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Calling a real estate robocaller back

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Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#81

Post by FussyZeus »

kbenson wrote: post #71
FussyZeus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's like a PO Box location being liable for someone's fraud, Except if a PO Box was being used for fraud, the person using it would be prosecuted, or at the very least the Post Office would cease providing that service. > or even a software or hardware provider, like Microsoft or Dell, being liable for providing assistance in the crime. Entirely different, that's a misuse of provided products by the purchaser. I…

> Except if a PO Box was being used for fraud, the person using it would be prosecuted, or at the very least the Post Office would cease providing that service. When notified. > Entirely different, that's a misuse of provided products by the purchaser. If you buy gas and use it to commit arson, it's not BP's fault. And how is that different than misuse of a third party service? > I find it incredibly hard to believe…

> And how is that different than misuse of a third party service?

Because a purchase of, for example a server, is a one-time deal. The server is then in the hands of the scammer, and can be used for all kinds of ill intent and Dell for example has no way of knowing, and even if they knew, really don't have any recourse to address it.

A third party service, on the other hand, has an ongoing relationship with the scammer, assuredly having access to some form of payment details, some kind of ongoing communication in order to fulfill the service they're contracted to provide, and provide ongoing labor to that end which assists the scammer in, well, scamming.

> You seem to assume they aim to provide this service on purpose for illegal activity.

I'm saying they're not asking questions because the scammers checks are clearing, and I don't think that's right. That's what a lot of providers do, they provide the services, and even with ample evidence that everything isn't quite on the up and up, they just keep cashing the checks because why wouldn't they? I'm not even saying they're twirling their proverbial mustache here, I'm saying companies are inherently unethical, and only act ethically when mandated to. So let's mandate it.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#82

Post by rscho »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #52

In the UK I get robocallers phoning me about car accidents or triple glazing grants. I always say "yes", then you get a real person who picks up. Then I will do the old bait and switch. Start talking about how my car got written off after the great M25 exodus of 2018. That I lost my foot from a low flying scooter delivery driver. The story then becomes more and more ridiculous and eventually they will hang up. Since…

Even more cruel: say yes, listen to the start of the spiel, then gently lay the phone down. They'll call back not knowing if it was a line malfunction. Now rinse and repeat.

I got some so angry that they threatened to come over and break my face at home. This technique has up to now never failed me.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#83

Post by JudgeWapner »

lemcoe9 wrote: post #78
JudgeWapner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope telecoms die a slow death like cable (TV) companies. with 5G coming soon, plus this robo-call epidemic of late, maybe that will push a critical mass of people to VOIP and leave this sorry industry (with their silly litany of technical-sounding acronyms) in the dust. I'm not a facebook fan, but I wouldn't be entirely against "Facebook Phone" (as in, a drop-in replacement for dialing numbers now that works as an…

> maybe that will push a critical mass of people to VOIP and leave this sorry industry You realize that the vast majority of "robo-calls" are originated from Class 2 Interconnectwd VoIP providers, aka SIP companies like Twilio, Flowroute, SIPSTATION, SIP.US, voip.ms, and the like. VoIP is the problem, because you can put an extraordinary amount of of volume down a very narrow pipe, with almost zero verification or va…

true, VoIP allowed this mess to happen, but only because it's one-sided, VoIP vs POTS. My POTS-side doesn't allow me to configure anything. Give the receivers full software control and they could block specifc or all Class 2 providers. "Old people" could set up their system to only accept calls from POTS lines, "hackers" could route "robo-callers" to "robo-answerers" that feigned voice responses like real people, etc.

I suggested FB only because it has fairly strong identity verification and (arguably) spam control. Plus they have the infrastructure to handle the bandwidth of a massive VoIP network.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#84

Post by wolco »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #22
TuringNYC wrote: post #3

I've had people wanting to "buy" some property you have. Once they get you to agree to sell, then they ask if you can self-finance the sale (i.e., you become the bank and "sell" for nothing and they give you a monthly mortgage payment.) Sounds OK in theory, but you'd need a lot of paperwork/legal to vet the whole deal and you have no idea if the person can even pay until you spend even more on credit checks, etc. And…

>Sounds OK in theory Sounds terrible in theory!

Not with a 20% down payment.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#85

Post by toomuchtodo »

zaroth wrote: post #74
toomuchtodo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not if the income stream and high yield rate from a seller financing deal is more important to you (as the maker of the note) than a lump sum of cash. Everyone has different financial requirements, collateral they’re willing to put at risk, etc. You’re using today’s dollars (or assets) to find ways to buy more of tomorrow’s dollars (“investing”). The paperwork isn’t too difficult to put together either.

You don’t want to be the “Bank” with only one note tying up a large percentage of your capital. Just ask Donald Trump.

You do if you need the risk adjusted return and can’t get it elsewhere.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#86

Post by kbenson »

tyingq wrote: post #80
kbenson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do legitimate services. That doesn't select for illegality, it select for how pissed people are. I bet a bank line gets a lot of irate people being called about their late mortgage payments too. How many of the people that call in do you think calmly explain that this is a telemarkerer, and they are breaking the law, instead of being aggressive or saying "take me off your list" or "I'm on the do-not-call list" and…

Inbound call centers breathe detailed call flow scripts, metadata, abandon rates, recordings, statistics, etc. I'm quite sure they know which of their clients are legit or not.

