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'One Ring' Phone Scam

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Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#41

Post by Marsymars »

abtinf wrote: post #36

What baffles me about this is that getting people to dial these numbers has been a known scam for many years. The fix seems stupidly trivial: break up the North American Numbering Plan to move them out of the +1 zone. They just don’t belong there. Frankly, Canada should be moved out the +1 zone too.

> Frankly, Canada should be moved out the +1 zone too.

Why? Who does that benefit? It's pretty common for phone plans in both the US and Canada to treat the US/Canada as a single region for the purpose of long distance calls and texts.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#42

Post by [deleted] »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #5

I can’t imagine why anyone ever answers the phone. I get at least ten robocalls every weekday. I don’t ever look at my voicemail and I haven’t answered a call in ages. Edit: I know I’m not alone because CNN just released a poll with no responses from people under the age of fifty, because they couldn’t reach enough of them by phone.

[deleted]

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#43

Post by bredren »

I take phone calls now—but I expect them. Either from people in my address book, or from customers I set up a call with in advance.

Recently, I had a payment service call me on behalf one of my customers—from my area code. I nearly told them to beat it. I was sure they were spammers.

Anon Phone calls are approaching completely spam bucket status. I doubt they will recover.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#44

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yebyen wrote: post #39
TylerE wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't help here in the US. They almost always fake caller id from a local prefix.

70% of the spam calls I get could be stopped simply by blocking the exact same exchange that my number is in. Do spam callers really think I'm expecting a call from the same area code, same exchange as my own number? Do most people have friends that have phone numbers with the same first six digits in common with their own? I feel like this trick can't possibly work on anyone who has already seen it twice, and just b…

Yep. This works for me, I have a 310 area code and live in 425, so almost anything 425 and 206 is legit, anything 310 is probably not.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#45

Post by jarfil »

abtinf wrote: post #36

What baffles me about this is that getting people to dial these numbers has been a known scam for many years. The fix seems stupidly trivial: break up the North American Numbering Plan to move them out of the +1 zone. They just don’t belong there. Frankly, Canada should be moved out the +1 zone too.

Just changing the zone would do nothing for people who blindly dial back without even checking the number. What we need is a system to report the per-minute cost of an outgoing call, and being able to block any call above that limit (like, set the limit to $0.00/min and you can only call numbers included in your plan).

But of course carriers wouldn't want that, not only because it would make consumers painfully aware of how much their calls cost, but also because they are profiting from these scams.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#47

Post by fred_is_fred »

spectramax wrote: post #8

I feel like if FCC/Telephone providers don't fix this soon, traditional cell phones will become unreliable and we will need to adopt a new system or just use existing framework (facetime, whatsapp, etc.). If every cell phone has LTE and internet connection, why the fuck do we need traditional cell phone number? I never use it except for calling my pharmacy, customer support or restaurants/shops. All conversations wit…

AT&T and T-mobile (maybe others?) have free spam filtering. It's not perfect but it does help.

As for your other question - there are still lots and lots and lots of regular phones in the world that call me and that I need to call. As you mentioned in your example - every business, school, government, etc.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#49

Post by reaperducer »

I wonder if the solution is remarkably simple: Make phone calls expensive again.

Get rid of unlimited/free/super-cheap rates and make all callers pay by the minute again. Especially inbound international calls.

Let people who want free communication use FaceTime and SMS and Email and whatnot. But make phone calls expensive enough that you know if someone is paying to call you it must be important.

I got my first document scanner in 1997. Because of that I still have all of my phone bills going back to that year. I just looked up my April 1997 Cincinnati Bell bill. A five minute call from Cincinnati to Charleston, West Virginia cost $1.45 ($2.31 in 2019 money).

If we can raise the cost of customer acquisition there will be far fewer scammers.

Incidentally, my total bill for that month was $104.34 -- almost the same as what I spend for cell service today. Except that now I'm paying for unlimited texts and minutes that I never use. The only advantage my phone has today is its mobility, which feels more like a burden than a benefit.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#50

Post by reaperducer »

spectramax wrote: post #8

I feel like if FCC/Telephone providers don't fix this soon, traditional cell phones will become unreliable and we will need to adopt a new system or just use existing framework (facetime, whatsapp, etc.). If every cell phone has LTE and internet connection, why the fuck do we need traditional cell phone number? I never use it except for calling my pharmacy, customer support or restaurants/shops. All conversations wit…

If every cell phone has LTE and internet connection, why the fuck do we need traditional cell phone number?

You don't. Get a hotspot and use Skype instead. Problem solved.

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