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Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

reportphonespam.org

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Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#121

Post by callalex »

jimmydddd wrote: post #112
aimor wrote: post #81

I've been reporting spam calls and texts to the FCC for a few years now. Does it do anything? I don't know, certainly not immediately, and the problem persists. I tried the method spelled out here for my latest batch of "Your USPS package has arrived" texts, but the phone numbers (example: +63 936 631 6676) just give an "invalid number" response. Not unexpected. Every official channel seems to be failing us on this o…

I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.

Carriers could solve the spam problem overnight by disconnecting about 3 or 4 countries from the rest of the world. However popular that action may be, it would not be legal.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#122

Post by steelframe »

megablast wrote: post #108
AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. My son got sick at school last week and I ignored the call from the school nurse because I have been so thoroughly conditioned by daily scam calls to ignore any unrecognized number. It’s insane that this is still a problem.

If you have a kid and are ignoring calls, that is crazy.

You're right. How about we all try this? The next time anyone's in a meeting together talking about a production incident or quarterly planning or whatever, they're going to tell everyone else to STFU and wait while they take every random call they get on the off chance it's their kid's school trying to get through to them. Does that seem reasonable to you?

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#123

Post by hammyhavoc »

What about people who are spamming/scamming on WhatsApp? There's some spamming scammer claiming to be working as a recruiter for my biz, but we've never hired a recruiter, certainly aren't hiring, and this guy is running around without any credibility saying he works for us. Doesn't even have an email address at our domain, just some random UK cellphone number, but is apparently based in China after he forgot to translate one of his messages to someone from Chinese.

Asks people if they would like a "task" to complete for £10 as a test for recruitment.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#124

Post by naveen99 »

steelframe wrote: post #105
naveen99 wrote: post #43

Use iPhone focus feature, whitelisting contacts phone calls. Just need to manually add notifications from frequent contacts. Works pretty well.

I did something similar to this last week after getting recently inundated with phone spam/scam calls and ended up missing a very important phone call about a medical emergency with my child at school because the school's system was down and they weren't able to call me from their number that I have in my contacts list. We need to stop trying to get end users to deploy ad-hoc solutions to the problem and update our p…

Yes, I worry about this also.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#125

Post by Brajeshwar »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #64
mullingitover wrote: post #25

I wish we could euthanize this garbage, antiquated phone system. It shouldn't be expected/required that every adult has a phone number when the system is so irredeemably broken and dangerous. If the web didn't have HTTPS, it would be illegal to conduct sensitive business over it. Yet we're stuck with this entrenched telephone system, the best we can do is STIR/SHAKEN, and that's not real security.

100%. My son got sick at school last week and I ignored the call from the school nurse because I have been so thoroughly conditioned by daily scam calls to ignore any unrecognized number. It’s insane that this is still a problem.

I have defaulted to No Phone/Voice Calls for over 5+ years. By default, everyone is blocked, and I maintain a whitelist (a group named "!DND") of numbers who can go through — school numbers, including quite a lot of teachers, the bus driver, and the bus assistant can get through. This is working so far.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#126

Post by flerchin »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #75
habosa wrote: post #63

I got a spam call seemingly “from Verizon” (their main number) on my Verizon phone. I called them and told them and they said “oh yeah that happens all the time don’t pick up when we call” That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won.

> That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won. It's tough, but it's not helpful that people don't know the face of the enemy. The fight isn't with just some stereotypical "spammers". Advertisers and marketing departments are spammers, and they've destroyed phone as a medium, much like they did it to physical mail, radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, and now streaming and the Web in general. We won't make…

Nah. We're talking about spam texts and phone calls. That stuff isn't legal.

Yeah what everyone else does is creepy af, and _should be illegal_, but that's not the facts on the ground today.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#127

Post by throwaway2037 »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #123

What about people who are spamming/scamming on WhatsApp? There's some spamming scammer claiming to be working as a recruiter for my biz, but we've never hired a recruiter, certainly aren't hiring, and this guy is running around without any credibility saying he works for us. Doesn't even have an email address at our domain, just some random UK cellphone number, but is apparently based in China after he forgot to tran…

Real question: What is the end goal? Do you think if the person agrees to the test for recruitment, they will be groomed for a bigger financial scam?

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#128

Post by mcpackieh »

aimor wrote: post #81

I've been reporting spam calls and texts to the FCC for a few years now. Does it do anything? I don't know, certainly not immediately, and the problem persists. I tried the method spelled out here for my latest batch of "Your USPS package has arrived" texts, but the phone numbers (example: +63 936 631 6676) just give an "invalid number" response. Not unexpected. Every official channel seems to be failing us on this o…

> USPS package texts

Try reporting it directly to the US Postal Inspector. From: https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/smishing-package-tra...

> Have you received unsolicited mobile text messages with an unfamiliar or strange web link that indicates a USPS delivery requires a response from you? If you never signed up for a USPS tracking request for a specific package, then don’t click the link! This type of text message is a scam called smishing.

> To report USPS related smishing, send an email to spam@uspis.gov.

> Without clicking on the web link, copy the body of the suspicious text message and paste into a new email.*

> Provide your name in the email, and also attach a screenshot of the text message showing the phone number of the sender and the date sent.*

> Include any relevant details in your email, for example: if you clicked the link, if you lost money, if you provided any personal information, or if you experienced any impacts to your credit or person.

> The Postal Inspection Service will contact you if more information is needed.

> Forward the smishing/text message to 7726 (this will assist with reporting the scam phone number).

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#129

Post by Namidairo »

AlexITC wrote: post #48

This is very helpful, in Mexico, we have a couple of government-provided services where you register to not get advertise/financial calls, when you do, you can report them, and, in theory, the organizations could get considerable bills due to this violation. I have been thinking that we should make an app to automate the reporting process. A fun detail is that the government sells the lists of people that do not want…

Australia has a similar program running called the Do Not Call Register. Does not really stop anything apart from the legally running telemarketers.

Obviously does nothing to stop the phishing calls from overseas (typically compromised) voip services that overstamp local numbers.

Additionally the register has carveouts for calls such as charities, political groups, and research calls (polling).

> Also, lately, I have been getting many calls that are supposedly coming from the UK.

Anecdotally, I have been getting the ocassional spam texts from the UK, but all from numbers registered with O2. It's pretty useless to associate any origin and come to conclusions without a large amount of data. (That and the use of CLI overstamping means that it could be from anywhere)

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#130

Post by BLKNSLVR »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #117
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how it can be any other way than you mention. Is it conceivable that they don't have control of who is using their network, and how they're using it? It's not like they've just landed on the planet with this big telecoms network to manage. They created them, they set the rules, they own the gates. It's purely profit driven, no question. In the exact same way that Google and Meta claim to not be able to po…

The architecture of the telephone network was designed by a complex series of historical monopolies (across multiple countries), federal regulators, and state regulators. Because of this history, the providers have a surprisingly small degree of control over the traffic that passes through their network. This is, in a regulatory sense, what it means to be a common carrier.

My admittedly cynical view, then, is that the structure has outgrown it's usefulness.

Features are being added, which enable phone number spoofing and other shenanigans, at some point deep in the network, such that common carriers, at the tips of the network, have no control over.

Thus creating a scammers/spammers paradise.

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