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'One Ring' Phone Scam

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Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#121

Post by taejo »

martin_a wrote: post #112
TeMPOraL wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To call other people? Calls I make are split ~50/50 between personal, to people who know me and have my number, and business, when I either want to buy something or resolve some issue. Calls I receive are split 40/60 between personal and spam. And I'm in Europe. In the US, from what I hear, that would be closer to 10/90. There's a huge asymmetry in phone use. Marketers and scammers make the phone network near-unusabl…

Where in Europe are you? I'm in Germany and I'd say I get one call a month from somebody who wants to do a survey or something like that. And I also might get one spam SMS per month which I report to the "Bundesnetzagentur", which will then take care of that as this is prohibited in Germany.

BTW, if I receive spam SMSes on my German number that are sent from the UK, can I report those to the Bundesnetzagentur, or do I need to find the relevant UK authority?

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#122

Post by nebulous1 »

I've never understood why we allow telephone operators provide unwanted premium rate call services to their clients without any opt out. These scams will just keep coming until it's no longer a matter of simply calling a number to spend a large per minute premium rate.

I'm guessing the average hacker news user is unlikely to get scammed by this one, but it's a common one and it works.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#123

Post by hadlock »

thefounder wrote: post #95
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.

What's your phone for if not to answer when people call you?

Honestly the only times I use the phone portion of my cell phone is to validate my WhatsApp account, 2FA for various websites that don't support FIDO, and talking to recruiters, and texting people who I don't have a better method of contacting them (fb, WhatsApp, email etc)

I could probably dump my phone number except for WhatsApp. That's basically replaced my phone for all friends and family. I haven't turned on my ringer in months.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#124

Post by gambiting »

aptwebapps wrote: post #115
inflatableDodo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question reminds me of Kraftwerk's method of using a phone. I'd love a mobile phone that did this; >When the German electronic band Kraftwerk were in the studio, they refused to be disturbed. Working for hours on end, patiently perfecting their sonic arrangements, required zero interruptions. So much so that they even took the ringer out of the only telephone in the studio. So what happened when someone wanted t…

This would only work in Germany.

Why? Are people in other countries unable to follow precise instructions, especially when money is involved?

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#125

Post by harryf »

endorphone wrote: post #120
harryf wrote: post #119

This problem (and telemarketing in general) is incredibly easy to solve, especially if you are Google or Apple. In fact it's almost a disgrace that they don't. Back in the day, did this with the apps for local.ch in Switzerland ( some fluffy details here: https://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls ) which something like 40-50% of the Swiss population have installed on their phones. As a Yellow pages phonebook app we p…

This would be entirely predicated on callerid being trustworthy. But it isn’t. At all. Some scammers who have call lists based upon surreptitiously stolen contact lists now call people ‘from’ their own contacts.

True but I’d assume (at least right now) faked calledid makes up Plus the type of robocalling described in the article where they ring once and hang up wouldn’t work if you fake the callerid - you’d just get them to call back someone from their contacts

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#126

Post by dingaling »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #114
thefounder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your phone for if not to answer when people call you?

This question reminds me of Kraftwerk's method of using a phone. I'd love a mobile phone that did this; >When the German electronic band Kraftwerk were in the studio, they refused to be disturbed. Working for hours on end, patiently perfecting their sonic arrangements, required zero interruptions. So much so that they even took the ringer out of the only telephone in the studio. So what happened when someone wanted t…

Intriguing, but in order to lift the phone at the precise time they'd need to have some form of alarm or notification. At which point, their concentration would be interrupted.

So really I don't see the point.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#127

Post by gambiting »

mattkrause wrote: post #67
droithomme wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t imagine why anyone ever answers the phone. I get at least ten robocalls every weekday. I answer the phone all the time and it's always someone I know. I do not have a caller id display. Here's how I managed that. Only 4 people know my real phone number and are under orders not to add it to any digital address book. My phone number is registered to an alias. I pay for my phone using cash. My area code is in…

How do you get--and keep--a job? Have friends? Make medical appointments? Order pizza?

For the last one - meteoric rise of services like JustEat meant that I haven't had to ring anyone to order food for at least 8 years now. If your restaurant is not on justeat/Uber eats/you have your own website that allows ordering, then I'm not interested in ordering from you. Also, if you order through a phone how do you pay? In cash??

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#128

Post by aptwebapps »

gambiting wrote: post #124
aptwebapps wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would only work in Germany.

Why? Are people in other countries unable to follow precise instructions, especially when money is involved?

I was referring to the required punctuality and I wasn't being entirely serious.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#129

Post by Negitivefrags »

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.

I don't understand why the phone companies don't do more prevent this kind of thing in the USA.

In New Zealand, I have had periods where spam phone calls have been pretty bad for me. 2 or 3 a day for a week or so, and that was annoying.

But they always seem to stop.

The last spam call I got was long enough ago that it doesn't show up in my iphones call history. Certainly several months ago.

Can't the phone companies look at calls the same way email providers do and use all the information they have at their disposal to filter out the spam?

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#130

Post by kalleboo »

reaperducer wrote: post #49

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 docu…

I believe this is one reason why spam calls are less of a problem in Europe - in Europe the caller pays the higher rate to call mobile phones (vs the north America system where the cell phone user pays for incoming "airtime"). Just looking at skypeout rates and an example, UK landlines cost 2 cents/min vs 10 cents for mobiles
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