The TCPA was supposed to be this great thing that allowed us to sue telemarketers if they violated a bunch of rules. Of course, it didn’t seem to do much. I don’t know – perhaps telemarketing in 2018 would be worse without it, but telemarketing is still seems pretty bad!

Anyway, the TCPA provided an extremely vague definition of “automatically dialing” a number and a trade organization (of debt collectors!) successfully argued the clause should be overturned. https://gizmodo.com/us-court-rules-anti-robocall-law-made-nearly-everyone-a-1823839327

So, this may make the whole TCPA completely toothless, but I wasn’t holding out hope anyway. I did hear from a Jolly Roger subscriber who successfully sues telemarketers all the time. He said the TCPA was created to allow us, the consumer, to sue telemarketers and it was supposed to cause “death by a thousand cuts” to the telemarketing industry. Of course, we have learned that it’s a tough beast to kill. My subscriber described the process, and I suppose it’s easy (and profitable!) once you’ve done it a couple times.

Those of use hoping the government or telecom industry will help are disappointed again. They’re working on it, but it’s a huge industry and extremely difficult to change.

In the meantime, the Jolly Roger bots are here to help. Imagine a bunch of door-to-door salesmen wandering around your neighborhood. The Jolly Roger bots are like pretend homeowners out front working in the yard. When a door-to-door salesman comes to your house, the Jolly Roger bot intercepts them and chats them up for a while. You are inside and not bothered, and the salesman is tied up, which helps your neighbor. Heck, the neighbor at the end of the street may not even get a visit because the salesmen ran out of time. It’s like that, except with pirates. And bees. Oh, and sometimes blood.

Thanks for listening, everyone!

Roger