so I was a bit paranoid; looking back, I'm not sure what trouble it would case me).

haroldp2• 14 years ago

Caller ID doesn't. That is the problem. Fix that problem and this goes away.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

I'd rather still have the ability to call anonymously if I choose.. no reason to toss an entire tool out on it's ass because it's misused.

R_Edward• 14 years ago

There's calling anonymously, and there's intentional misrepresentation. I wouldn't mind retaining the ability to set your outgoing caller-id to Anonymous, or Name Withheld, or something like that. But I don't think Joe's Sweatshop should be able to set its id to Legitimate-Sounding Business, Inc.

haroldp2• 14 years ago

You know what? Absolutely. I'm 100% with you. You should be able to turn off caller id. And I will black hole all anonymous calls, and we'll both be happy.

emeraldd• 14 years ago

I really hated getting these calls. They're insidious! It's even more disturbing to note that there is something called "Cardholder Services" on your credit card bill as a number to call.

blhack• 14 years ago

That's why they pick that name.

cafard• 14 years ago

Now and then I used to amuse myself by letting them connect and then asking a) what company they represented, and b) in what state it was incorporated. This was usually--maybe always--good for an immediate disconnection.

lgleason• 14 years ago

So here's the thing. Someone can easily set up a robocall campaign with Twillio, Tropo or any number of other services. I would like to see anti-robocall measures strictly enforced. With that being said I wonder what percentage of these providers business is coming from these robo-calls and/or what they are doing to prevent them.

kencausey• 14 years ago

Somewhat more info can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2012/11/robocalls.shtm

bediger40002• 14 years ago

I got many, many calls (4 or 5 a week) from "Ann from Cardholder Services" during the spring and summer of 2012. I started hitting '1' and then dragging out the conversation with the customer service rep. After that stopped being fun, I would just tell the service rep to quit before they get arrested.

In the fall of 2012, I still hit '1' to be connected, but I never get to talk to a human. I'm not even on hold. The call doesn't terminate, but nothing happens to it, as if they route me to a grounding strap on a cold water pipe.

Vivtek3• 14 years ago

Ha, a couple of years ago I got one of those calls every day - finally I told them it was illegal, I was on the don't-call list at both the state and federal levels, and they should stop immediately.

The manager I talked to actually told me to get fucked, they'd keep calling if they wanted - and they did, too, sometimes three times a day. This went on for weeks; I'd dial 1 to connect to a person and lay the phone down, and finally they stopped (probably that particular guy got fired or something - I guarantee they have massive turnover).

This goes beyond just milking strangers for lots of money. This kind of racket attracts sociopaths who literally enjoy breaking the rules and knowing there's nothing you can do about it. I often have a hard time believing in the existence of actual scum, but then I just recall this episode. There are people in the world who do not buy into the narrative of working together for the common good.

It is music to my ears that the FTC has nailed some of them down enough to make them hurt. It has made me very happy.

cpeterso• 14 years ago

I had a summer job in a telemarketing sweatshop and I learned that you should be polite to telemarketers.

At the time, at least, the company I worked for had two "call back later" lists. If the telemarketer didn't reach a human (because the phone was unanswered or went to voicemail), the phone number would go on a "call back next week" list. If the telemarketer reached a human who said "no thanks", the phone number went on a "call back in six months" list. However, if the telemarketer reached a rude human, their phone number would go on the "call back next week" list, just to spite the person. :\

Also, you should ask to be added to their "do not call" list. If you ask to be removed from their list, they may oblige, but they are likely to remove you from "that" list and conveniently not bother removing you from the master list.

Vivtek3• 14 years ago

Sure, you should be polite to the Mafia, too - that's an awful nice shop you have here. But in this case, I was polite.

I don't need to be added to their do not call list. Indiana and the United States have do not call lists that it is illegal to violate, and I was on both. They were breaking the law with utter impunity.

But the point I really wanted to make was they were breaking the law stupidly. It was obvious they'd never make a dime off me - so making me suffer at their own expense was stupid. I detest stupidity, which, arguably, makes me a very unhappy man most of the time.

ruby_on_rails• 14 years ago

After having a "sales" (read: 95% telemarketing, 5% Misc tasks) job this past summer I can agree with much of what your saying. I gave it a couple months, then I quit (for various reasons, not really worth listing).

The thing is, as much I as absolutely hate saying this completely over-used phrase: the economy is shit. I am personally familiar with 100% commission based telemarketing, which amounts to complete shit, for those of you keeping score at home. Though, supposedly some telemarketers get paid hourly. Either way, its a crappy job but one that people are going to line up to fill so long as its the only job in town.

That's my take.

wpietri6• 14 years ago

> I had a summer job in a telemarketing sweatshop and I learned that you should be polite to telemarketers.

Well, polite and merciless. Anybody doing telemarketing today is a criminal, so they get zero mercy from me. My favorite approach is to let them stew for a bit and then ask, "Hey, does your family know you lie to people for money?" It almost never fails to get people upset. The truth: it stings.

