Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Besjunior ) The Federal Communications Commission today said that a scammer named Adrian Abramovich “apparently made 96 million spoofed robocalls during a three-month period” in order to trick people into buying vacation packages. The FCC proposed a fine of $120 million, but it will give the alleged perpetrator a chance to respond to the allegations before issuing a final decision. The robocalls appeared to come from local numbers, and they told recipients to “press 1” to hear about exclusive vacation deals from well-known hotel chains and travel businesses such as Marriott, Expedia, Hilton, and TripAdvisor, the FCC said. “Consumers who did press the button were then transferred to foreign call centers where live operators attempted to sell vacation packages often involving timeshares,” the FCC said. “The call centers were not affiliated with the well-known travel and hospitality companies mentioned in the recorded message.” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
See more here:
Scammer who made 96 million robocalls should pay $120M fine, FCC says
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg Businessweek feature: The Austrian village of Donawitz has been an iron-smelting center since the 1400s, when ore was dug from mines carved out of the snow-capped peaks nearby. Over the centuries, Donawitz developed into the Hapsburg Empire’s steel-production hub, and by the early 1900s it was home to Europe’s largest mill. With the opening of Voestalpine AG’s new rolling mill this year, the industry appears secure. What’s less certain are the jobs. The plant, a two-hour drive southwest of Vienna, will need just 14 employees to make 500, 000 tons of robust steel wire a year — vs. as many as 1, 000 in a mill with similar capacity built in the 1960s. Inside the facility, red-hot metal snakes its way along a 700-meter (2, 297-foot) production line. Yet the floors are spotless, the only noise is a gentle hum that wouldn’t overwhelm a quiet conversation, and most of the time the place is deserted except for three technicians who sit high above the line, monitoring output on a bank of flatscreens. “We have to forget steel as a core employer, ” says Wolfgang Eder, Voestalpine’s chief executive officer for the past 13 years. “In the long run we will lose most of the classic blue-collar workers, people doing the hot and dirty jobs in coking plants or around the blast furnaces. This will all be automated.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 