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Web Vigilantes Take On Robo-callers

Online campaign targets companies

By Sarah Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted May 15, 2009 9:45 AM CDT

(Newser) – A group of techy activists tired of getting a stream of auto warranty robo-calls has turned the tables on one of the companies, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I thought, if you get a bunch of people together, you could blow up their voicemail boxes," says one frustrated caller, who found the number of the supposed offender on social media website Reddit and blitzed the company with messages containing Rick Astley's 1987 hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Other Reddit users have taken it even farther, changing California's Auto One Warranty's voicemail greeting and threatening arson. "Ninety percent of the people complaining about my company have never been contacted by my company," says Auto One's president, who says they only contact people who opted to receive such calls. Still, he empathizes with those upset about warranty calls...even though he's never gotten one himself.

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (1)]

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel speaks during a Little Rock, Ark., news conference near copies of a series of federal lawsuits against companies accused of making "spam robo-calls." (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2009, to discuss the national wave of spam "robo-calls." (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

Autodialers and automated messages may not be used to contact cell phone users under any circumstances, according to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Autodialers and automated messages may not be used to contact cell phone users under any circumstances, according to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. (Shutterstock)

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The telemarketers would be on very shaky ground making a complaint about the use of practices directed against them that they use on consumers. - Richard Blumenthal,
Connecticut attorney general

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Web Vigilantes Take On Robo-callers