# Robocall "yes" scam—how can this possibly hold up in court?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 6, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916 "2017-04-06T19:45:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916/21 "2017-04-07T23:35:12Z")

</div>

> [@Unabashed\_Fascist](#):
>
> I wish there was some recourse for victims of these scams. Law enforcement was less than useless when it came to reporting the crime.

I would expect the IRS in particular to be very interested in taking down folks trying to impersonate them.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![K2500](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@K2500](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K2500)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916/22 "2017-04-07T23:59:08Z")

</div>

Maybe it is a scam, but youre not the target. Not the primary one anyway.

Call phone when name and adress are already known. Get yes recording. Send inflated bill to address knowing it wont be paid. Then, sell the bogus debt to a collection agency. Dollar bills come floating in.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2017, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916/23 "2017-04-08T01:54:54Z")

</div>

> [@Projammer](#):
>
> There is also the scenario of [cramming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramming_(fraud)). where charges are added to your phone bill for services you didn’t order. That happened to me once but there was no phone call associated with adding it to my bill. Someone just put my number into their billing system somewhere.

Back in Ye Olden Dayes of the early 90s I was in the Alternative Operator biz.

Cramming on phone bills was quite an issue then. In the US at least it was pretty thoroughly stopped by some legislation in 1993 which gave the local telcos the right to waive any and all 3rd party charges without recourse whether legit or otherwise. So that’s going on 25 years now. Not that it never happens, but the heyday is long gone.

Cramming still goes on today on credit cards at a massive pace. Mostly in the form of easy to start but hard to cancel subscriptions for whatever. But cramming phone bills are the current bad guys’ fathers’ crime.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robocall-yes-scam-how-can-this-possibly-hold-up-in-court/783916.md?page=1)