Robocalls getting out of hand.

[denverpilot]

I was reading the other day that people that do this get paid by the carrier whether you answer your phone or not. Why in the he!! is this crap incentivized?

The carriers aren’t making the calls nor the employer of the callers.

The call centers are typically off-shore and all your carrier is doing is handling the call just like any other call.

What the US carriers refuse to do is allow the end user to opt out of ALL calls and provide an opt-in list for numbers that can call.

And secondarily only a couple of US carriers enforce customers needing to show evidence they own phone numbers that are placed in CID strings on trunked (traditional or SIP) business connections.

One of our carriers at the office does, the other carrier doesn’t care what we send as our CID. I can look like whoever you want me to look like when I call you.

Incentives? Hell yes. Use a predictive dialer attached to an off-shore call center staff and when it reaches someone that call center staff is paid a low hourly wage and bonuses on whatever they scam you into buying, saying, whatever.

When they ask “is this Mr. So and So?” they’re recording. If they get caught by any laws that say they can’t call you without a business relationship they’ll simply edit together an agent’s voice asking if you would like to talk to them, and your “yes” response.

They’re professional criminals and since they’re usually off-shore, it very much depends on the other country’s government as to whether or not they’ll work with ours on raids, pressing charges, or deportation for trials, etc. There’s no enough money or resources in the world to stop it.

The only way it stops is end to end confirmation that both parties are entitled to use a particular phone number or the call isn’t routed at all, and opt in instead of out allowed caller lists, neither of which is anything except overhead for the carrier. They don’t care.

They’ve provided you a network and a phone number and they’ll happily route whatever crap calls that number to you. They get paid by the caller overseas for the fiber ocean transport and delivering the call. Not much but it’s such bulk it’s millions and millions to them.

As long as their competitors don’t protect you from it, they have no fiscal incentive to do so. Customer churn is so high in telecom they don’t care if you switch carriers either.

 

[bflynn]

"This is the investigation division of the IRS..."

FCC, telemarketing complaints division. This is a recorded line, may I help you?

 

[wsuffa]

I say ban all telemarketing...it's bad now with some local elections, but the politicians exempted themselves.

• The polls were all messed up last year, people lie to them, so they are just an annoyance
• Politicians....'nuff said
• Scammers- no protection of free speech for them!
• Do not call list...a joke!

May as well just ban them. I just get the message and call back if needed.

The politicians exempted themselves. They also exempted non-profits and surveys. And those that you have done business with.

Since I switched to VOIP and nomorobo, one ring and that's it. I also use the do not disturb function on my iPhone.

Cheers

Nomorobo is less than effective on spoofed numbers that are used by legit businesses. I see calls show up on a regular basis where the spoofer is (randomly) selecting a local law firm (!!!) or a major defense contractor. Both of those are on the same exchange as I am.

I get them. Its nowhere near as bad as election season.

See note about politicians exempting themselves. This one isn't going to change.

On our home phone -- if it's not a number or person's name on the CID that we recognize or are expecting, we don't answer it.

Lately I've been getting a flood of calls on my corporate issued cell phone. Most have the same area code and prefix as my phone. Fakes. I know NO ONE with the same NPA/NXX, so it's easy to ignore those. I'd love to be able to silently send a range of numbers to voicemail, but that capability doesn't exist (at least not without an app I can't install). Lately I've been getting daily calls from some scammer with a Minneapolis number despite my very, very clear request to stop. They're trying to get me to let them sell my bike I have listed. At least they have the common decency to use the same number so I can block their calls.

All of the non-spoofed numbers and most of the spoofed calls get reported via complaints.donotcall.gov. Unfortunately, nearly all of the calls are clearly spoofed numbers. Probably futile, but even a blind pig occasionally finds whatever it is they are supposed to find.

I know it's trivially easy to fake CID on VOIP calls. What irritates me is every carrier's outright refusal to do anything toward helping to stop the flood of illegal and unwanted calls. They won't share detailed CDR with originating IP addresses, they won't implement filtering or blacklisting features. It's like we're living in the 1970s. Phone rings, you don't know who it is or where they're calling from, and there's no way to find out. I'm really missing all the filtering my Asterisk system did for me.

