Why Am I Getting These Phone Calls?

Last night—and I mean between 2:16 and 6:32 in the wee hours—I received a half dozen calls on my cel phone: two from Belarus; one each from Latvia, Estonia and the British Virgin Islands; and one from some unidentified location in the U.S. No messages were left on my voicemail.

A few days ago, while I was out running errands, my cel phone rang. I was waiting for a call from my wife so I instinctively answered the call. It was a female voice, obviously recorded, speaking what sounded like Russian. When I looked, my phone told me the call was from Estonia. What could possibly be the purpose of that call?

Between our two cel phones and our one land line, my wife and I are getting more than 100 calls a week. A dozen or so of those are from legitimate charities and political organizations we have supported in the past and can therefore, I suppose, be considered legitimate. The rest seem pointless, are intrusive, and have become a burden. Seriously now—why isn’t something being done about this? 

I keep hearing my conservative friends and relatives complaining about “government overreach” and “burdensome regulations.”

I submit that there is, from time to time, good reason for serious government regulation: unscrupulous, greedy people and companies will behave unethically, even illegally, even if it means that you, as a consumer, get screwed.

So here’s my plea to Congress and the FCC and other regulators. It’s pretty simple: In these instances, the “government overreach” argument is bullshit. Please do something about these damn phonecalls!