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'One Ring' Phone Scam

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251–260 of 367 posts

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#251
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why are they calling you and not you calling them to make appointments? Um.... they have to let you know that you need an appointment. "Your lab tests came back and we'd like to make a follow-up appointment." My mortgage broker didn't mind emails.

Where I live, the doctor/dentist/optometrist never calls me first. They may call me back, but I always call them first. Recently I had some blood tests done and the doctor told me to give them a call in a week. I did, let the receptionist know I was calling about test results and she called me back after getting the details from my doctor. I’ve never got a call from any of them without expecting it because I’ve initi…

My spouse is a physician and makes these calls to patients all the time. Might be different in your area but it's been pretty common in the couple states we've lived in.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#252
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be consciously aware of who might emergency contact you anyways. Add them to your whitelist. Edit: all good points. Yeah I guess that is a risk. Also reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/J-inCB3POqs

Yeah, because when your spouse is getting rolled into emergency surgery after suddenly collapsing you'll definitely know what number is going to call you to inform you, so you'll want to whitelist that one. And when a drunk driver hits her car on a rural road in the middle of the night and her phone is trapped in the wreck, you'll want to make sure you whitelist the phone number of the passerby that stops to help. An…

All the hospitals that I know disable caller ID. Which seems pretty stupid to me, they could set it to the number of the main switchboard.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On spam filtering: the public telephone network transmits almost zero data on a call - the only header is the originating number, which can be un-traceably spoofed at the originator. There is no embedded message data (that would be the call itself). So there’s literally no valid data to filter spam on, unless the spam caller is chivalrous enough to use their legit caller ID. I would also bet that there are regulation…

There’s at least one piece of data on every call that the network operator has—-the identity of the prior network hop. In the early days of fighting email spam, that was enough. Every network operator was responsible for receiving spam complaints and responding appropriately. Network providers that couldn’t or wouldn’t prevent spammers from using their networks were blacklisted and other networks would refuse to rout…

"There’s at least one piece of data on every call that the network operator has—-the identity of the prior network hop."

I'm curious - is this available in a call passed through twilio ?

I would like to log, or pass, the prior network hop using twiml ... or a twilio function, I guess ...

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just not willing to do this. I never want to miss a call from someone talking about an emergency with a family member, the FAA calling about an unclosed flight plan, a recruiter (if job hunting), a delivery person, etc. I answer virtually all unknown numbers except the ones T-Mobile puts in as “Scam Likely.” What I do not understand is, given that the phone is a computer, why there is not an on-phone IVR which can so…

> why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro. Google has that, but I'm not sure if it's on-phone. I'd wager someone could write an app to do this. I would probably pay $50 for an on-phone version of Lenny; basically a voice-based chat-bot that keeps spammers occupied, without having to conference another number in. ( https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny... )

heard a review of this app a few days ago that reminded me of Lenny https://www.robokiller.com/ - apparently the conversations it spews out are pretty hilarious also. Annoyingly I can't figure out what the subscription rate is, but can try it for a week for free

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#255
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying groups working on behalf of the telcos and related business interests that oppose any measures to deal with this, and most other, issues that someone is making money as a result of.

Surely telco's must know that this will drive everyone out of regular calls to VoiP services which will not benefit them in the long run.

Long term thinking is not a strength of American corporations.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#256
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because when your spouse is getting rolled into emergency surgery after suddenly collapsing you'll definitely know what number is going to call you to inform you, so you'll want to whitelist that one. And when a drunk driver hits her car on a rural road in the middle of the night and her phone is trapped in the wreck, you'll want to make sure you whitelist the phone number of the passerby that stops to help. An…

There is usually a setting to allow unknown numbers through if they call again within a short amount of time. That may help with the emergency case. Unfortunately the 2FA calls for my corporate login seem to come from different numbers each time..

I have that setting enabled, though I think it may be Android-only.

Do we know if people actually try twice in rapid succession often enough during emergencies, without special training to develop that habit?

I don't know the data on this, but I'd like to.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#257
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might also be because the Netherlands is a small and relatively expensive country in Europe where international rates are quite high. So, it's not compelling enough for them to open an call center in NL, and placing it outside of NL would increase their phone costs. Also, not many people on the planet speak dutch, so the addressable market is quite small.

Germany is very big (4th largest economy in the world) and we have no problems with robocalls at all. I don't think I've ever experienced a robocall.

Living in Munich, got the first 'Hello, I am from microsoft, please grant me access to your computer'-calls three weeks ago. Blocked the number, scammer tried to call from this number 10 times again while blocked, then tried it on a new phone number. I've blocked the new one after the second call. Since then, my phone is silent again.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual voicemail is one of the best things I've ever seen. Especially with transcription turned on.

I've never heard of this before. Unfortunately after checking it out, it looks like my carrier only offers it for iphones. This does look like a handy feature though.

Google Voice will transcribe any VMs and send them as a text. The transcription is good enough to know if it's someone you need to call back or add their number to your block list.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#259
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be consciously aware of who might emergency contact you anyways. Add them to your whitelist. Edit: all good points. Yeah I guess that is a risk. Also reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/J-inCB3POqs

Yeah, because when your spouse is getting rolled into emergency surgery after suddenly collapsing you'll definitely know what number is going to call you to inform you, so you'll want to whitelist that one. And when a drunk driver hits her car on a rural road in the middle of the night and her phone is trapped in the wreck, you'll want to make sure you whitelist the phone number of the passerby that stops to help. An…

The problem is unless you have a home phone, you already can't rely on cell phones to have every call come through. Calls do not connect all the time, and end up going to VM anyway.

Re: 'One Ring' Phone Scam

#260
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>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"). So in Europe, is receiving calls on a mobile phones free? Or do you still have to pay for minutes?

In the UK it's free to receive calls. When travelling abroad you have to consider people leaving you a voicemail costing you if it rings you phone first, then they go to your voicemail.

The downside is you can't really get free services that forward to your mobile.

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