There is no validation of the calling number by the carrier. There are a couple of IP-based phone services that permit you to set up lists of inbound numbers that are acceptable - the others get dropped or go to VM. The majors don't do that.

Why not? Follow the money. They get paid regardless.

Until a scheme that permits end-to-end verification is implemented (like "secure browsing" on the internet), it will continue. In fact, given the number of folks that have set up bad websites or hacked websites, I will suggest that the problem never really will go away. It wouldn't happen if it weren't profitable.

 

[donjohnston]

All this "how to deal with" the telemarketer calls by answering with "FCC", "IRS", "put me on your do not call list", misses one crucial point: Most of the time, these callers are now using robocall software with voice recognition. Any non-response is irrelevant. If the voice recognition doesn't get the answer it's programmed to, they disconnect. You literally haven't accomplished anything.

And whitelists are fine for people who only talk to a small, set number of people. But if you're trying to run a business or deal with many calls from numbers you haven't talked to before, it's not a solution for me. A lot of the calls I take, I don't want them going to VM. I need to talk to them when they call.

So for now, I have to deal with the robo/voice recog systems.

 

[LoneAspen]

All this BS with scammers and fake CID numbers is why I leave my phone in Do Not Disturb mode pretty much all the time now. I have a "real" voice call with somebody maybe once a month (not kidding). The rest is texting, Telegram, Slack, or email.

Short of a family emergency (which they know to text me for), there is rarely a voice call I'm expecting. If it's important enough, they'll leave a message. If they don't, it wasn't important anyway so I didn't miss anything by not answering it.

 

[cowman]

Latest thing I’ve been getting on my iPhone are calls that pop up with an ID of “scam likely”. As it turns out it was actually a rental car company wanting me to review the rental.


How was your rental car experience?
“Great until you called me up to bug me with this stupid survey”.

 

[Zeldman]

All this "how to deal with" the telemarketer calls by answering with "FCC", "IRS", "put me on your do not call list", misses one crucial point: Most of the time, these callers are now using robocall software with voice recognition. Any non-response is irrelevant. If the voice recognition doesn't get the answer it's programmed to, they disconnect. You literally haven't accomplished anything.

And whitelists are fine for people who only talk to a small, set number of people. But if you're trying to run a business or deal with many calls from numbers you haven't talked to before, it's not a solution for me. A lot of the calls I take, I don't want them going to VM. I need to talk to them when they call.

So for now, I have to deal with the robo/voice recog systems.

I have answered with my best Joe Friday voice, "Police Department", only to have the person on the other end just start talking. I will interrupt, "ma'am, ma'am, ma'am..... this is the police department, is there someone specific you wish to speak to.??" That usually is responded with, "What was that.?" And I will repeat. Then I hear the click.

But yes, there are some calls that are not on my list that I need to answer so I just can't turn them all off.

 

[asicer]

The only way it stops is end to end confirmation that both parties are entitled to use a particular phone number or the call isn’t routed at all, and opt in instead of out allowed caller lists, neither of which is anything except overhead for the carrier. They don’t care.

Does VoLTE retain the src/dst fields at the handset? I wonder if it would be possible to geo-block.

 

[Ghery]

Nomorobo is less than effective on spoofed numbers that are used by legit businesses. I see calls show up on a regular basis where the spoofer is (randomly) selecting a local law firm (!!!) or a major defense contractor. Both of those are on the same exchange as I am.

True, but it does greatly reduce the number of spam calls that get through. Not perfect, but a great improvement for us.

 

[Mason]

Last week I had two calls from "Microsoft" and two calls from the "IRS." The "Microsoft" calls were within two minutes of each other, from two different area codes in Iowa. These were all robocalls with recorded messages to return the call to avoid serious consequences.

 

[azure]

I have Mr. Number on my iPhone, but I can count on two hands the number of calls it has intercepted. By contrast, since I installed it, I have gotten literally hundreds of spams, nearly always several a day, sometimes as many as 10. I don't think any app that relies on a database of numbers used for spamming can be effective now that most numbers are simply spoofed.

I've told before the story of a business in the Detroit area that kept calling me saying I had expressed interest in their product. At first I thought it was a scam, but I looked them up and that was indeed their number. Obviously MY number had been spoofed by a spammer.

