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The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

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Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#101

Post by Semaphor »

philipkglass wrote: post #88
Semaphor wrote: post #68

I have a question, why are robocalls such a problem in the U.S.A.? As far as I know, they aren’t in Germany (or if they are, not on that level, I never got one).

There are a lot of people living outside the USA who can speak English. Both legitimate and fraudulent English-language call centers are easier to set up internationally than German-language call centers. The robo part of the call can obviously be automated from anywhere but there are actual humans pretending to be from "Apple Support" when a target responds. That raises another question: are other Anglosphere countr…

So it’s possible to show a local number when the call is arriving from another part of the world? That seems strange or rather insane, but would explain how the problem happens ;)

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#102

Post by nexuist »

throwaway56564 wrote: post #38

Twilio, when do they become accountable for enabling robocallers.

I highly doubt Twilio knowingly allows this to happen. Furthermore, if anyone linked their card with Twilio, it would not have been hard to track down who is doing this and freeze their assets (from a fed agency perspective) or at least block their account (from Twilio's mod team perspective).

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#103

Post by wilg »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #78
tamalpais wrote: post #27

I enabled the Silence Unknown Callers feature [0] in iOS and haven’t answered a spam call since. The downside is that it sends every call from unknown numbers to voicemail, including legitimate ones. It’s a worthwhile trade-off. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

I tried it, and within a week I missed an important call. I was waiting by the phone, and it just never arrived. I realized too late that it had been silenced. It's very frustrating that we can't just get something like a spam filter, rather than a blanket "silence everything unknown."

iOS also has a call blocking and identification interface apps can hook into. I haven't found a good spam call blocker app though.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#104

Post by pm7 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #59
Aloha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And go to what exactly? There isn't a real alternative out there.

Whatsapp comes to mind... [edit: said three people simultaneously.]

Let's give Facebook full control over worlds communication? And allow them to cut people off from communicating with anyone? I don't think it's great idea.

We really need federated communicator.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#106

Post by wilg »

tamalpais wrote: post #27

I enabled the Silence Unknown Callers feature [0] in iOS and haven’t answered a spam call since. The downside is that it sends every call from unknown numbers to voicemail, including legitimate ones. It’s a worthwhile trade-off. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099

I use this too, and it's worth the trade off for me too.

I just wish that apps or services that might call you (Uber, your cell carrier etc) could/would use the iOS call identification API to allow known calls through.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#107

Post by Spare_account »

yellow_lead wrote: post #50
kyrra wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms can't block calls. They are not legally allowed to do it.

We can and do block calls under certain circumstances, i.e from Invalid or Unallocated ANIs.

This doesn't appear to be universal then, because I've been told by Telcos in the UK and France that they will not block calls even when the presented number is impossible.

It was made clear that any call that was made to one of my numbers would be delivered irrespective of any faulty components visible to me in the SIP header.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#108

Post by JaRail »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #94
ravenstine wrote: post #42

I see people here saying that spoofed numbers is the problem. Maybe it's a big part of it, but at the end of the day, the phone companies are complicit with the criminals because there's no good reason that these robocalls can't be treated like a DoS attack. These crooks make millions , of calls every year. My first employer was apparently making robocalls, though none of us were aware of it(there was a call center w…

I don't know how Google Voice did it, but I rarely if ever got a robocall when I had Google Voice. After leaving Sprint (and losing Google Voice after years of having it) I get them all the time. T-Mobile catches a few here and there, but I get so many damn spam calls. I just have my phone on mute.

GV's block of phone numbers is probably considered low-value targets. Scammers get more value by talking to customers from big telcos. It's the whole "you don't have to outrun the bear, just your friend" kind of thing.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#109

Post by philipkglass »

Semaphor wrote: post #101
philipkglass wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people living outside the USA who can speak English. Both legitimate and fraudulent English-language call centers are easier to set up internationally than German-language call centers. The robo part of the call can obviously be automated from anywhere but there are actual humans pretending to be from "Apple Support" when a target responds. That raises another question: are other Anglosphere countr…

So it’s possible to show a local number when the call is arriving from another part of the world? That seems strange or rather insane, but would explain how the problem happens ;)

Sometimes they show up spoofed to a local area code. Sometimes they show up as from the 800 area code, which is not specific to any geographical region in the United States and is also used by legitimate call centers. My bank's customer service number is an 800 number, for example.

I don't know if easily spoofable phone numbers are unique to the US. But even if they are not, international scam-calling operations are going to predominantly target English speakers since English offers lower language-understanding barriers and a lot of high income potential victims.

Re: The FCC Has Fined Robocallers $208M, Collected $6,790

#110

Post by chapium »

notyourday wrote: post #65

The problem is enforcement. Sorry, technological solutions are not workable - there's always going to be a way to get through because there's nearly no risk of enforcement, which is where the work should concentrate. The thing is that the only reason why robocalls work is because there's a nexus before the phantom callers and real businesses buying those services and those businesses have records because they are pay…

This can be solved with keys
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