Them putting me on the "call back again" list isn't a problem for me; it's an opportunity to make another parasite's day more difficult.

For the record, pretty much everybody who mentioned the topic at the FTC robocall summit believed that there is no such thing as an internal "do not call" list anymore.

ohashi• 14 years ago

So few people that I would actively wish ill on, but the people running this operation are on that very short list.

rhizome4• 14 years ago

The problems you describe are the ones that have been solved over and over again where a frontier has been exploited by scammers: regulation and central control of the infrastructure. Something tells me that telemarketers weren't so much of a problem before AT&T was broken up in the early 80s.

Vivtek3• 14 years ago

That may also have had something to do with long distance charges that, in today's dollars, were roughly five thousand dollars a minute (to hear my parents talk about calling my friends in the next town, anyway).

ALee• 14 years ago

Isn't this what Google is trying to attempt with Google Voice and using SPAM filtration on those calls? It would seem that a company could greatly benefit by somehow acting as an intermediary and allowing users to rate a call as spam.

The issue is that like SPAM in the e-mail days, the technology isn't the problem, but rather the adoption of a filtration method. Adoption will happen when this problem becomes a big enough issue for consumers to switch to another provider (which is already difficult already).

dbecker2• 14 years ago

I used to work for the FTC, and I was surprised how many calls I received at work from scammers. It always renewed my motivated.

In an effort to continue this tradition, I would suggest you ask scammers to call back on your other line. Then give them an FTC number. Any number 202-326-xxxx should work.

nathan_long• 14 years ago

Two of the company names: "Web Design" and "LLC"? Those were nice land grabs.

sharth• 14 years ago

The 5 companies being sued are:

1. Treasure Your Success

2. Ambrosia Web Design

3. A+ Financial Center, LLC

4. The Green Savers

5. Key One Solutions, LLC.

dkersten• 14 years ago

Why have I never received something like this, nor know anyone who has, in Europe? Whats different over here that this doesn't (that I know of) happen?

mh-2• 14 years ago

I think it might have to do with the ROI on these unsolicited outbound calls. They're almost free, at this scale, in the US.

politician2• 14 years ago

I don't understand why the FTC wants to pursue technological solutions to this problem. Instead, why not let the jail times of the officers of the companies associated with these scams scale with the number of complaints received?

If they're taking payments, there's even a handy money trail.

If they're operating outside of US jurisdiction, freeze their bank accounts just like we do to Iran.

Bottom line: it should not be possible for these companies to collect payments, and their officers should receive mandatory jail time.

wpietri6• 14 years ago

Catching and prosecuting a criminal is an awful lot of work, so there will always be a lag between crime and punishment. Most criminals aren't making good cost/benefit tradeoff decisions, so as long as they can get a quick taste of money doing something dubious, some of them will scale up.

I'm also in favor of mandatory jail time for serious offenders, but mere punishment hasn't stamped out most other kinds of crime, and probably won't stamp out this one, either.

politician2• 14 years ago

These calls are being generated by relatively few robocallers who are collecting money and have service provided by phone companies which track and meter every minute.

This is a significantly different environment from online email spammers who can hide behind bot nets, open relays, and don't take payments directly.

Instead, robocallers appear to operate in a near perfect knowledge environment for prosecutors (with the will to act).

Lagged2Death• 14 years ago

Just last month [the FTC] announced the Robocall Challenge offering $50,000 to anyone who can create what the agency calls "an innovative way to block that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones."

So the US government is using the phone system to track and to eavesdrop on everyone it cares to[1], but it can't figure out a way to use that power to, you know, actually enforce the laws concerning that same phone system.

But somehow, they're going to catch terrorists that way. Sure.

[1] http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/09...

finnw• 14 years ago

So the NSA has the technology, but will not give the FTC access to it. Isn't that a good thing?

aresant• 14 years ago

Nice to see that the FTC recognizes what an incredible nuisance telemarketers are, but hard to cheer for them as politicians are not only allowed to use robodialers, they are exempt from abiding by the Do Not Call list.

Why? Because they are not "included in the definition of telemarketing".

Source - http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt107.shtm

Oh, ok. Doesn't seem like any sort of a conflict of interest at play here.

jrochkind1• 14 years ago

Amount of times I've gotten a robocall from a politician so far: 0

Amount of times I've gotten a robocall from Rachel at Cardholder Services -- approximately twice a week for the past four months.

Why would I be annoyed at politician robocalls I don't get?

dbecker2• 14 years ago

The exemption for politicians is beyond the FTC's control. That exemption was written into law by the house and senate.

jdc0589• 14 years ago

A few months ago I got sick of them calling, pressed 1 to talk to someone. And informed them that this was the third time they had called after being asked to stop, I had records, and I would be filing an FCC complaint. The woman got very apologetic and gave me a number I could call to get "permanently taken off their list". I called said number. It was a gay sex hotline. True story.

FTC files suit against "Rachel from Cardholder Services"

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