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Eliminating Robocalls

twilio.com

211–220 of 276 posts

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does DIGITS buy you? You still have to hand out your actual number right?

It's a VOIP number that shows up as a mobile number. So no, you don't have to hand out your primary number. You can create a new one there and use that for junk companies.

Oh, you mean the one that costs $10/month extra? :\ And doesn't solve the problem of already receiving spam calls...? It seems like basically just buying a new line?

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#212

The death penalty for robocalls coming from inside the US, and drone strikes and extraordinary rendition for robocalls originating outside the US are out of the question, right? But seriously, why is it so difficult to eliminate these robocalls. Each operation has to have employees, a call center (to handle the marks), payment processing, etc. It seems like a very easy target.

A lot of these robocall call centers are operating illegally in foreign countries that skirt their own laws, with export partners within the US that pop up and disappear quicker than the government can than they can be hunted. If you are interested there is a really good podcast by Reply All about tracking down one in person. Episode #102 and #103, some of their best stuff to be frank.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a VOIP number that shows up as a mobile number. So no, you don't have to hand out your primary number. You can create a new one there and use that for junk companies.

Oh, you mean the one that costs $10/month extra? :\ And doesn't solve the problem of already receiving spam calls...? It seems like basically just buying a new line?

As I said, I got mine for free. I don't know what they currently charge. It is supported by their Scam block service (which is free and can be enabled by shortcode): https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041#fourthheading

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#214
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

GV supports group chats/MMS now, however, you can't mute or leave a group chat, at least not with the iOS client. (Given my family's penchant for starting a group MMS for the most minor of occurrences, I'm not sure the group chat support is a blessing or a curse.)

I think that from a pure technical standpoint, you can't leave a MMS group any more than you can leave a reply-all email chain. "Leaving" a group usually just involves your phone dropping any texts it gets directed to that group.

(Obviously iMessage is different because it's not actually MMS)

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#215

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've had the same Google voice number since 2009, in the south Bay Area, 408 area code. I get one or two bogus calls a day, down from two or three a day at peak, perhaps four or so months ago. To my knowledge, I've had no legit incoming calls incorrectly marked as SPAM.

Do you have the anti spam feature enabled? IIRC it's off by default.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#216
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…

Counterpoint: the moment you do receive spam calls in Austria, our regulatory office is so incompetent, they'll not do anything about it. Last time their reply was "this is a VOIP number and it's already disconnected, so we cannot figure out who the caller was" ... after waiting a month before contacting the involved carriers.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#217
> By default, we bill by the minute, not the second, to deter short duration calls and impair the economics of robocalls.

That sounds like marketing BS to me. Why can’t they just create a one way fingerprint of the audio and block duplicates.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you mean the one that costs $10/month extra? :\ And doesn't solve the problem of already receiving spam calls...? It seems like basically just buying a new line?

As I said, I got mine for free. I don't know what they currently charge. It is supported by their Scam block service (which is free and can be enabled by shortcode): https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4041#fourthheading

You probably got it for free because you were a T-Mobile ONE Plus customer (likely already paying a lot) [1]... otherwise it's an extra $10/month. And either way it wouldn't even solve the problem of getting too much spam at your current number...

[1] https://www.t-mobile.com/news/digits-launch

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#219
post #45
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…

>like the 'try to go direct to voicemail' spam calls

The practice of leaving messages directly on voicemail bypassing the ability for the recipient to answer is commonly referred to as "voicedrops". I know this because a client asked for my compamy to implememt this ability, using carriers API first and successive calls as a fallback. Current regulations in the US don't explictly define this the same as a call, IIRC Canada does.

Re: Eliminating Robocalls

#220
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when we provide you 4g and 5g coverage, ensure societies have working critical infrastructure to communicate peer to peer and in addition gives you a nice fiber pipe to your house and handle all the carrier dealings of broadband interconnectivity. Oh yeah and tie this all together with advanced roaming deals and functionality which connects countries around the world. It's also us who pioneer and really implem…

> pioneer and really implement GDPR and stand in the trenches for privacy governance. And then go sell location data to all sorts of shady characters? A few examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18857220 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=phone%20location%20data&sort=b... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bounty&sort=byPopularity&prefi...

I am not advocating for US mobile operators. The world is vastly broader and greater - US cell phone carriers are just that, US carriers.

My argument was the economic utility which the infrastructure a telco provides to society. Both with pipes, technology and know-how of how to operate critical infrastructure 24/7.

I cannot wait for SpaceX' Starlink to become operational and we will see some disruption happening in (this) space.

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