This crap is getting totally out of hand.

 

[denverpilot]

Does VoLTE retain the src/dst fields at the handset? I wonder if it would be possible to geo-block.

Src/Dst IPs, or what do you mean? Wouldn’t help on IP for long. They’d just route through a VPN to somewhere else before hopping into the PSTN.

 

[asicer]

Src/Dst IPs, or what do you mean? Wouldn’t help on IP for long. They’d just route through a VPN to somewhere else before hopping into the PSTN.

True. Everyone should get an X509. Oh, and keep the CRL up to date

 

[denverpilot]

True. Everyone should get an X509. Oh, and keep the CRL up to date

And then OpenSSL will have another hole in it that was open for ten years. LOL.

 

[Stingray Don]

Well, relief from robocalls may be on the way. I hope it works.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/...on-stage-during-live-interview-201000378.html

 

[JOhnH]

If it's from out of my area code and I don't recognize the number, I don't answer and let it roll to voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, I block the number.

I do that too, except that even if it is from my area code, I don't answer. Spammers are pretty good at spoofing your area code. I have even gotten a few phone calls which my caller ID said it was from ME!

 

[Skip Miller]

I have solved my Robocalls problem. Takes some work, though. First, change your default ring tone.

That means anytime you get an unknown call, you will be able to tell without getting up from the dinner table (or anywhere else). The caller will get voicemail.

Second, change your outgoing voicemail message to say that “due to Spam, no calls will be answered unless you (the caller) leaves a message which includes a call-back number and a reason for the call.”

Third, assign a “white list” ring tone to friends, family, and those who leave a voicemail message who you DO want to hear from again.

Problem solved! After two weeks of putting callers on the white list, I have no further problems...

-Skip

 

[IK04]

Since Google and Apple are selling your and my location data, I can look at my recent call list and tell where I've been. After several weekends visiting my kids and starting/stopping at their address, I can eliminate any calls from the 817 area code, since they all have numbers from my area code.

Besides, who wants to talk to those bastidges in Denton County [ducks..]

 

[jsstevens]

These creative solutions with white lists, voice mail, etc. are all very nice, unless it’s a business phone on which new customers call. My cell is such a phone. Our phone system at work will turn voice mail into a .wav file and email it you you. For the last several weeks I’ve been getting nothing but “If you don’t act now Medicare will remove your eligeability” that’s where I delete the message. Same voice all sorts of numbers.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

One may wish to note that the robocall problem is generally a United States problem. In places like Europe, they just don't happen...

So, obviously, the issue is that it's impossible to limit / control robocalls.

 

[Flying_Nun]

SHAKEN and STIR to bring relief?

"SHAKEN/STIR will work by using digital cryptographic certificates to verify calls are coming from where they say they are originating. A call is passed to a telecom company who has a certificate from a trusted certificate authority. When both phone companies are able to verify the source of a call, it’s marked as verified."

https://gizmodo.com/phone-companies-are-finally-doing-something-about-our-r-1833434088

 

[Skip Miller]

These creative solutions with white lists, voice mail, etc. are all very nice, unless it’s a business phone on which new customers call.

@jsstevens Very true. My method (post #97) does nothing to help the new customer get through...

-Skip

 

[azure]

SHAKEN and STIR to bring relief?

"SHAKEN/STIR will work by using digital cryptographic certificates to verify calls are coming from where they say they are originating. A call is passed to a telecom company who has a certificate from a trusted certificate authority. When both phone companies are able to verify the source of a call, it’s marked as verified."

https://gizmodo.com/phone-companies-are-finally-doing-something-about-our-r-1833434088

I'll cheer for this when they add optional unverified call dropping. 9 times out of 10 I know a call is from a spoofed number based on the area code. I don't even want to know about it. That includes voicemail - some of these jokers leave voicemails, at my expense of course. I have gotten the "federal student loan" scam call about 7 times this month already, most recently yesterday. Enough!

 

[Hank S]

Hmmm . . . A quick check shows that 6PC started this thread two years ago, and recent posts show increased rates of robocalls and increased annoyance at them. AT&T's recent announcement of a fix was interrupted by a robocall.