That depends on the type of call center. I imagine an answering service for a business (which is what we're told this is) will likely be a much less defined. For a medical or legal office (which is a common use case, I imagine), the "script" will be to try to suss out if the call is actually an emergency based on client criteria (if the caller presents it as such), and either take a message or use the emergency contact info on the account and relay the info to the client. At least, that's what it's been when I've encountered them.

With more free form types of calls, identifying problem accounts might take a little longer. That said, even if it lasts a week or two before a problem account is identified and removed, who is to say that's not plenty of time for the scammers? It's not like there's only a few call answering services around. Just cycle to a new one every week or so.

Do I think services exist that cater to illegal and semi-legal activity and try to skirt the line? Yes. I just don't think we should assume that's the case here without evidence, given how trivial it would be to do this with perfectly legitimate services.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#87

Post by kbenson »

FussyZeus wrote: post #81
kbenson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except if a PO Box was being used for fraud, the person using it would be prosecuted, or at the very least the Post Office would cease providing that service. When notified. > Entirely different, that's a misuse of provided products by the purchaser. If you buy gas and use it to commit arson, it's not BP's fault. And how is that different than misuse of a third party service? > I find it incredibly hard to believe…

> And how is that different than misuse of a third party service? Because a purchase of, for example a server, is a one-time deal. The server is then in the hands of the scammer, and can be used for all kinds of ill intent and Dell for example has no way of knowing, and even if they knew, really don't have any recourse to address it. A third party service, on the other hand, has an ongoing relationship with the scamm…

> I'm saying they're not asking questions because the scammers checks are clearing, and I don't think that's right.

Where are you getting the information to assert that as fact? Or even as likely?

> I'm saying companies are inherently unethical, and only act ethically when mandated to. So let's mandate it.

If a company knows it's being used in a crime, then it's an accessory to the crime. We don't mandate ethics, we create laws. In this case, how is the law failing, beyond you asserting some situation is happening without providing any evidence?

Can you actually explain what we know to have been done wrong here, even ethically if not lawfully? All I've seen so far is a lot of accusations about what must be happening, when I see (and have provided) clear examples of how it might not be the case. Or should we just punish people and companies based on assumptions now?

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#88

Post by dymk »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #85
zaroth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t want to be the “Bank” with only one note tying up a large percentage of your capital. Just ask Donald Trump.

You do if you need the risk adjusted return and can’t get it elsewhere.

I suppose that’s fine if we’re agreeing it’s a last ditch effort

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#89

Post by bduerst »

blang wrote: post #77
mothsonasloth wrote: post #52

In the UK I get robocallers phoning me about car accidents or triple glazing grants. I always say "yes", then you get a real person who picks up. Then I will do the old bait and switch. Start talking about how my car got written off after the great M25 exodus of 2018. That I lost my foot from a low flying scooter delivery driver. The story then becomes more and more ridiculous and eventually they will hang up. Since…

I've heard the opposite can happen, if you respond and stay on for a while, you are marked as a real and active number and will get more calls.

This is true. Your number is marked as real/responsive and recycled, sometimes resold.

Re: Calling a real estate robocaller back

#90

Post by turc1656 »

FussyZeus wrote: post #56
tyingq wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read their "how it works" and other pages, and the sales pitch isn't bad. They should be more selective about clients though. https://www.patlive.com

Am I the only one who thinks this is bullshit? How is PATLive not also complicit in the crimes they're looking for "Will" to prosecute in? I get so tired of these B2B service providers who get caught up doing borderline illegal shit and then just shrug their shoulders and say "not our responsibility." Everybody has these clauses doing the ass covering so they can sell services to anyone who knocks and they're never h…

On a related note - I've had the opposite experience but it wasn't with telecom related services - it was cloud services. A friend of mine started a business that focuses on the highly anticipated luxury clothing and sneaker releases. He basically does a proxy business that routes traffic through his network so that people can use multiple IPs that aren't banned on those retailers websites so that they can purchase multiple units of these products which are usually restricted to one per customer.

We had a lot of trouble finding a reliable cloud services provider. Even though none of this is illegal at all, a bunch of them have clauses against it in the service agreement. So we avoided those. We figured the ones that didn't have it shouldn't have any problems because nothing was illegal and it's not like we are abusing the cloud services - we're talking about a significant amount of time with nothing on the network (that we pay them for) and then a short burst of traffic that is still low on bandwidth while all the clients are trying to hit the sites up at the same time. But one after another kept cancelling our accounts, citing a violation of the terms of service. We pressed a number of them for an explanation. Many just ignored us. A few outright lied and said they received complaints from ISPs about our IPs sending spam emails. I challenged them on that because nothing of what we did or any of our client did was sending emails. And we tightly controlled the network traffic, ports, etc. So it's simply not possible, they were lying to get rid of us because their terms didn't account for it. To this day, I still can't figure out why all these providers were so against what we were doing. Eventually my friend explained his use case to the CEO of one of the companies and they signed and agreement and were totally fine with everything so I'm really perplexed.

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