My understanding is that in Europe, cell phones are charged as land lines are in the US, that is, the caller pays for the call NOT the recipient. Since you can't necessarily control who calls you, that is the way it should be here. Since that is the way calls are charged here at present, there should be absolutely no solicitation calls made to a cell phone. Marketing has run amuck in our fair land. Is there no refuge from this onslaught except to live in the wilderness, which is also diminishing? We have ceased to be citizens and have become regarded as marketing targets and demographics. What about the freedom NOT to associate?
Here we go again. These calls from Washington and Oregon are evidently from data mining groups trying to scam the public. Beware answering or calling these numbers back they may have what Verizon described to me as "premium data" which charges you phone account even if you have a "unlimited data" plan. Also remember, the phone company will not relent on any charge against your account even if fraudulent. What a racket folks! The phone company wins no matter what. Blah Blah Woof Woof...Tried call blocking but Verizon will only let you block up to 5 numbers at a time and then you must renew the "block" every 60 days. Call blocking programs are expensive, (wouldn't surprise me at all if these same jerks making the scam robocalls are connected to the companies selling the call blocking apps.) Think about it.
It hasn't run amuck in our fair land as much as it has run amuck worldwide. In an environment where phone numbers are readily transportable across national boundaries, and calling is in the sub $0.02/min range it gets really hard to police.
While "sender pays" has a limited role to play in the junk SMS messaging world, and perhaps in voice spam, it will have no impact on the senders/callers. The cost to send approximates zero for them, regardless. It does have some small benefit on the victim's end.
I am a strong believer that unlimited user generated call/sms blocking, augmented by honeypot and crowd sourced predictive filtering, is the only real answer. Even that is imperfect, as it will be met by CID info that is altered with every few calls, and a lot more spoofing of numbers belonging to innocent third parties will take place. Ultimately, we need an encryption based "trusted caller" system, and that is a very long way off.
In the phone system, like all of our technology, many things were based on a level of trust that devolved from a broad general respect for the social compact. We know live in an environment were the social compact, and trust derived from it, are in tatters.
Welcome to the brave new world of technology and globalization.