Question: someone said Europe doesn't have a robocall problem. How do they prevent them, and can we implement their solution without trampling on user rights? People who have been "subjects of the crown" for millenia often have few rights and fewer ideas of what their basic rights should be, and no, I don't want to join them . . . .

 

[DaleB]

Question: someone said Europe doesn't have a robocall problem. How do they prevent them, and can we implement their solution without trampling on user rights? People who have been "subjects of the crown" for millenia often have few rights and fewer ideas of what their basic rights should be, and no, I don't want to join them . . . .

I believe you have to pay per call placed to a phone there. I’d gladly pay a nickel per connection here if EVERYONE did. No exceptions for political calls. I think you’d see robocalls cease abruptly.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

I believe you have to pay per call placed to a phone there. I’d gladly pay a nickel per connection here if EVERYONE did. No exceptions for political calls. I think you’d see robocalls cease abruptly.

I believe that you'll soon see a dip in the number of calls, as more carriers implement various CID verification measures. At the very least they let you know that the displayed number may be bogus. The gov't would love to mandate the use of STIR/SHAKEN, or some other protocol. I'd like to see it voluntarily adopted. On my business phone I must answer every call; I have no way of knowing who will be calling me from where.

 

[LoneAspen]

I hope John Oliver is still robocalling the sh*t out of the bigwigs at the FCC who should have brought the hammer down on this crap years ago.

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

I live in Europe and don’t even understand the call structure so take this with a grain of salt. I think the deal is you have to pay a connection fee to call from a landline to a cell. Cell to cell is free. I see small charges on our landline from time to time and I think it is when my wife calls a cell line. My bill is in German and I am not fluent so I have never tried to fully decipher it. I can call the US for free (well, 5 Euros a month unlimited) but i have to pay to call a cell phone. Go figure. But, I never get spam calls on my cell. Guess it works.

 

[deonb]

I live in Europe and don’t even understand the call structure so take this with a grain of salt. I think the deal is you have to pay a connection fee to call from a landline to a cell. Cell to cell is free. I see small charges on our landline from time to time and I think it is when my wife calls a cell line. My bill is in German and I am not fluent so I have never tried to fully decipher it. I can call the US for free (well, 5 Euros a month unlimited) but i have to pay to call a cell phone. Go figure. But, I never get spam calls on my cell. Guess it works.

Yeah, even as little as 10c a call would stop Robocalling dead in its track and have little consumer impact (cost-wise).

Same with email - Bill Gates floated an idea a few years ago that I really like. If each email sender has to solve a math problem to "sign" the email and said math problem is sufficiently complicated that it uses 1/5th of a cent of electricity extra to solve it, it will make 99% of spam completely unprofitable. And I will cost normal users just a few cents a month extra.

 

[DaleB]

Same with email - Bill Gates floated an idea a few years ago that I really like. If each email sender has to solve a math problem to "sign" the email and said math problem is sufficiently complicated that it uses 1/5th of a cent of electricity extra to solve it, it will make 99% of spam completely unprofitable. And I will cost normal users just a few cents a month extra.

Given that I believe the vast majority of SPAM email is sent from computers that the spammer doesn't own and has no right to use, I don't think they would care one bit about the cost of electricity (or anything else) incurred by the owner of said computer system. Most seems to be from hacked systems. I think it's the same for a lot of the robocalls, really. I know when I was operating an Asterisk PBX system here at the house, it was under constant attack by various offshore systems, trying desperately to gain access so they could use my PBX to make unlimited free (to them) robocalls.

 

[strangebird]

If you answer you just told them that your number is a good number, and then the calls will keep coming. and you just gave then a lot if info that they can connect to your number easily

This is out of hand, and getting worse. I get 20-25 a week on my cell and land line I have a professional license where the state makes you put your phone number and email on the renewal forms and then sells the info, we are the product. we are being sold.

 

[RJM62]

If you answer you just told them that your number is a good number, and then the calls will keep coming. and you just gave then a lot if info that they can connect to your number easily

This is out of hand, and getting worse. I get 20-25 a week on my cell and land line I have a professional license where the state makes you put your phone number and email on the renewal forms and then sells the info, we are the product. we are being sold.

