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Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

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Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#111

Post by froindt »

randomerr wrote: post #43
blang wrote: post #33

I was wondering aloud at work the other day if robocalls could actually spell the end of the phone number. It is extremely rare that I actually make a telephone call to talk to someone, it's been replaced with facetime and google hangouts, and it's very rare that someone calls me on my phone number that isn't a scam call. Pretty much the only time I get calls that I need to pick up are when my kid's day care is calli…

I think phones are stilled needed. They're still the most reliable form of communication. But I see most people switching to white lists. Anyone not in your address book will get sent to voicemail right away.

> But I see most people switching to white lists. Anyone not in your address book will get sent to voicemail right away.

Imagine the future of mobile adware...where they get access to your contact list, generate generic names of similar ethnicity to your real contacts, and add fake contacts. Or they add additional numbers to contacts you already have.

"Oh, my friend Stan is calling. DANGIT NO I DON'T WANT A MEDICARE SUPPLEMENT PLAN!"

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#112

Post by lordnacho »

I am wondering why I do not know of an app that can take over a call and keep the person occupied with an AI. It wouldn't have to be particularly smart, just a plausible synthetic voice (randomized) that holds up the call for a bit.

The robocallers are already using NLP to call me, so why doesn't someone use it to waste their time?

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#113

Post by epalmer »

komali2 wrote: post #56
epalmer wrote: post #14

I am 64 and am approaching the date I can enroll in Medicare. I am getting 30+ robocalls a day at home and a handful at work and on my mobile phone trying to sell me medicare supplemental plans. We just let the home phone roll to VM now. I don't answer the work phone and only my mobile phone if I know the caller. Grrrr.

Given your age and the fact that you're posting here I'm gonna safely assume you know more things than me, but just in case you haven't given it a shot - I took a custom google voice number and almost never get unsolicited robo calls on it. The only ones I get are from a couple debt collectors that are tossing around an old hospital bill they can't decide if I need to pay or not, i.e. they got my number relatively le…

Thanks. I will have to look into that.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#114

Post by ransom1538 »

rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

Not me. I always put my fiends phone number into the “win a car” boxes at street fairs. I never get calls.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#116

Post by howard941 »

no_protocol wrote: post #6
inetknght wrote: post #4

I've frequently wondered why, in this day and age, telcos are permitted to provide telephone service without any guarantee whatsoever of the originating phone number being accurate.

I suppose they have even less incentive than internet service providers have to implement BCP 38 spoofing protection. If it made business sense to do this, it would happen. Until then, it probably won't. Perhaps serving millions of robocalls are more profitable than the number of consumers who will totally cancel their telephone service as a result of them.

Pity there isn't a viable class action plaintiff's bar taking on the provider telcos to make the business case. Until then I'm doing what everyone else seems to be diong, blackholing calls pretending to be from my own exchange, and now trying a device on the landline to filter the ringing (a Lynx).

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#117

Post by sah2ed »

gonehome wrote: post #57
jto1218 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using a free alternative to Nomorobo called Hiya that's been working really well, for what it's worth.

I think Hiya uploads your contact list to the cloud - I'd rather pay the $2/month rather than rely on an unknown business strategy.

Agreed, but how do you know for certain they don't surreptitiously upload your contacts after you have granted permission?

Sounds like you are on iOS?

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#118

Post by apotheothesomai »

jonknee wrote: post #99
paulie_a wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting half the calls I bother to answer, are just instantly disconnected. Why bother calling if you are not even going to attempt to scam me. It is funny to get a live person and mess with them though..."oh which credit card are you referring to" I kept one agent on the line for a few minutes and was eventually called some very insulting swear words. If I recall correctly I was called a "bitchass mother f…

> Why bother calling if you are not even going to attempt to scam me. I think it might be something silly like confirming the number has a person on the other end. For selling to other spammers. Not sure why they can't do both at once though, so maybe I'm off.

Pretty sure that is the reason. It's the phone equivalent of verifying an email. They ping, you pong, it goes on a list of verified numbers.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#119

Post by us0r »

I really wish Google would step up and put some of its power to use and stop Stephanie (My Google listing expert) from calling me (and probably thousands of others) 3 times a day. I have given them plenty of info and even offered to buy their bullshit so they can follow the money. Google couldn't be any less interested.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#120

Post by ada1981 »

komali2 wrote: post #56
epalmer wrote: post #14

I am 64 and am approaching the date I can enroll in Medicare. I am getting 30+ robocalls a day at home and a handful at work and on my mobile phone trying to sell me medicare supplemental plans. We just let the home phone roll to VM now. I don't answer the work phone and only my mobile phone if I know the caller. Grrrr.

Given your age and the fact that you're posting here I'm gonna safely assume you know more things than me, but just in case you haven't given it a shot - I took a custom google voice number and almost never get unsolicited robo calls on it. The only ones I get are from a couple debt collectors that are tossing around an old hospital bill they can't decide if I need to pay or not, i.e. they got my number relatively le…

You can request the debt collectors stop calling you and then they have to decide if they will sue you or not. If they keep calling they can be fined and you get the $$.
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