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Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#51

Post by bluGill »

dahart wrote: post #29

I'm fairly convinced that the only way this gets fixed is if enough people complain loudly to the phone companies & cancel accounts. Verizon / AT&T / T-mobile / etc. absolutely have the power to fix this, and they're choosing instead to largely ignore it, and productize the solutions for anyone who cares enough - let the spammers pay to create the problem, and let the consumers pay for the remedy. Telcos win on both…

How do we get their attention though? Right now they are lieing and saying there is nothing they can do about it, and have convinced congress that they cannot. (in fact it is easy, it just require that they filter the from numbers that companies are allowed to use - it would however cost them money to implement the filter for each company and they prefer profits)

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#52

Post by blhack »

timr wrote: post #14

I find that 99% of spam calls (at least for now) can be eliminated by simply not answering any numbers that match the first six digits of my own telephone number. I don't know why telemarketers decided this would be a good strategy to increase conversions, but it certainly makes things easier for me.

At my old office, we bought phone numbers in blocks, so there was a good chance that if the first six digits matched, it was somebody from the office calling.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#53

Post by ktosobcy »

I read the whole thread and... it seems that people are looking at the solutions at the wrong angle: we have lot's of unwanted marketing/spam calls so we need to find a way to block them. Then they spammers get smart and generate more and more spam - vicious circle. Wouldn't it be better to motion solving the problem at the other end - ban all non-personal calls that are made without your explicit consent? Something similar is done in Europe/Poland and I virtually don't receive any unsolicited calls. Of course this would cause all the "poor" telemarketing companies to cry outloud how they are "persecuted and not free to work normally, bla, bla, bla" and probably there would be a huge lobbying involved not to make it happen…

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#54

Post by delecti »

alex_duf wrote: post #34
dahart wrote: post #29

I'm fairly convinced that the only way this gets fixed is if enough people complain loudly to the phone companies & cancel accounts. Verizon / AT&T / T-mobile / etc. absolutely have the power to fix this, and they're choosing instead to largely ignore it, and productize the solutions for anyone who cares enough - let the spammers pay to create the problem, and let the consumers pay for the remedy. Telcos win on both…

>If it's someone who needs me, they'll leave a voicemail Then the next step is for spammers to leave voicemails

I get several voicemails a week from unrecognized numbers that are ~3-5 seconds of silence. I suspect it's the spammers' autodialers not recognizing that there's not an actual person on the line, and giving up once there's a few seconds of silence (post "leave your message at the beep" beep).

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#55

Post by prograhammer »

1. Get your phone number in another city that you don't live in. Make sure the area code is the most common for that city. Now all the calls you get on your phone from that area code are spammers so ignore them.

2. Callers you don't recognize can leave a message if they want to talk to you.

3. If you do end up in a call with a spammer, then work your way into the conversation to get a real business name out of them. While you are on the phone, you can press them to help you find their business on the web. You may even find a BBB rating on them and inform the caller that the BBB rating is pretty bad. Or you can ask them for a callback number (which they probably won't give) and you will call them back to continue the call. All of these questions should prevent them from calling you again and if you are lucky you have a business name you can further report on the web as a spamming company.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#56

Post by khedoros1 »

maxerickson wrote: post #28

I answer and ask to be put on their do not call list (or if it's a scam bot, I press the remove button). People say this just confirms you are a real person, but I'm pretty sure they haven't tried it successfully for months the way I have. I still get calls of course, but it's a couple a week and not from the same parties over and over and over.

I do the exact opposite, with the same results. I just let the call ring. There is one number that has called me about twice a month for the past 4 months, but all of the others spoof their numbers, and it's impossible to tell if it's the same entity, or another one.

I sometimes go weeks without a scam call, but I also sometimes get 3 or 4 in a week.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#57

Post by alyandon »

I gave up. There is no defense against local exchange number spoofing so I switched my phone to send all callers not on my contact list to voice mail.

Anyone of importance that I talk to is already on my contact list which will ring through and anyone else that is really trying to get a hold of me for a legitimate reason will leave a voice mail.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#58

Post by dahart »

bluGill wrote: post #51
dahart wrote: post #29

I'm fairly convinced that the only way this gets fixed is if enough people complain loudly to the phone companies & cancel accounts. Verizon / AT&T / T-mobile / etc. absolutely have the power to fix this, and they're choosing instead to largely ignore it, and productize the solutions for anyone who cares enough - let the spammers pay to create the problem, and let the consumers pay for the remedy. Telcos win on both…

How do we get their attention though? Right now they are lieing and saying there is nothing they can do about it, and have convinced congress that they cannot. (in fact it is easy, it just require that they filter the from numbers that companies are allowed to use - it would however cost them money to implement the filter for each company and they prefer profits)

In theory the things that help are a critical mass of public opinion, and/or a critical mass of loss of sales, and/or a competitive advantage.

As an individual, getting critical mass is beyond most of our energy levels, but it helps to talk about it, with your friends and family, on HN, etc.

You could call your telco and complain about as many spam calls as possible. Their support time is expensive.

You could request better spam blocking services. I'm on Verizon and they offer blacklisting for a fee. This is completely ineffective now, so a total waste of money. Cancel your account and switch to another provider, cite the phone spam and their lackluster service as the reason.

Maybe things could get better if there was a new telco, or if one of them broke ranks, and offered great spam protection. Not holding my breath, the spammy business accounts are probably worth more money.

What sucks is it takes a lot of energy to fight this no matter what.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#59

Post by Symmetry »

dahart wrote: post #29

I'm fairly convinced that the only way this gets fixed is if enough people complain loudly to the phone companies & cancel accounts. Verizon / AT&T / T-mobile / etc. absolutely have the power to fix this, and they're choosing instead to largely ignore it, and productize the solutions for anyone who cares enough - let the spammers pay to create the problem, and let the consumers pay for the remedy. Telcos win on both…

My understanding is that the regulation of phone services in the US is fairly prescriptive and it would be a violation of FTC rules for a phone company to just go ahead and cancel accounts without legal authorization. Or to proactively screen your calls and not deliver the ones the phone company thinks are spammy. Though presumably the phone company could also tell your phone "Hey, we think this is spam" and let you know before you decide to answer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you reduce unsolicited phone calls?

#60

Post by dahart »

Symmetry wrote: post #59
dahart wrote: post #29

I'm fairly convinced that the only way this gets fixed is if enough people complain loudly to the phone companies & cancel accounts. Verizon / AT&T / T-mobile / etc. absolutely have the power to fix this, and they're choosing instead to largely ignore it, and productize the solutions for anyone who cares enough - let the spammers pay to create the problem, and let the consumers pay for the remedy. Telcos win on both…

My understanding is that the regulation of phone services in the US is fairly prescriptive and it would be a violation of FTC rules for a phone company to just go ahead and cancel accounts without legal authorization. Or to proactively screen your calls and not deliver the ones the phone company thinks are spammy. Though presumably the phone company could also tell your phone "Hey, we think this is spam" and let you…

I was suggesting that consumers close their accounts, not that the phone company should close spammer accounts.

Also the telcos will not violate any rules by allowing consumers to opt into a service that blocks calls originating from companies reported as spammy by a large number of other consumers.

It is absolutely within their power to give consumers some control and choice about receiving spammy phone calls. The reason they are choosing not to give consumers this choice is because it would effectively eliminate their income from phone advertising, the public by and large does not want unsolicited phone calls.

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