I have a Magic Jack number that is the only number I give to entities who demand one, but from whom I never want to hear. Costs about $30.00 / year, and about $20.00 to change the number when the telemarketer calls start filling up the voice mail that I almost never check.

I also make special email addresses for people who demand one, but from whom I have no desire to receive mail; and for almost all businesses I haven't dealt with before. That way if I start getting spam at that address, I know who sold my email address.

The state may require that you provide a working phone and email address, but I doubt they can force you to actually answer the phone or read the mail.

Rich

 

[Sundancer]

Since Google and Apple are selling your and my location data, I can look at my recent call list and tell where I've been. After several weekends visiting my kids and starting/stopping at their address, I can eliminate any calls from the 817 area code, since they all have numbers from my area code.

Besides, who wants to talk to those bastidges in Denton County [ducks..]

I'm using an Android/Google phone - but I shut down location services, and cripple Google Play, etc. It's a bit of a pain, but you can disable and cripple quite a few features. I will on occasion enable location services, for Google Maps, and it whines (every minute or two) about being unable to reach Google Play Service, but the GPS directions still work. And I don't have contacts populated, either. You can, with some effort, turn it into a dumb phone, and only allow it to be smrt when you want it to be.

 

[bflynn]

They've gotten worse here too. I got 32 calls while sitting at work on Thursday, none of them from people I know. I no longer answer my phone. If you're calling me and it's important, you're either in my contact list or you know to leave me a voice mail.

I'm actually considering whether or not I need a phone. Maybe if we all stop buying the cell service, they'll figure out a way to stop the spammers?

 

[RudyP]

They've gotten worse here too. I got 32 calls while sitting at work on Thursday, none of them from people I know. I no longer answer my phone. If you're calling me and it's important, you're either in my contact list or you know to leave me a voice mail.

I'm actually considering whether or not I need a phone. Maybe if we all stop buying the cell service, they'll figure out a way to stop the spammers?

I understand that some people still need voice calling for work but since I don’t, I’d 100% turn off voice calling on my iPhone if I entirely could. I never talk on the phone and I haven’t answered an unscheduled phone call in years.

 

[weilke]

I live in Europe and don’t even understand the call structure so take this with a grain of salt. I think the deal is you have to pay a connection fee to call from a landline to a cell. Cell to cell is free. I see small charges on our landline from time to time and I think it is when my wife calls a cell line. My bill is in German and I am not fluent so I have never tried to fully decipher it. I can call the US for free (well, 5 Euros a month unlimited) but i have to pay to call a cell phone. Go figure. But, I never get spam calls on my cell. Guess it works.

In the german phone system, cellphones are in carrier specific area codes. The charge to the caller is dependent on the service plan the recipient of the call has paid for. Also, cell plans that have 0 included minutes are quite common, so a call to a cell number may cost you 5c or 50c per minute (with some carriers tolling in full minute increments). The 'free' calls to other cell phones usually apply to phones on the same carriers network. So if you call from one Vodafone number to another it's free, if you call a E2 number you are charged the recipients contracted rate.

 

[weilke]

I'm actually considering whether or not I need a phone. Maybe if we all stop buying the cell service, they'll figure out a way to stop the spammers?

The telcos make money on the spam calls. The telcos also have to forward every call switched to them and can't discriminate against other carriers. If it cost them money to forward calls with unverified CIDs or if they were allowed to cut off the bad actors, the spam call issue would be fixed in a week.

 

[Ghery]

NOROBO has ceased working for me. All spam calls get through to our VoIP phone. But, caller ID allows me to ignore most of them. I get a call almost every day from "Anonymous". I don't remember who they are, but that number NEVER gets answered. Maybe they'll get the idea, but I'm not holding my breath. I had one a couple days ago from someone trying to sell me something from a resort company. Caller ID said that the call originated in my area code. I asked the caller where he was and he said Orlando, FL. As I read him the riot act about spoofing CID numbers he hung up. I hope I never hear from them again.

 

[bflynn]

Maybe not having a phone would make sense.

I don’t see how the phone companies make money when calls aren’t answered. If they make the connection but nobody answers, who is paying them?

 

[Stingray Don]

Glad to see the FTC is shutting down some these offenders

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/busine...bocall-companies-for-good-20190327-story.html