Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eliminating Robocalls

twilio.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 276 posts

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#51

Post by jpalomaki »

StudentStuff wrote: post #2

Getting STIR & SHAKEN implemented so we have proper trust of the caller ID is going to be a massive undertaking for the industry as a whole. T-Mobile and Verizon have implemented it in limited forms internally, but they have no interest in making their implementations interoperate, let alone work with the other RBOCs, CLECs and their resellers (Twilio in this case). STIR/SHAKEN also can break call forwarding, as a fo…

If the operators don’t act, maybe the traditional phone calls become obsolete and people switch to Facetime/WhatsApp/GoogleTechDuJour.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#52

Post by godzillabrennus »

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central.

It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website.

Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most.

I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice number.

It's past time for Apple to integrate spam call filtering into iOS and Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#53

Post by tomcam »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

I would LOVE to use my Google Voice number for just this reason. I find the sound quality to be bad no matter what mic I use. If there's a higher tier with better voice quality I can pay for that's fine. My net connection is at least 25Mbps to 65Mbps and I'm in the Seattle area. Do you have any tips on what I can do to get better quality?

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#54

Post by MuffinFlavored »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

> iOS

What about downloading Hiya?

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#55

Post by fphhotchips »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

> Android users have no excuse for not using Google Voice.

Except that it's not available outside the US. The other 95% of us can pound sand, apparently.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#56

Post by gonehome »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #52

I have had a Google Voice number since it was Grand Central. It has gone on all of my business cards. It's at the bottom of every email. I put it on my website. Google does an amazing, world class, mind blowing, job of filtering out robo calls. I get maybe one a week at most. I get more calls direct to my cell number from random call bots that hit every number with mobile carriers than I do through my Google Voice nu…

I used Google voice for years while Google let it languish in relative obscurity.

Eventually after I realized it was silently dropping group messages because they were MMS and Google never worked on supporting MMS (images were dropped too back then) I left it for iOS and iMessage. Getting dropped from group chats meant people thought you were ignoring them and you'd miss invitations.

Google had a huge lead with voice that they wasted instead on Buzz, Allo, Talk, Hangouts which all were killed or are being killed - I wouldn't go back.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#57

Post by avodonosov »

hyperjeff wrote: post #35
gonehome wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - a contact whitelist is all I want from iOS with two features: a button to temporarily allow all calls for 30min (for Uber/door dash) and the option to allow a second call to come through from an unknown number if it’s within 2min of the first. All other calls should go to voicemail by default. The way Apple allows you to interact with CallKit makes this hard to implement because a blacklist of numbers is requir…

Isn't this exact feature available via Do Not Disturb? I have DND on 24/7, and you can quickly turn it off for Lyft/etc if needed. If you make groups within your contacts you can even hone the whitelist and can fairly quickly mod it.

I have DnD constantly too and find it convenient.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#58

Post by __jal »

mjevans wrote: post #45
mc32 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is a legitimate urgent call from an unwhitelisted number. Hospital, school, fire, police, relatives, etc.

That's what the retry feature is. If it's truly urgent they'll call again within a short timeframe (+3 to +300 seconds; not milliseconds like the 'try to go direct to voicemail' spam calls). I tell this to everyone I care for as well, if I don't pick up by the third ring, hang up and dial again. (This is to skip it going to voicemail and also differentiate the behavior). I don't expect scammers to pick up this tactic…

> I don't expect scammers to pick up this tactic because it would double their OpEx

Except my missed call log is full of back-to-back calls from random phone numbers in my prefix. Either half the folks in Metro NYC (where I haven't lived in over a decade) are calling me to report the other half got hit by a car, or this adaption has already been made.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#59

Post by runarberg »

phaer wrote: post #49

I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums, especially from the U.S. But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena. Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while it seems hardl…

Agreed. I experienced a bit of a culture shock moving from Northern Europe to USA. Robocalls are a real pain here in the USA and I don’t know why. I’ve learned that I should never answer a call from a number I don’t know (not that easy), but it doesn’t have to be this way.

I also get a number of text messages trying to phish me into buying drugs or sex. It’s totally nuts.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#60

Post by tyingq »

phaer wrote: post #49

I read a lot about the plague that robocalls are on international forums, especially from the U.S. But I live in central Europe, Austria, and received only two SPAM calls in my whole life, both by what seemed to be actual human agents on the other side and hear from similar amounts from friends I've asked about the phenomena. Can someone explain why it seems such hard to resolve problem elsewhere while it seems hardl…

Maybe just the market fragmentation. For example, a lot of the robocalls in the US are trying to sell extended warranties for vehicles, student loan debt services, health/life insurance, scammy tech support, etc.

If you target the US, your sales pitch can be in one language, with roughly one set of commission paying providers, and super cheap VoIP calls. I assume that would be harder in Europe due to language, state provided services for health+education, more strict laws on loans and warranties, differing costs for local VoIP numbers, etc. You would likely have to tailor for each country.

Post reply on HN