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On the Trail of the RoboCall King

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Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#31

Post by luckylion »

dewey wrote: post #24
Kiro wrote: post #15

Why are robocalls not a thing in my country? (Sweden)

Because (at least in Germany) it's illegal and comes with very high fines. > telephone calls to consumers for sales purposes are illegal if the calling company is not in possession of an explicit and effective declaration of consent by the consumer https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2017/08/germany-federal-netw...

Since a lot of the robo calls are part of scams and illegal, I don't think it's the fear of fines. I believe that market size and language barrier are a bigger issue: Plenty of people speak english, few speak german and even fewer are fluent enough in swedish to convince people to hand over their money.

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#32

Post by bronco21016 »

dmckeon wrote: post #5

For $20 US a year for an app, robocalls are down to a few a month from several a day on each of a VOIP and cell line. Nomorobo, Robokiller, and several more - do some research, read some reviews, and pick one. I only wish it was as easy to filter email spam for a 25-year-old email address. Telephone service providers may offer robocall filtering as well. One can deal with the problem now, or wait for Shaken/Stir, whi…

It sickens me that one must pay to have this problem fixed. The FCC needs to step in and either require a fix or require the providers to setup customers with these services out of their own pockets.

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#33

Post by Terretta »

dmckeon wrote: post #5

For $20 US a year for an app, robocalls are down to a few a month from several a day on each of a VOIP and cell line. Nomorobo, Robokiller, and several more - do some research, read some reviews, and pick one. I only wish it was as easy to filter email spam for a 25-year-old email address. Telephone service providers may offer robocall filtering as well. One can deal with the problem now, or wait for Shaken/Stir, whi…

Be super careful as you do that research - check the Terms of Service. Some, like Truecaller, are harvesting your call activity and network and reselling it.

It appears Hiya and Nomorobo have sensible policies.

However...

The problem is the completely randomized neighbor calls.

They are “calling from” real numbers belonging to real people.

Hiya Premium has neighbor blocking, but only prefix by prefix, and you can’t bulk add the prefixes.

It appears adding a prefix adds every individual number within that prefix to the phone’s block list, and each call block plugin can only block so many numbers, so the more prefixes you have, the more plugins have to be enabled.

“WideProtect” aims to simplify this, your mileage may vary:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wideprotect-spam-call-blocke...

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#34

Post by stef25 »

topherPedersen wrote: post #22

Developer of RoboStop here. If anybody here in the comments section happen to use an Android phone and are plagued by telemarketing calls from Indian dev shops offering to build you a website, check out my app! http://robostop.org . It's pretty simple, just hangs up on anyone not listed in your contacts. Very effective. Just make sure to turn it off when you order an Uber. P.S. it's not on the Play Store anymore beca…

This morning cops called me to tell me I had 5 min to move my car or it would get towed.

When my wife was pregnant the hospital called me to say she'd been admitted after falling in the street.

Surely hanging up on anyone not in your contacts is a bad idea?

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#35

Post by ElCapitanMarkla »

stef25 wrote: post #34
topherPedersen wrote: post #22

Developer of RoboStop here. If anybody here in the comments section happen to use an Android phone and are plagued by telemarketing calls from Indian dev shops offering to build you a website, check out my app! http://robostop.org . It's pretty simple, just hangs up on anyone not listed in your contacts. Very effective. Just make sure to turn it off when you order an Uber. P.S. it's not on the Play Store anymore beca…

This morning cops called me to tell me I had 5 min to move my car or it would get towed. When my wife was pregnant the hospital called me to say she'd been admitted after falling in the street. Surely hanging up on anyone not in your contacts is a bad idea?

I have to ignore numbers not in my contact list, I get 10+ scam calls a day.

I kind of worry about those situations but I'm just as likely to miss a call being on the phone to these arseholes anyway.

I really want the ability to block certain country codes on my phone, 99% of the scam calls are from outside of NZ.

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#36

Post by ElCapitanMarkla »

luckylion wrote: post #31
dewey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because (at least in Germany) it's illegal and comes with very high fines. > telephone calls to consumers for sales purposes are illegal if the calling company is not in possession of an explicit and effective declaration of consent by the consumer https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2017/08/germany-federal-netw...

Since a lot of the robo calls are part of scams and illegal, I don't think it's the fear of fines. I believe that market size and language barrier are a bigger issue: Plenty of people speak english, few speak german and even fewer are fluent enough in swedish to convince people to hand over their money.

I was getting what I think was Chinese calls a while ago, I'm guessing their dialler was accidentally calling the wrong country for a while.

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#37

Post by ElCapitanMarkla »

Terretta wrote: post #33
dmckeon wrote: post #5

For $20 US a year for an app, robocalls are down to a few a month from several a day on each of a VOIP and cell line. Nomorobo, Robokiller, and several more - do some research, read some reviews, and pick one. I only wish it was as easy to filter email spam for a 25-year-old email address. Telephone service providers may offer robocall filtering as well. One can deal with the problem now, or wait for Shaken/Stir, whi…

Be super careful as you do that research - check the Terms of Service. Some, like Truecaller, are harvesting your call activity and network and reselling it. It appears Hiya and Nomorobo have sensible policies. However... The problem is the completely randomized neighbor calls. They are “calling from” real numbers belonging to real people. Hiya Premium has neighbor blocking, but only prefix by prefix, and you can’t b…

WideProtect almost looks like what I want, I wish you could just do regex filtering on the incoming numbers instead of this individual number crap.

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#38

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

luckylion wrote: post #31
dewey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because (at least in Germany) it's illegal and comes with very high fines. > telephone calls to consumers for sales purposes are illegal if the calling company is not in possession of an explicit and effective declaration of consent by the consumer https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2017/08/germany-federal-netw...

Since a lot of the robo calls are part of scams and illegal, I don't think it's the fear of fines. I believe that market size and language barrier are a bigger issue: Plenty of people speak english, few speak german and even fewer are fluent enough in swedish to convince people to hand over their money.

The reason the number of robocalls exploded recently in the US is because the FCC's order defining what an autodialer is was overruled.

There is an interesting reply all episode about it: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/awhk76/135-robocall-...

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#39

Post by mlrtime »

bronco21016 wrote: post #32
dmckeon wrote: post #5

For $20 US a year for an app, robocalls are down to a few a month from several a day on each of a VOIP and cell line. Nomorobo, Robokiller, and several more - do some research, read some reviews, and pick one. I only wish it was as easy to filter email spam for a 25-year-old email address. Telephone service providers may offer robocall filtering as well. One can deal with the problem now, or wait for Shaken/Stir, whi…

It sickens me that one must pay to have this problem fixed. The FCC needs to step in and either require a fix or require the providers to setup customers with these services out of their own pockets.

I use "Should I answer?" On android, it's free for me and I block everything.

(not affiliated)

Re: On the Trail of the RoboCall King

#40

Post by toast0 »

rmason wrote: post #25

I'm getting daily calls where they leave a voicemail in Chinese. I live in a metro area where at most there are 0.05% Chinese speakers. The costs must be so low they just do not care. Course I block the numbers but they seem to have an almost endless supply. Interestingly my Pixel doesn't report the call ever as suspected spam.

Calling to (continental) US numbers is easy to find for $0.01/minute, billed to the second. If you've got volume, it's cheaper.

Blocking numbers of spam calls is like blocking numbers of spam email; most of them are spoofed so it's most likely not to help.

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